European Cavemen Discovered North America

[Caveman]

European Cavemen Discovered North America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ4yYkSAOrg

[Just the Facts]

First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.
See also: Fossils & Ruins (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/)

Early Climate (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/early_climate/)
Archaeology (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/archaeology/)
Origin of Life (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/origin_of_life/)
Fossils (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/fossils/)
Anthropology (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/anthropology/)
Early Humans (http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/fossils_ruins/early_humans/) Reference (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/)

Earthquake liquefaction (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/e/earthquake_liquefaction.htm)
Evolution of the horse (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/e/evolution_of_the_horse.htm)
Supervolcano (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/supervolcano.htm)
Limestone (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/l/limestone.htm)
Dr. Ron Janke began studying the origins of the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small, moon-shaped dunes that stretch from the southern tips of Lake and Porter counties in Northwest Indiana into northeastern Illinois – about 12 years ago. Over the past few years, approximately a dozen Valparaiso undergraduates have worked with Dr. Janke to create the first detailed maps of the Kankakee Sand Islands, study their composition and survey wildlife and plants inhabiting the islands.
Based upon the long-held belief that most of the upper Midwest was covered by a vast ice sheet up until about 10,000 years ago, Dr. Janke said he and other scientists surmised the Kankakee Sand Islands were created by sand in meltwater from the receding glacier.
That belief was challenged, however, when he and his students discovered a year and a half ago that the islands were composed of sand that had come from Lake Michigan – something that should have been impossible with the Valparaiso Moraine standing between the lake and the Kankakee Sand Islands.
“That created a lot of problems with what we had previously believed about ice covering this entire area,” Dr. Janke said. “How could it get over the Valparaiso Moraine and be deposited there?”
Figuring out that puzzle required taking core samples from some of the remaining islands and the development of a new test by one of Dr. Janke’s colleagues to determine when sunlight last shone on the sand.
The answer that came back – the Kankakee Sand Islands were born between 14,500 and 15,000 years ago from Lake Michigan sand – was startling.
“We thought the area was completely covered by ice at that time,” Dr. Janke said. “That was a really earth-shattering result for us.”
Yet it also supports research showing that North American Clovis points – a particular type of arrowhead that represents the oldest manmade object on the continent –identically match arrowheads found in Europe and made by humans at approximately the same time. And just within the last year, new research has provided strong evidence that a large meteorite struck the ice sheet covering North American and melted much of the ice shortly before the formation of the Kankakee Sand Islands.
“Our research at Valparaiso supports this other recent research because it indicates there wasn’t a massive ice sheet covering North America that would have allowed tribes to cross over from Asia via a Bering Strait land-ice bridge,” Dr. Janke said.
Dr. Janke’s research on the formation of the Kankakee Sand Islands is continuing this summer, with a focus on determining whether the islands closest to Lake Michigan are younger than the southernmost islands.
At one time, approximately 1,200 of the islands stretched out in a series of curved bands north and and south of the Kankakee River that are separated by a few miles and mirror the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Though many were destroyed by human settlement, about 700 still exist today.
Dr. Janke and his students also have been active in the Woodland Savanna Land Conservancy, an organization working to protect the Kankakee Sand Islands.
Scott Osthus, a recent graduate who worked with Dr. Janke to map the Kankakee Sand Islands and support their preservation, enjoyed being involved in the research effort.
“During my four years at Valparaiso, I saw how interesting and significant the Kankakee Sand Islands landscape is,” Osthus said. “I want to see this area preserved because it is so historically significant.”
Landowners have donated a handful of islands to the trust for preservation, and Dr. Janke is hopeful that others will follow their lead and perhaps eventually build enough support for some of the islands to be incorporated into Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore or their own state park.
“The Kankakee Sand Islands are archaeologically significant, with numerous Native American artifacts and burial grounds still present in the surviving islands, and they provide crucial habitat for native wildlife and plant species,” Dr. Janke said. “I’m hopefully the sand islands can be protected so we can continue to learn about and appreciate them.”



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080701193203.htm

[Moderate Mammal]

Where's my reparations from La Raza, the Catholic League and the ADL?

