stoner
Jul 3 2007, 05:23 PM
QUOTE
Who were the first people in North America? From where did they come? How did they arrive? The prehistory of the Americas has been widely studied. Over 70 years a consensus became so established that dissenters felt uneasy challenging it. Yet in 2001, genetics, anthropology and a few shards of flint combined to overturn the accepted facts and to push back one of the greatest technological changes that the Americas have ever seen by over five millennia.
The accepted version of the first Americans starts with a flint spearhead unearthed at Clovis, New Mexico, in 1933. Dated by the mammoth skeleton it lay beside to 11,500 years ago (11.5kya), it was distinctive because it had two faces, where flakes had been knapped away from a core flint. The find sparked a wave of similar reports, all dating from around the same period. There seemed to be nothing human before Clovis. Whoever those incomers were around 9,500BC, they appeared to have had a clean start. And the Clovis point was their icon - across 48 states...
Stone Age Columbus
Demonicmonk
Jul 3 2007, 10:12 PM
QUOTE(stoner @ Jul 3 2007, 03:17 PM)
This was a pretty good one, the 20,000 years back is not a big surprise to natives tho
thanks !!
mnotr2
Jul 6 2007, 12:17 AM
This was very interesting to me being that I am of mixed ancestry... Irish, Scotch, French,and Chippewa Cree. The Cree were a North Eastern tribe. From my earliest schooling I was taught that the Asian migration over the Aleutian land bridge were the fore runners of Native Americans... hence the Asian features, the eyes, black hair, and darker skin. Yet as I looked into my heritage as a Cree and that of other North Eastern tribes, I repeatedly ran across historical commentaries recording things such as the North eastern tribes were of fairer skin, brown and even auburn hair and even cultural anomalies that often mirrored very early European society.. It was also recorded that early European fur trappers often married Cree and other North Eastern tribal woman as they were of the similar appearance as that of woman in Southern France!! My Mother.. typical of her generation.. and due her looks.. would avoid the racism of her time by passing as white, even thou she was 1/2 Cree and 1/2 French... which she easily did. Perhaps her rejection of her culture is the reason why I was so interested. I remember often being scolded or even punished if I showed interest or participation in anything to do with my native ancestry.
Another point of interest is the discovery of skeletal remains in the Columbia river basin of the North West in July 1996 of what appears strongly to be a caucasian dating back 9,300 years called Kennewick Man. (Please google as this is great additional info to go with this doc) These remains have yet to be fully explored scientifically as to who has rights to them has been bitterly fought in court since their discovery by the people who discovered them, the Native Americans due a Federal repatriation law of remains and cultural items, the scientific community, and the US government. Hopefully with more research, access to Kennewick man, and future discoveries, a more complete picture of Man's history will be revealed.. and as the one woman at the end said.. we will all come to realize we are all of the same family.
Quick edit to add that in googling more info about KM, there was a Seattle PI report that due a final court ruling, Scientists at the Burke Museum here in Seattle were allowed to examine the KM remains as of July 6th 2005. I can find no results of this examination thou. But hey.. it's a start!!
morpheusprime
Oct 2 2009, 11:22 AM
thanks for the re-up Truthiness. good stuff.
