The finding on an island off California supports the notion that the first humans in America came by boat
Monday, July 5, 1999
By Richard L. Hill of The Oregonian staff
Three human bones found 40 years ago off the Southern California coast may rewrite the history of the Americas.
Recent radiocarbon dates indicate they are about 13,000 years old. If confirmed, that would make them the oldest remains ever found in North America.
The bones -- two thigh bones and a kneecap -- were found in 1959, buried 30 feet deep in the side wall of Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. Phil C. Orr, who was curator of anthropology and paleontology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, discovered them.
The finding adds support to the theory that at least some of the first humans who came to the New World may have arrived by boat rather than by a land route.
John R. Johnson, current curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum, where the bones are stored, said Orr was interested in the pygmy mammoths that had become extinct on the Channel Islands at the end of the last ice age.
"Phil was trying to prove that their extinction was no accident -- that humans were out there hunting the mammoth and roasting them in pits," Johnson said.
Orr, who died in 1991, was surveying mammoth bones on the island when he saw a human thigh bone poking out from the side of the canyon. A closer examination revealed the other two bones.
Johnson said Orr, who called his discovery "Arlington Springs Man," obtained a radiocarbon date of 10,000 years from charcoal in the same soil layer that contained the bones. But because of questions about the date's accuracy, he removed the block of earth that contained the bones, wrapped it in plaster and placed it in a museum storage room.
"Phil realized what a stupendous find it was," Johnson said, "so he did the smart thing by archiving that block of earth with the remains for that future time when dating techniques would improve."
Johnson and Don P. Morris, an archaeologist with Channel Islands National Park, recently sent a minute bone fragment to Thomas W. Stafford, a research geochemist who runs the Stafford Research Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., who came up with the 13,000-year-old date.
The researchers also determined that Arlington Springs Man actually is Arlington Springs Woman. They estimated from the length of one thigh bone that the woman was about 5 feet 1 inch tall.
Johnson said field work at the discovery site might provide more information. "Once there is a series of radiocarbon dates obtained in the strata above Arlington Springs Woman, it'll give us more confidence in the dates we have," he said.
Discoveries of such ancient remains are rare. The oldest previous skeletal remains found in North America were those of "Buhla." They were found in 1989 in a gravel quarry near Buhl in south-central Idaho. Only about half of her was recovered, as her pelvis and other lower-limb bones apparently were lost in a rock crusher. Radiocarbon dating put the remains at 10,675 years old.
The oldest remains found in Washington or Oregon are those of Kennewick Man, a virtually complete skeleton found in July 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wash. A radiocarbon date determined the remains to be about 9,300 years old; further testing is planned.
(If the 13,000 year old date holds up, this would be the oldest human skeleton found anywhere in the Americas, North and South. Luzia is dated at 11,500 years old.)
I am really enjoying reading the comments from this 2001 FR post. I came to the GGG ping list 5 years later, and see I have missed a lot. I also get the impression that the quality of comments has deteriorated over time. An occasional joke line is fine, but comment after comment with no content, and the link becomes boring. What a shame.