Teams digging into history of the earliest people

San Antonio Express-News ^ | Saturday, July 25, 2015 | John MacCormack

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In a grassy meadow where eons ago some of America's first settlers camped and chipped stone tools, a precisely dug dirt pit, four yards square, is sinking steadily into the dark soil.

And as it descends at a rate of an inch or two a day, the remote excavation northwest of Austin is also traveling backward through the millennia toward the continent's first native people...

If all goes well, perhaps quite soon, primitive stone tools, similar to those discovered here a few years ago, will again be unearthed, reinforcing an emerging, if once controversial theory, about when the first humans arrived in the Americas.

Most scientists believe humans came to this continent across a land bridge from Asia at least 14,000 years ago. The earliest known civilization, known as the Clovis people, left distinctive stone tools that are dated to about 13,000 years ago...

In yielding a few dozen very crude stone tools, as well as thousands of chert flakes, evidence of ancient tool making, the site advanced the theory that humans had been here at least 15,000 years ago. Water's conclusions directly challenged the Clovis First model, named for distinctive grooved blades and projectile points first found near Clovis, New Mexico in the 1920s and later in numerous sites elsewhere.

Until recently, few questioned that the Clovis Culture was the oldest in North America, and those claiming otherwise were treated by some as heretics...

Slowly but steadily, the finds from Buttermilk Creek and other digs in Brazil, Chile, and around North America, have persuaded many scientists that the first humans likely arrived from Asia at least 15,000 years ago.

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[Tom Reel] In this photo taken on June 23, Josh Keene displays a tool estimated to be about 1,000 years old, as archaeological researchers continue a dig at a site near Salado on Buttermilk Creek where they have previously unearthed artifacts which they say are 15,000 years old.

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TxDOT stumbles upon centuries old Caddo village in Texas
http://www.chron.com/news/transportation/article/TxDOT-stumbles-upon-prehistoric-Caddo-village-6388938.php

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Also see the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania which has found artifacts dating back 19,000 years.

Looks like those old folks got around pretty good. ☺

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There’s a real resistance to the idea that prehistoric (or for some “thinkers”, pre-1492) movements by water never ever took place. I think their moms tipped over in canoes when they were pregnant. Save us from the landlubbers.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/meadowcroft/index

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Paisley Caves keyword, newest to oldest, from the FRchives:

• 'Tantalizing' discovery of ancient tool in Oregon prompts 'extreme skepticism'
• 14,300-year-old Dried Human Feces found in Paisley Caves
• When Did Humans Come to the Americas?
• Native Americans arrived to find natives already there, fossil poo shows
• Oregon cave discovery suggests lost ancient American culture (Pre-Clovis)
• Fossilized human feces hints at long-lost, 13,500-year-old West Coast culture
• Prehistoric Oregon latrine trove of fossil DNA
• Oregon Discovery Challenges Beliefs About First Humans
• Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High Desert
• Fossil Feces Push Back Earliest Date of Humans in Americas
• Fossilized feces found in Oregon suggest earliest human presence in North America
• Archaeologist Talks About Oregon's Early Natives