posted
there was a documentary about this on the history channel not to long ago, and there conclusion was that there was no genetic proof that European came to America ten thousand years ago
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So this is basically the Solutrean hypothesis? This hypothesis also states that Haplogroup X was found among some Native American populations, due to a wave of incoming Europeans. However there was a team of genetic scientists who refuted this postulation of the Solutrean hypothesis, saying the introduction of the Haplogroup X was indigenous and it should not be attributed to multiple migrations.
Read more here if you want: (the link isn't working, just Google: "Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas")
"In a 2011 article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology Italian researchers reported that "Our findings have also a second important implication. Taking into account that C4c is deeply rooted in the Asian portion of the mtDNA phylogeny and is indubitably of Asian origin, a scenario in which C4c and X2a are characterized by parallel genetic histories definitively dismisses the controversial Solutrean hypothesis of an Atlantic glacial entry route into North America for X2a (Stanford and Bradley, 2004; Straus et al., 2005)."
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“Solutrean hypothesis” a radical "theory" . Its makers "probably" paddled from Europe !!!!
Other experts remain unconvinced. “Anyone advancing a radically different hypothesis must be willing to take his licks from skeptics,” said Gary Haynes, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada-Reno.
SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE PEOPLE OF EUROPE IN PALEOLITHIC AMERICA IN THE FIRST PLACE, DID THE MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR??
Little is known about the Solutrean people. They lived in Spain, Portugal and southern France beginning about 25,000 years ago. No skeletons have been found, so no DNA is available to study.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 1996 Mar;99(3):413-28.
Cranial variation in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands: inferences about the history of the population.
Fox et. al
A multivariate analysis of four prehistoric and nine historic populations from the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands with large sample sizes (n > 30 individuals for the neurocranium and n > 15 for the facial skeleton) is presented, considering 874 male and 557 female skulls and using 20 craniometric measurements. Cluster analyses have been undertaken using the squared Euclidean distance as a measure of proximity and the average linkage between groups (UPGMA), and neighbor-joining algorithms as a branching method, and a bootstrap analysis was used to assess the robustness of the clustering topology. The study was complemented with a principal coordinate analysis and with the application of the Mantel test to measure the degree of correspondence between the information furnished by the female and the male samples. The analyses show that the main source of morphometric variability in the Iberian Peninsula is the Basque population. The second source of variation is provided by two populations (Muslims and Jews), different from the rest from an archaeological and cultural point of view, and can probably be attributed to influences from sub-Saharan Africa. The massive deportations of the Jews in 1492 and of the Moors between the 15th and 17th centuries may have erased this source of variability from the present population of the Iberian Peninsula. The remaining studied populations, including samples from Castile, Cantabria, Andalusia, Catalonia and Balearic Islands, are grouped together, showing a notable morphological homogeneity, despite their temporal and geographic heterogeneity. These results are in general agreement with those obtained in synthetic maps, by analyzing multiple genetic markers. In such studies, the Basque population is described as the main source of genetic variability, not only in the Iberian Peninsula, but also in Western Europe.
Polimorfismos de DNA mitocondrial en poblaciones antiguas de la cuenca mediterránea.
Fernández Domínguez, E. et al.
(2005)
The presence of almost 50% of sub-Saharan lineages L1b, L2 and L3 in Abauntz Chalcolithic deposits and Tres Montes, in Navarre, suggests the existence of an important gene flow from Africa to this geographic region.
The low frequency of these lineages in the current Spanish population indicates that it has gene produced a replacement from the Chalcolithic period.
The entry of African lineages could occur during the Paleolithic, during the Neolithic period, or during both periods.
The phylogenetically related sequences present in the Chalcolithic deposit Iberian Peninsula and Neolithic and Chalcolithic samples of the Middle East points to Neolithic as most likely time of entry into the peninsula of these lineages.