[Just the Facts]

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/36nmnh.gif http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/nmnh_light_small.jpg Research Training Program (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/index.html)
Highlights from 2008
Schedule of EventsLectures
Updated: 4 June 2008
Anthropology

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/anthro_day4.jpgLocation: Academic Resources Center - ARC
NHB, Main Building, Ground Floor, Room 60A
Speaker: Dennis Stanford
Dr. Dennis Stanford is Curator of Archaeology. He has devoted his career to early American prehistory, and done field work from Alaska to Monte Verde in Chile, where the oldest human remains in the Americas were found. With his Smithsonian colleague Bruce Bradley, he is working on the possibility that Clovis points, first found in North America around 11,000 years ago, derive from similar flaking techniques developed thousands of years earlier in Spain. The idea may have been brought here by an early visitor who travelled by boat. Such a traveler might have traveled along the edge of an icecap which rimmed the North Atlantic during the Ice Age.
Topic: Who were the First People in the Americas: Constructing the Solutrean Solution
Clovis are thought to be the first people into the New World, (North America) via Siberia. But when you look at the archeology of Siberia, which we have now had ample opportunity to do in the last few years, there really is not much in Siberia that is a direct Clovis predecessor. Consequently, Dr. Stanford's evidence points toward Clovis as a New World invention and developed from a population of people that were already in North America. But if Clovis develop in Southeast North America, who did Clovis develop from? When did that happen? And where did those people come from? Was it Siberia or was it someplace else?
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/anthro_day3.jpgFrom looking at the artifactual evidence we now have from North America and from Northeast Asia as well as the physical remains, it's very clear that we are looking at multiple migrations through a very long time period - of many different peoples of many different ethnic origins that came in at different times. Some of these people probably survived, some of them may have gone back home and some of them probably did not survive. By studying recently discovered skeletal remains particularly the DNA and the morphological differences and similarities, we'll be able to figure out how many groups there were and from where they came.
At the 1999 Clovis and Beyond Conference held in Santa Fe, we presented a hypothesis, now known as the "Solutrean Solution", to explain the origin of Clovis technology. The hypothesis is based on the fact that there is little commonality between Clovis and Northeast Asian technologies on the one hand, while on the other, there are many technological traits shared between Clovis and the Solutrean culture of Paleolithic Europe. In the past, scholars have rejected the idea of a historical connection between the two cultures because they were separated temporally by 5,000 years and geographically by 4,000 miles of North Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, it is clear that modern Native Americans are Asian in origin. Hence, the similarities were considered the result of independent invention.
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/anthro_day1.jpgWe point out that the idea of independent invention is an unsupported opinion and not a tested hypothesis. In contrast, we outline a testable model with supporting evidence such as the occupation levels found at the Meadowcroft (Pennsylvania) and Cactus Hill (Virginia) sites with pre-Clovis dates that fill the time gap. The pre-Clovis levels also contained biface and blade/core technologies that we would expect in an artifact assemblage transitional between Solutrean and Clovis. We argue that during the 20,000 years that lapsed between the beginning of maritime technology in Southeast Asia and the advent of Solutrean in Southwest Europe, major developments in sea going technologies and skills likely spread around the coastal waters of the inhabited world. We also point out that during Solutrean times lower sea levels greatly reduced the distance between the Celtic and the North American Continental Shelves and a connecting ice bridge eliminated the necessity of a 4,000-mile blue voyage between Lisbon and New York City. The southern margin of this ice bridge was a relative rich environment inhabited by migrating sea mammals, birds, and fish attracting Solutrean people. We reason that generations of Solutrean hunters learned to cope with ice and weather conditions to follow rich resources such as Harp seals and Great Auks that migrated north and westward along with retreating ice in late spring. Through such activities they ended up (by accident and/or design) along the exposed continental shelf of North America discovering a new land.
This lecture will feature research covering the past six years of intensive research in which we assessed the available interdisciplinary evidence to see if the Solutrean Solution Model is supported or should be rejected. Our conclusion is that there is strong and compelling supporting data and the model merits serious consideration. Our evidence supports the view that Clovis developed out of an indented base biface tradition that existed along the Mid-Atlantic continental shelf.
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/images/img_arrowlgt.gif Learn more:
Northern Clans, Northern Traces (http://www.s2nmedia.com/arctic/html/dennis_stanford.html)
Stone Age Columbus (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/columbustrans.shtml)
Clovis and Solutrean: Is there (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/columbustrans.shtml)a common Thread? (http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.php?a=47)
Clovis: A primer (http://www.pbs.org/saf/1408/segments/1408-2.htm)
Did the First Americans come from Europe? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11451616/)
Index (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/08index.html)
Photo Gallery (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/gallery08.html)
Schedule of Events (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/schedule08.html)
Virtual Posters (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/virtualposters.html)

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2008/schedule08_anthropology_lecture_stanford.html

[andie531]

So I'm guessing there were no fossilized tortillas found at these sites?

[JB_Parrothead]

So I'm guessing there were no fossilized tortillas found at these sites?

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :biggrin: