Spear Points Found in Texas Dial Back Arrival of Humans in America

[Judi Lynn]

Spear Points Found in Texas Dial Back Arrival of Humans in America
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: March 24, 2011

For many years, scientists have thought that the first Americans came here from Asia 13,000 years ago, during the last ice age, probably by way of the Bering Strait. They were known as the Clovis people, after the town in New Mexico where their finely wrought spear points were first discovered in 1929.

But in more recent years, archaeologists have found more and more traces of even earlier people with a less refined technology inhabiting North America and spreading as far south as Chile.

And now clinching evidence in the mystery of the early peopling of America — Clovis or pre-Clovis? — for nearly all scientists appears to have turned up at a creek valley in the hill country of what is today Central Texas, 40 miles northwest of Austin.

The new findings establish that the last major human migration, into the Americas, began earlier than once thought. And the discovery could change thinking about how people got here (by coastal migrations along shores and in boats) and how they adapted to the new environment in part by making improvements in toolmaking that led eventually to the technology associated with the Clovis culture.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/science/25archeo.html?_r=1&ref=archaeologyandanthropology

[msongs]

1. and here I was thinking humans were native lol nt

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[MyrnaLoy]

3. I heard

they were Mormons.

[dipsydoodle]

4. though it wasn't told to me

I only heard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtqpyMvI3D4

[ellenrr]

5. Speaking as a member of Rick Perry's campaign,

I am appalled that we actually have "Texas archaeologists". This goes to show that our attack on education has not been complete and we need to try harder.

[David Sky]

7. Texas needs to stop this obsession with SCIENCE... and get back to..

the literal TRUTH of the Holy Bible, which tells us exactly when God placed man on Earth, and God must have put all those other artifacts in Texas just to confuse the liberal atheist scientists who are trying to take over the world from His holy orders.

[gtar100]

6. How amazing it must have been to explore the earth back then.

No running into industrialized areas, waterways not smelling like garbage or chemicals, no fences or walls. Just open land and a few animals that might eat you or your children. Given how the Americas remained so close to a pristine state, I'm lead to believe the beauty and awesomeness was not lost on them. Must have been incredible living in a time when it felt that life on earth could go on forever even if our individual lives didn't.

[semillama]

8. Read accounts from the early 1500s-1600s by European explorers

It's striking what they described. Rivers with fish runs so thick you could walk across on the backs of the fish. Massive oyster beds. Huge forests. We have only a fraction left now.

[freethought]

9. This isn't exactly new news

Does anyone remember Kennewick Man? A nearly complete human skeleton found in the coastal Washington state. Radio carbon dating put Kennewick at about 9000 years old. This didn't exactly kill the theory of "Clovis First" but it did place doubt that it was the only theory. What was even more interesting about Kennewick Man was that his skull features are quite similar to those of the Ainu of northern Japan. Some tend to think the Ainu were once a more widespread culture thousands of years ago.

This sort of discovery has fascinated me. Instead of a single wave that came over on the Bering Strait land bridge, it's now believed that arrival of people to North American came in waves, one wave following the coastlines down to South America, one over the Bering land bridge and onto the Great Plains, and possibly another from Europe that followed the edge of ice sheets.

But dialing back the clock on this another 2000 years is a truly remarkable find. You never know what may be just around that corner.

[Enthusiast]

10. Nice post.

Fascinating to speculate on these migrations.

Back when I was still capable of doing so I was an avid deer hunter. Spending hours waiting in a tree stand gives one time to ponder these questions. It seems to me, that for basic subsistence, sea mammals would be the easiest and safest prey for early human hunters. A coastal migration only makes sense.

[freethought]

11. The information I saw on a crossing from Europe

was somewhat less definitive. I think those that support the possibility that early Europeans crossed the edge of the ice sheets are hoping for something more concrete.

As the article says, the Clovis First theory is dying a slow death. The artifacts that were found in Texas are probably just the last few nails in the coffin of Clovis First.