Description: SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS The origins of European populations have been addressed from different disciplines, highlighting the contribution of population genetics studies. Shuffle two moments in prehistory in which it has been possible to model the gene pool of populations in Europe: the spread of Neolithic and Palaeolithic period expansions. The ability to recover from bygone population genetics provides a unique opportunity to test the assumptions made in situ from other disciplines. We studied 197 samples from 115 dental and bone individuals 17 archaeological sites Sumerian Neolithic and Middle East, when Meroitic Nubia and Paleolithic era, post-Neolithic and Neolithic of the Iberian Peninsula. We obtained complete sequences of mitochondrial DNA of 244 bp of 35 different individuals, were compared with sequences from the same region of present individuals from 38 populations in Europe, Africa and Middle East. In phylogenetic reconstructions based on Reynolds distance groups of ancient samples are grouped together, separated from the rest of current populations. However, phylogenetic reconstructions made from the haplotypes of ancient and modern samples denote that although the majority of ancient mitochondrial variants are not present in current populations sampled, may relate more or less closely with them. The composition of haplotypes and haplogroups of ancient samples from the Near East and the Iberian Peninsula differs markedly from that found in the current populations of these geographical regions. In the ancient Middle East show highlights in particular the absence of mitochondrial haplogroup J, U3, W and X, associated with the Neolithic expansion into Europe. This may be due either to the sample obtained is not old chronologically or geographically-representative populations of the Middle East that spread during the Neolithic well that these variants were not introduced in Europe during the Neolithic. In the ancient sample of the Iberian Peninsula highlights the presence of 50% of sub-Saharan lines. These lines may have been introduced during the Solutrean, the Mesolithic or Neolithic. This work also delved into various technical aspects of obtaining authentic ancient DNA and the influence of several variables in the preservation of genetic material. ABSTRACT The origins of the European Populations Studied extensively from Have Been Different disciplines. It is Thought That ancient demic expansions, like occurred After the Late Those Glacial Maximum or DURING the Middle East from neolithic diffussion to Europe. The Possibility to recover DNA from past Populations offers an unique Opportunity to test in situ These hypothesis. 197 It Were Analyzed teeth and bones from 115 individuos Archaeological Sites and 17 Different from Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula. It WAS possible to recover mitochondrial DNA sequences 244pb-35 from Different Individuals. They Were 38 Compared to sequences from European, African and Middle Eastern Populations present-day. Phylogenetic Reconstructions from Reynolds genetic distance Showed That ancient samples clustered together, extant from Clearly Separated Populations. Howeve, based phylogenetic Reconstructions on ancient and modern mitochondrial haplotypes Showed That ancient haplotypes are related to extant ones. Haplotype frequencies and haplogroup in samples from the ancient Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula are Different from Those Clearly present in the Same Geographical Nowadays regions. Haplogroups related to J neolithic expansion to Europe, U3, W and X-are absent in ancient middle eastern sample. There are two possible Explanations to this fact. First, It Could Be That the ancient samples possible Analyzed wont be representative of the Middle Eastern Populations That expanded the neolithic. Second, It Could Be That Those haplogroups Also possible wont Have Been made to them in Europe associated with expansions to neolithic demic. At This work It Were Also Examined technical Several Aspects related to the obtention of genuine ancient DNA and the Influence of Different variables in DNA preservation.
quote:
James Owen for National Geographic News December 20, 2005
Europeans inherit their looks from Stone Age hunters, new research suggests.
Scientists studied ancient skeletons from Scandinavia to North Africa and Greece, comparing ancient and modern facial features.
Their analysis suggests modern Europeans are closely related and descended from prehistoric indigenous peoples.
Later Neolithic settlers—notably immigrants who introduced farming from the Near East some 7,500 years ago—contributed little to how Europeans look today, the researchers add.
The scientists described their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.
The study suggests that the arrival of farming did not signal a broad wave of colonization as some scientists had thought. Rather, native hunter-gatherers absorbed the farming way of life and those who brought it.
The findings are based on 24 face measurements of modern-day Europeans compared with those of their prehistoric predecessors.
The team focused on facial dimensions which are "neutral" and don't change as human populations adapt over time to different environments and lifestyles.
Because these features are passed down generation to generation, they are good markers of human ancestry, according to lead study author Loring Brace.
The University of Michigan anthropologist says the craniofacial remains of late Stone Age Europeans reflect those of earlier inhabitants who lived 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.
"They're really fairly close," he said.
Ancient peoples had heavier brow ridges than modern Europeans. "The faces were also broader and the jaws were heavier," Brace added.
Skeletal remains from Greece and elsewhere are thought to represent Neolithic settlers who introduced farming from modern-day Syria, Jordan, and Israel. Brace said these remains have facial measurements that don't match those of most present-day Europeans.
The anthropologist added that despite some similarities with modern Mediterranean populations, "the farther north and west you get, the less they resemble the people living there now."
"Modern Europeans don't look like the incoming Neolithic [farmers]," he said.
"It's pretty clear that there's a much larger component of the indigenous foraging peoples across Europe, and they existed in far greater numbers than the archaeological record had led us to believe."
The study suggests that Neolithic remains, which have been taken as evidence of large-scale colonization, are misleading.
Brace says pots associated with Neolithic farmers tended to disintegrate into countless shards, creating the impression of a larger presence than was actually the case.
Early farmers also buried their dead together, unlike the native inhabitants, leaving groups of bodies for archaeologists to later uncover along with other artifacts.
Hunter-gatherers The researchers say the fact that incoming settlers didn't pass on telltale facial characteristics to later Europeans suggests that they were absorbed by the indigenous hunter-gatherers.
"They absorbed them genetically—and their way of life," Brace said. "Molecular biology is telling us the same story."
Recent DNA analysis of the skeletons of prehistoric farmers found buried in Germany, Austria, and Hungary appears to show that they contributed little to the European gene pool.
A quarter of those analyzed remains share a DNA signature that is now extremely rare worldwide and which has left virtually no trace on living Europeans.
Those findings, described last month in the journal Science, suggest that "the contribution of early farmers could be close to zero," according to Peter Forster, archaeology research fellow at Cambridge University, England.
Other experts now broadly agree that the spread of farming across Europe represents more of a cultural legacy than a genetic one.
"Personally, I think it's a question that can be answered only on a regional basis," said Marek Zvelebil, professor of archaeology at the University of Sheffield, England.
"In some areas, particularly parts of the East Mediterranean and central Europe, you do have small groups of people migrating from the Near East," he said.
"But in most other parts of Europe, particularly western and northern Europe, you have local hunter-gathering people adopting farming."
Americas Settled by Two Groups of Early Humans, Study Says
Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News December 12, 2005
At least two distinct groups of early humans colonized the Americas, a new study says, reviving the debate about who the first Americans were and when they arrived.
Anthropologists Walter Neves and Mark Hubbe studied 81 skulls of early humans from South America and found them to be different from both modern and ancient Native Americans.
The 7,500- to 11,000-year-old remains suggest that the oldest settlers of the Americas came from different genetic stock than more recent Native Americans.
Modern Native Americans share traits with Mongoloid peoples of Mongolia, China, and Siberia, the researchers say.
But Neves and Hubbe found that dozens of skulls from Brazil appear much more similar to modern Australians, Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans.
Neves and Hubbe describe their findings in this week's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Who Was First?
The scientists examined 81 skulls unearthed over many decades in Brazil's Lagoa Santa region. They represent the largest collection of early American remains, many of which had to be tracked down in European museums.
These "paleoamerican" or "paleoindian" skulls feature projecting lower jaws, broad noses, and broad eye sockets, the researchers report. These traits are unlike those of modern Native Americans.
This strongly suggests that those early Americans were in fact a distinct group, Neves says.
He adds that the group could have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge—the once-exposed landmass between Siberia and Alaska—thousands of years earlier than the Siberian populations who are believed to be the ancestors of modern Native Americans.
Other paleoamerican skulls have displayed similar traits to the Lagoa Santa skulls, which has led to controversy and differing theories about how and when the Americas were settled.
"I don't want people to think that we are proposing any kind of transoceanic migration from Africa or Australia," said Neves, of the University of São Paolo in Brazil.
"We know that these [paleoindian] people had reached China around 20,000 years ago. The Mongoloid population that you see in [northeast] Asia today is more recent. So we don't have to think about transoceanic migrations to explain this."
Genetic Drift
Recent genetic studies of modern human populations have also suggested multiple early migrations across the Bering land bridge.
Neves and colleagues have not been able yet to extract ancient DNA from the Lagoa Santa remains—but excavations are yielding additional ancient remains.
"We have already found at least 20 new skeletons older than 8,000 years that are not part of our paper," he said.
Still, not all scientists are convinced that the variations found in the skulls are proof of multiple migrations to the Americas.
"There is a huge amount of variation among the first Americans, more than you see among any other population outside of the Pacific," said Joseph Powell, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
"Much of that is genetic, and it comes from the fact, I think, that these first Americans had very small colonizing populations, and they have a great degree of genetic variation due to genetic drift."
Genetic drift describes random variations in a group's genetic makeup. Small populations are especially prone to the phenomenon, because the genes of a single individual play a proportionately larger role in successive generations.
American Theories
For decades most scientists believed that the first Americans were a group of hunters, known as the Clovis people, who entered the Americas via the Bering land bridge some 11,000 to 12,000 years ago.
"I think it has become more widely accepted in the archaeological community that people were here prior to Clovis," said Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of First Americans at Texas A&M University in College Station.
Sites in Siberia have shown that people lived in the harsh region on the Asian of the land bridge as early as 27,000 years ago, he added.
"People could survive in that Arctic environment and survive quite well," Waters said. "There would be nothing to stop them from heading east into present-day Alaska."
Moreover, sites like Chile's Monte Verde, where tools have been dated to 12,500 years ago, have bolstered the theory that people were in the Americas before the Clovis period.
"If you look at the time periods when people could have come over by land, it must have been very late, just before Clovis, or prior to the ice sheets that formed over North America reaching their maximum extent around 20,000 years ago," Waters said.
Yet the land bridge theory no longer holds a scientific monopoly.
Some scholars favor coastal migration theories, in which early settlers hopped along the Pacific coast in boats.
More controversial theorists won't rule out the possibility of ocean crossings from Europe or Africa.
However those first Americans arrived, the remains they left behind may be the only clues that could someday tell their story.
posted
The Olmecs were not the first Africans to create a civilization in Mexico. These Africans came from the ancient Sahara and West Africa.
Africans founded many of the earliest civilizations in the New World. We do not know when these Blacks arrived in the Americas. Scientists theorize that over 5000 years ago a group of African settlers sailing along the West African coast, in their papyrus trading vessels were caught in a storm and drifted aimlessly out to sea. In the Atlantic ocean they were captured by the South Equatorial current and carried across the Atlantic towards the Americas.
We can assume that due to the ability of these explorers to navigate by the stars they were probably able to make a return trip to West Africa. Much of West Africa 5000 years ago was unoccupied. This means that the populations that later moved into West Africa were living in Middle Africa,and the Sahara. These people due to a different climate in the Sahara at this time traveled from community to community by sea. It seems logical to assume that one of these Paleo-African groups travelled down the long extinct rivers of Middle Africa and sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean and was carried to the Americas by the powerful currents found in the Atlantic Ocean.
Mexico and Central America were centers of African civilization 5000 years ago. In Belize , around 2500 B.C., we see evidence of agriculture. The iconography of this period depicts Africoids. And at Izapa in 1358 B.C., astronomer-priests invented the first American calendar. In addition numerous sculptures of blacks dating to the 2nd millennium B.C, have been found at La Venta, Chiapas, Teotihuacan and Tlatilco.
Chiapas Blacks
The African voyagers to the New World came here in papyrus boats. A stone stela from Izapa, Chiapas in southern Mexico show the boats these Africans came in when they sailed to the Americas. These boats were carried across the Atlantic ocean to Mexico and Brazil, by the North Equatorial current which meets the Canaries Current off the Senegambian coast. It is interesting to note that papyrus boats are still being built in West Africa today.
The earliest culture founded by Blacks in Mexico was the Mokaya tradition. The Mokaya tradition was situated on the Pacific coast of Mexico in the Soconusco region. Sedentary village life began as early as 2000BC. By 1700-1500 BC we see many African communities in the Mazatan region. This is called the Barra phase or Ocos complex.
During the Barra phase these Blacks built villages amd made beautiful ceramic vessels often with three legs. They also made a large number of effigy vessels.
The figurines of the Ocos are the most significant evidence for Blacks living in the area during this period. The female figurine from Aquiles Serdan is clearly that of an African woman.
Ocos Female
The Blacks of the Mokaya traditions were not Olmec. The civilization of the Mokaya traditions began 700 years before the Olmec arrived in Mexico.
In the Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership (1995), (ed.) by Carolyn Tate, on page 65, we find the following statement“Olmec culture as far as we know seems to have no antecedents; no material models remain for its monumental constructions and sculptures and the ritual acts captured in small objects”./b]M.
Coe (1989), observed that[b] “on the contrary, the evidence although negative, is that the Olmec style of art, and Olmec engineering ability suddenly appeared full fledged from about 1200 BC”.
Mary E. Pye, writing in Olmec Archaeology in Mesoamerica (2000), (ed.) by J.E. Cark and M.E. Pye,makes it clear after a discussion of the pre-Olmec civilizations of the Mokaya tradition, that these cultures contributed nothing to the rise of the Olmec culture. Pye wrote “The Mokaya appear to have gradually come under Olmec influence during Cherla times and to have adopted Olmec ways. We use the term olmecization to describe the processes whereby independent groups tried to become Olmecs, or to become like the Olmecs” (p.234). Pye makes it clear that it was around 1200 BC that Olmec civilization rose in Mesoamerica. She continues “Much of the current debate about the Olmecs concerns the traditional mother culture view. For us this is still a primary issue. Our data from the Pacific coast show that the mother culture idea is still viable in terms of cultural practices. The early Olmecs created the first civilization in Mesoamerica; they had no peers, only contemporaries” (pp.245-46).
Cherla There continues to be no evidence that Olmec civilization originated in Mexico. R.A. Diehl, in The Olmecs (Thames & Hudson, 2004) wrote that “The identity of these first Olmecs remain a mystery. Some scholars believe they were Mokaya migrants from the Pacific coast of Chiapas who brought improved maize strains and incipient social stratification with them. Others propose that Olmec culture evolved among local indigenous populations without significant external stimulus. I prefer the latter position, but freely admit that we lack sufficient information on the period before 1500 B.C. to resolve the issue” (p.25).
Check out my video on the first Afro-Americans 30kya
I have been consistent throughout this discussion. I claimed that due to the African origin of the first Americans, some Amerind groups mixed with the original African Americans and later Africans taken to America during the Atlantic Slave Trade. I have made it clear that I believe that the present Amerind population probably only entered Mexico and South America after 1000 BC.
I have pointed out that:
1) the Australians represent the OOA population that settled Asia
2) during the OOA event mush of Siberia and North America was under ice from 110,000 - 10,000BC. As a result there was no way Siberians could cross Beringa before the end of the ice age
3) Ice even separated much of South America east to west .
. 4) the first Americans appear in Brazil, Chile and Argintina Latin America around 30,000 BC
5)using craniometric evidence I have pointed out that the first Americans look like Africans not modern Amerinds
6) using craniometrics I have pointed out that Asia was dominated by the Australian population until the rise of Suhulland when the Melanesian people appear in the area, at this time the Beringa was still under Ice
7) I pointed out that the Melanesian type reach East Asian mainland by 5000 BC, long after Africans had settled Latin America
8) between 15,000-12,000 we see numerous African populations in Mexico and Brazil; and statues dating to this period have even been found off the Yucatan coast in the Caribbean
9) First Americans did not look like the Australians or modern Amerinds
10) iconography of PreClassic people like the Cherla, Ocos and other groups is of Negroes not Amerinds like the Maya
11) Amerind groups not associated with African slaves carry African genes
12) Maya carried African y chromosome
13) Mayans carry African genes
14)Negrocostachicanos claim that they have never been slaves and are indigenous to Guererro and Oaxaca on the Pacific coast
15) The Dufuna boat makes it clear that Africans probably had the technology to travel to the Americas 15,000 years ago.
16) Fuegians 100-400 BP carried haplogroup A1. Hg A1 is an African haplogroup.
17) Amerinds carry haplogroup N, just like Africans.
18)The y chromosome STRs of the Fuegians include DYS434,DYS437,DYS 439, DYS 393, DYS391,DYS390,DYS19, DYS 389I, DYS389II and DYS 388 (see: Garcia-Bour et al above). Except for DYS390 and DYS388 they are characteristic of haplogroup A1 . A1 is recognized as an African haplogroup. 19) Africans probably introduced y-chromosome haplogroup R-M173 among Native Americans
In conclusion, the first Americans came from Africa--not Siberia as some researchers maintain. These people probably came to the Americas by boat.
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Cranial morphology of early human skeletal remains from Lapa do Santo, Lagoa Santa, Brazil: implications for the settlement of the New World.
DANILO V. BERNARDO1, WALTER A. NEVES1, ANDRÉ STRAUSS2, TATIANA F. ALMEIDA3 and RODRIGO E. OLIVEIRA1. 1Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Biosciences Institute, University of São Paulo, 2Department of Human Evolution, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 3Children's Institute, School of Medicine of University of São Paulo.
Lapa do Santo is a rock shelter located in Lagoa Santa (central Brazil) where 28 human burials have been excavated since 2001. A subset of 13 burials is of early Holocene age, with six individuals directly dated to between ca. 9,000 and 8,200 BP. The other burials are from different chronological periods, varying to between ca. 5,000 and 7,700 BP. In this study we compared the cranial morphology of eight (five from the older chronological set) best preserved adult skulls recovered from Lapa do Santo with two other early South American paleoamerican series: Sumidouro (n=13), also from Lagoa Santa, and Sabana de Bogota (n=57), from Colombia. The worldwide human cranial variation, represented by 18 populations from Howell’s databank (n=1,684) was also included in the study. The morphological affinities among the series were explored through two different multivariate statistical techniques: Principal Components Analysis and Mahalanobis Distances. Both males and females were used in the analyses and the data was previously treated by means of double standardization to correct for sexual dimorphism and size. Our results show a strong association between Lapa do Santo and the other two South American paleoamerican series represented in the study. Within a worldwide perspective Lapa do Santo shows a clear association with Africans and Australo-Melanesians instead of with Asians and late Amerindians. These results support the idea that the New World was settled by two independent Asian colonizing biological stocks along time. Howell’s databank (n=1,684) was also included in the study. The morphological affinities among the series were explored through two different multivariate statistical techniques: Principal Components Analysis and Mahalanobis Distances. Both males and females were used in the analyses and the data was previously treated by means of double standardization to correct for sexual dimorphism and size. Our results show a strong association between Lapa do Santo and the other two South American paleoamerican series represented in the study. Within a worldwide perspective Lapa do Santo shows a clear association with Africans and Australo-Melanesians instead of with Asians and late Amerindians. These results support the idea that the New World was settled by two independent Asian colonizing biological stocks along time.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Break-the-bull: Americans in general? No. But if you are referring to a segment of the population, e.g., African Americans? Yes.
quote:Originally posted by Inhumane: ^ Confirming Truth, is it true Americans are a very confrontational people? They can't let sleeping dogs lie.
This explains your behaviour? Hmmm interesting ...
Posts: 22235 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
New Evidence Puts Man In North America 50,000 Years Ago
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2004)
Dr. Al Goodyear examining artifacts in the terrace. (Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2004) — Radiocarbon tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed last May along the Savannah River in Allendale County by University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear indicate that the sediments containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North American long before the last ice age.
The findings are significant because they suggest that humans inhabited North America well before the last ice age more than 20,000 years ago, a potentially explosive revelation in American archaeology.
Goodyear, who has garnered international attention for his discoveries of tools that pre-date what is believed to be humans' arrival in North America, announced the test results, which were done by the University of California at Irvine Laboratory, Wednesday (Nov .17).
"The dates could actually be older," Goodyear says. "Fifty-thousand should be a minimum age since there may be little detectable activity left."
The dawn of modern homo sapiens occurred in Africa between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of modern man's migration out of the African continent has been documented in Australia and Central Asia at 50,000 years and in Europe at 40,000 years. The fact that humans could have been in North America at or near the same time is expected to spark debate among archaeologists worldwide, raising new questions on the origin and migration of the human species.
"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," Goodyear says. "However, other early sites in Brazil and Chile, as well as a site in Oklahoma also suggest that humans were in the Western Hemisphere as early as 30,000 years ago to perhaps 60,000."
In 1998, Goodyear, nationally known for his research on the ice age PaleoIndian cultures dug below the 13,000-year Clovis level at the Topper site and found unusual stone tools up to a meter deeper. The Topper excavation site is on the bank of the Savannah River on property owned by Clariant Corp., a chemical corporation headquartered near Basel, Switzerland. He recovered numerous stone tool artifacts in soils that were later dated by an outside team of geologists to be 16,000 years old.
For five years, Goodyear continued to add artifacts and evidence that a pre-Clovis people existed, slowly eroding the long-held theory by archaeologists that man arrived in North America around 13,000 years ago.
Last May, Goodyear dug even deeper to see whether man's existence extended further back in time. Using a backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear's team dug through the Pleistocene terrace soil, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Goodyear found a number of artifacts similar to the pre-Clovis forms he has excavated in recent years.
