Posted on 08/03/2007 11:29:34 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake
June 28, 2007
Comet theory collides with Clovis research, may explain disappearance of ancient people
A theory put forth by a group of 25 geo-scientists suggests that a massive comet exploded over Canada, possibly wiping out both beast and man around 12,900 years ago, and pushing the earth into another ice age.
University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear said the theory may not be such "out-of-this-world" thinking based on his study of ancient stone-tool artifacts he and his team have excavated from the Topper dig site in Allendale, as well as ones found in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
The tools, or fluted spear points, made by flaking and chipping flint, were used for hunting and made by the Clovis people, who lived 13,100 to 12,900 years ago, and from the Redstone people who emerged afterwards. The two points are distinctly different in appearance, with Redstone points more impressively long and steeple-shaped.
"I saw a tremendous drop-off of Redstone points after Clovis," said Goodyear. "When you see such a widespread decline or pattern like that, you really have to wonder whether there is a population decline to go with it."
For every Redstone point, Goodyear says, there are four or five Clovis points. His findings are leading archaeologists from across North America to reexamine their fluted points, and their inventories are yielding similar results: a widespread decline of post-Clovis points that suggests a possible widespread decline of humans.
"What is interesting is that Redstone people came after Clovis people and may have lasted as many centuries as Clovis did, probably even longer, but there are fewer of these Redstone points than Clovis ones," Goodyear said. "That is really odd, because if the Redstone culture simply came right after the Clovis culture you'd expect at least as many Redstone points as Clovis ones. We just don't see that, and the question is why, and what happened to the people who made these tools?"
Archaeologists have long known that the great beasts of the age – the wooly mammoth and mastodon – suddenly disappeared around the same time period (12,900 - 12, 800 years ), but little was known about their demise. It was thought to be the result of over-hunting by Clovis man or climate change associated with a new ice age.
The notion that a comet collided with Earth and caused these events was farfetched until recently, when the group of scientists began looking for evidence of a comet impact, which they call the Younger - Dryas Event. They turned to Goodyear and the pristine Clovis site of Topper.
In 2005, Arizona geophysicist Dr. Allen West and his team traveled to Topper in hopes of finding concentrations of iridium, an extra-terrestrial element found in comets, in the layer of Clovis-era sediment.
"They found iridium and plenty of it," said Goodyear. "The high concentrations were much higher than you would normally see in the background of the earth's crust. That tends to be an indicator of a terrestrial impact from outer space."
The researchers also found high iridium concentrations at six other Clovis sites throughout North America, as well as in and along the rims of the Carolina Bays, the elliptically shaped depressions that are home to an array of flora and fauna along South Carolina's coast.
The Younger- Dryas Event suggests that a large comet exploded above Canada, creating a storm of fiery fragments that rained over North America. The fragments could have easily killed the giant mammals of the day, as well as Clovis man.
"No one has ever had a really good explanation for the disappearance of mammoth and mastodon," Goodyear said. "The archaeological community is waking up to the Younger-Dryas Event. It doesn't prove that these Clovis people were affected by this comet, but it is consistent with the idea that something catastrophic happened to the Clovis people at the same time period."
The comet theory dominated the recent annual meetings of the American Geophysical Union held in Mexico. Goodyear's Clovis-Redstone point study and West's research on the comet were featured at the AGU meetings and by the journal, Nature. The comet will be the subject of documentaries featured on the National Geographic Channel and NOVA television late this fall and in early 2008.
The Topper story
Dr. Al Goodyear, who conducts research through the University of South Carolina's S.C. Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology, began excavating Clovis artifacts along the Savannah River in Allendale County in 1984. In 1998, with the hope of finding evidence of a pre-Clovis culture earlier than the accepted 13,100 years, Goodyear began a concerted digging effort on a site called Topper, located on the property of the Clariant Co.
His efforts paid off. Goodyear unearthed blades made of flint and chert that he believed to be the tools of an ice age culture back some 16,000 years or more. His findings, as well as similar ones yielded at other pre-Clovis sites in North America, sparked great change and debate in the scientific community.
Believing that if Clovis and Redstone people thrived near the banks of the Savannah River, Goodyear thought the area could haven been an ideal location for a more ancient culture. Acting on a hunch in 2004, Goodyear dug even deeper down into the Pleistocene Terrace and found more artifacts of a pre-Clovis type buried in a layer of sediment stained with charcoal deposits. Radio carbon dates of the burnt plant remains yielded dates of 50,000 years, which suggested man was in South Carolina long before the last ice age. Goodyear's finding not only captured international media attention, but it has put the archaeology field in flux, opening scientific minds to the possibility of an even earlier pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas.
Since 2004, Goodyear has continued his Clovis and pre-Clovis excavations at Topper. With support of Clariant Corp. and SCANA, plus numerous individual donors, a massive shelter and viewing deck now sit above the dig site to allow Goodyear and his team of graduate students and community volunteers to dig free from the heat and rain and to protect what may be the most significant early-man dig in America.
Timeframe puts such an event during the near-extent of the last ice age. I grew up 35 miles east of the Mississippi River. For any one else that has driven up and down the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys, the further north and west you go, the broader the valleys gets. What caused the bluffs to rise 500 feet from the valley floors nine miles apart. Sound like a lot of melt water during a very short period to cause that kind of upheaval. In the Upper River Valleys, the bluffs are a ridge parallel to the rivers, not eroded or cut out from erosion like further south.
only 2 documentaries eh? Soon to come on Discovery channel...”Comet week, see the Earth destroyed in Hi Def!”
Here we go. More talk about the comet.
ping!....
All species are subject to cycles of sustained growth and sudden calamity.
The classical symptoms of a species in crisis include:
1. Increased aggression
2. Sexual dysfunction
3. And disease.
Here is an earlier article about the impact event mentioned in this article. Did it exterminate the Clovis folks? Don't know yet...interesting ideas though.
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did A Comet Blow Up Over Eastern Canada? (More) (Carolina Bays)
I've often wondered if the Barringer Impact 50,000 years ago wiped out these even earlier folks mentioned in the link below.
The oldest human skeleleton ever found in the Americas was found on the Channel Islands.
'Arlington Springs Woman', 13,000 Years Old Human Skeleton, California Island
And also about the same time. We don't know what happened to these folks:
"The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas."
"Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
Any scientist worth his salt can come up with six or seven theoretical explanations for anything.
—R. Feynman
Maybe some of these folks?
In life one makes bad decisions from time to time. I was within 20 miles of Clovis New Mexico and consciously made a decision not to go.
The road beckoned and apparently had a stronger pull.
Maybe next time
Si-te-cah? They were most likely Vikings who sailed thru the Bering straits during a warming period (GLOBAL WARMING TO BLAME!)..........Much too young to be connected to the others......
.....into the Laurentide Ice Sheet north of the Great Lakes.......
That would be the Hudson Bay Basin in my view. If you observe the map closely, the object came in low from the northeast, making a trough before it dug in.
Nah. Most likely related to Spirit Cave Man who lived in Nevada 9,400 years ago.
Spirit Cave Man
A nuke won’t do it. A thousand nukes have been detonated with no noticeable effect on the climate.
You've hit upon something that piques my curiosity whenever I think about; that is, around here river bottoms and creek bottoms are much wider than present flows. Erosion? Possible, but I suspect at some point in the past there may have also been enormous water flows from some source. Just a curiosity...
JMO, but Barringer Crater seems a little smallish to have created much havoc. Locally, it would have been quite a show though.
I STILL believe paleo types' best bet for finding artifacts or other evidence of really old "new" world civilizations will be on the continental shelves. Or even around the edges of dried up lakes, like Bonneville, or even near ancient river and creek beds. Like Topper for example.
Yeah...the next Ice Age will provide an archaeological bonanza when the water recedes again.
I wouldn't wait too much longer bert. You ain't exactly a spring chicken ya know, ahem.
On a similar note, whan I was a youngster, I had two uncles in the concrete business. The loads of gravel that came in invariably had arrowheads in 'em; some in perfect condition. Nobody thought much about 'em at the time since finding arrowheads was not all that uncommon around here. The gravel likely came from a source nearby, probably one of the river bends. Entirely possible they were of recent vintage, anyway...
Holy Cow! That thing almost hit the highway!
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