Then on the last day of the last week of digging, Goodyear's team uncovered a black stain in the soil where artifacts lay, providing him the charcoal needed for radiocarbon dating. Dr. Tom Stafford of Stafford Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., came to Topper and collected charcoal samples for dating.
"Three radiocarbon dates were obtained from deep in the terrace at Topper with two dates of 50,300 and 51,700 on burnt plant remains. One modern date related to an intrusion," Stafford says. "The two 50,000 dates indicate that they are at least 50,300 years. The absolute age is not known."
The revelation of an even older date for Topper is expected to heighten speculation about when man got to the Western Hemisphere and add to the debate over other pre-Clovis sites in the Eastern United States such as Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pa., and Cactus Hill, Va.
In October 2005, archaeologists will meet in Columbia for a conference on Clovis and the study of earliest Americans. The conference will include a day trip to Topper, which is sure to dominate discussions and presentations at the international gathering. USC's Topper: A Timeline
May, 1998 — Dr. Al Goodyear and his team dig up to a meter below the Clovis level and encounter unusual stone tools up to two meters below surface.
May 1999 — Team of outside geologists led by Mike Waters, a researcher at Texas A&M, visit Topper site and propose a thorough geological study of locality.
May 2000 — Geology study done by consultants; ice age soil confirmed for pre-Clovis artifacts.
May 2001 — Geologists revisit Topper and obtain ancient plant remains deep down in the Pleistocene terrace. OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dates on soils above ice age strata show pre-Clovis is at least older than 14,000.
May 2002 — Geologists find new profile showing ancient soil lying between Clovis and pre-Clovis, confirming the age of ice age soils between 16,000 - 20,000 years.
May 2003 — Archaeologists continue to excavate pre-Clovis artifacts above the terrace, as well as new, significant Clovis finds.
May 2004 — Using backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear and his team dig deeper, down into the Pleistocene terrace, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Artifacts, similar to pre-Clovis forms excavated in previous years, recovered deep in the terrace. A black stain in the soil provides charcoal for radio carbon dating.
November 2004 — Radiocarbon dating report indicates that artifacts excavated from Pleistocene terrace in May were recovered from soil that dates some 50,000 years. The dates imply an even earlier arrival for humans in this hemisphere than previously believed, well before the last ice age. DR. ALBERT C. GOODYEAR III
University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert C. Goodyear joined the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology in1974 and has been associated with the Research Division since 1976. He is also the founder and director of the Allendale PaleoIndian Expedition, a program that involves members of the public in helping to excavate PaleoAmerican sites in the central Savannah River Valley of South Carolina.
Goodyear earned his bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida (1968), his master's degree in anthropology from the University of Arkansas and his doctorate in anthropology from Arizona State University (1976). He is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the Archaeological Society of South Carolina, and the Florida Anthropological Society. He has served twice as president of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and is on the editorial board of The Florida Anthropologist and the North American Archaeologist.
Goodyear developed his interest in archaeology in the 1960s as a member of the F1orida Anthropological Society and through avocational experiences along Florida's central Gulf Coast. He wrote and published articles about sites and artifacts from that region for The Florida Anthropologist in the late 1960s. His master's thesis on the Brand site, a late PaleoIndian Dalton site in northeast Arkansas, was published in 1974 by the Arkansas Archeological Survey. At Arizona State University, he did field research on Desert Hohokam mountain hunting and gathering sites in the Lower Sonoran desert of Southern Arizona.
Goodyear, whose primary research interest has been America's earliest human inhabitants, has focused on the period of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition dating between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago. He has taken a geoarchaeological approach to the search for deeply buried early sites by teaming up with colleagues in geology and soil science. For the past 15 years he has studied early prehistoric sites in Allendale County, S.C., in the central Savannah River Valley. These are stone tool manufacturing sites related to the abundant chert resources that were quarried in this locality.
This work has been supported by the National Park Service, the National Geographic Society, the University of South Carolina, the Archaeological Research Trust (SCIAA), the Allendale Research Fund, the Elizabeth Stringfellow Endowment Fund, Sandoz Chemical Corp. and Clariant Corp., the present owner of the site.
Goodyear is the author of over 100 articles, reports and books and regularly presents public lectures and professional papers on his PaleoIndian discoveries in South Carolina.
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