Dr. Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, has reported to Science Daily (20 Oct 2011) that a pre-Clovis, man-made spear point had been discovered by archeologists 30 years ago embedded in the remains of a mastodon dating at least a thousand years before the arrival of the Clovis culture in North America. The original discovery took place at the Manis site in Washington state.
Professor Willerslev's team, in collaboration with Michael Waters' team at the Center for the Study of the First Americans, University of Texas A&M, has finally established a firm date of 13,800 B.P. for the kill by the convergence of no less than five separate dating methods. (Waters, Stafford, et al., 2008) Included in Willerslev's report was the following significant statement:
"Our research now shows that other hunters were present at least 1,000 years prior to the Clovis culture. Therefore, it was not a sudden war or a quick slaughtering of the mastodons by the Clovis culture, which made the species disappear. We can now conclude that the hunt for the animals stretched out over a much longer period of time . . . Maybe the reason was something completely different, for instance the climate." (Italics added, R.C.L.)
The Gault Site, located in central Texas about 40 miles north of Austin, is considered one of the premier archeological discoveries in North America. James E. Pearce, known as the Father of Texas archeology, excavated the site in 1929. It has been more recently excavated by Drs. Michael B. Collins and Thomas R. Hester of the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. (The issue of ice age Monumental Architecture within the Americas is dealt with separately on my Archeology page.)
The Gault materials tend to push "Clovis" back at least another 1000 yearsback to 13,500 B.P. and beyondand so far represents 65% of all known "Clovis" artifacts. (Collins & Hester, 2001) Recent excavations have brought to light incised stones, a true rarity in North America. Some archeologists see a "link" with the Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe (Collins, n.d.; Wisner, 2000, et al.). Personally, I must confess that I cannot discern a difference between some of the Gault site points and those of the Solutreans.
In addition, the Gault site overthrows the long-held idea among archeologists that early Americans were no more than nomadic mammoth hunters. Besides being a very large site, the depth of the deposits and the abundance of artifactsover a million so farstrongly indicate an occupation spanning several hundred years (Collins & Hester, 2001). "Instead of a new group of people exploring an unknown land, we seem to see a people thoroughly familiar with their surroundings" (University of Texas, 2001). Once again, deep tests are bringing up evidence of an even earlier occupation.
Sandia Cave (Hibben, 1941), The Lewisville site (Krieger, 1957), The Gault site (Collins & Hester, 2001), Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Adovasio, et al., 1990), Cactus Hill (Dillehay, 1989), Monte Verde (Adovasio & Pedler, 1997), Pedra Furada (Collins, 1999), the Manis site (1978), and numerous other more recent archeological discoveries, are beginning to fill in the chronological "void" between the time of the Solutreans in Europe and Clovis in America, leaving little doubt that human populations have been living in the Americas for at least 40,000 years. (Dillehay, 1999, et al.)
During the PBS interview, Stanford also noted that during the ice age a northern route to the Americas was also possible. He said that ice age fishermen and hunters "sailed the Atlantic in tiny boats made of animal skins 18,000 years ago and colonized the eastern United States." (Stanford & Bradley, 2004)
"The gap between Europe and America was greatly reduced," Stanford said. "It could have been quite feasible for fishermen and whale and seal hunters to sail around the southern rim of the packs of sea-ice that covered the North Atlantic and reach land around the Banks of Newfoundland."
Such a theory (allowing only "tiny boats") at least allows numerous stop-offs for shooting game and collecting ice to provide fresh drinking water. Since at present the possible existence of a relatively large Mid-Atlantic land mass is denied, such a possibility (however bleak) seems to be born more of necessity than of reason.
At that time the planet was in the grip of the ice age, and much of its high northern and southern latitudes were desolate. According to Stanford, "Such a journey would represent one of the most astonishing migrations ever undertakenthe Earth wastelands blasted by storms and blizzards." On the other hand, much of the planet's water was locked away in icecaps and glaciers, causing sea levels to be much lower than today's. This exposure of continental shelf would trim the open-ocean gaps to a minimum.
Stanford's theoryoutlined at a recent archeology conference in Santa Fe, N.M.is based on discoveries indicating ancient American people were culturally far more like the Stone Age tribes of France, Spain and Ireland than the Asian people whom scientists had previously thought to be the sole prehistoric settlers of North America. But what about their physical characteristics?
The skull of the 15 year-old girl known as Minnesota Woman. Her remains were found beneath the layers laid down much later in the area by glacial Lake Pelican in Minnesota which had formed near the end of the ice age. (Blegen, 1975) Notice the "European-like" features of this specimen. She has been tentatively dated at 15,000-20,000 B.P. Another similar find has been christened Eva de Naharon, a 13,600 year old skeleton found in an underwater cave near Tulum, Mexico.
The skull of another young woman, nicknamed Luzia, has been dated at 11,500 years ago. After two decades in storage at the National Museum in Brazil, Brazilian scientists identified the fossilized cranium to be "the oldest human remains ever recovered in the Western Hemisphere." It is now only one of several such fossils. When first unearthed, the skull was separated from the skeleton, but was in good condition. Surprisingly, this particular fossil exhibited Negoid characteristics (Williams, 2003).
Dr. Walter Neves, a craniometric specialist who re-examined the skull in 1995, theorizes she came across the Pacific from Southeast Asia (via Australia), even though the location of the find (near the Atlantic shoreline) would seem to favor an Atlantic crossing. Luzia herself was originally discovered in 1975 in a rock shelter by a joint French-Brazilian expedition that was working not far from Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third-largest city.
The Luzia skull completely changed the accepted view of South American prehistory. According to Dr. Andre Prous, a French archeologist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Luzia skull is having a profound effect on the way the first settling of South America is seen by science (Rohter, 1999). For instance, it is helping pull American archaeology out of the mire of "Clovis-first" thinking.
More than 40 skeletons have now been found in Lagoa Santa from the same period. They have been buried in an organized fashion and researchers believe they have discovered an ancient graveyard. It is hoped that Carbon dating on a number of specimens can confirm earlier estimations as to the date of Luzia (Rohter, 1999).
British scientists have analyzed an American skeleton of a 26-year-old woman who died during the last ice age on the edge of prehistoric Lake Texcoco which once existed in the Valley of Mexico. The remains were dated at ca. 13,000 B.P. by Liverpool's John Moores University and Oxford's Research Laboratory of Archaeology. She has been christened Peñon Woman by her discoverers.
The most intriguing aspect of the skull is that it is very European in appearance (Conner, 2002). Upon examining the bones, Dr. Silvia Gonzalez, an archaeologist working at John Moores University and the leader of the research team, found the skull to be "dolichocephalic"; that is, long and narrow, like those of western Europeans of today, not short and wide like the mongols of Asia. However, the origin of the people represented here remains in debate.
Dr. James C. Chatters, a University of Washington specialist in human osteology, while investigating what was originally thought to be a modern homicide, found himself analyzing the bones of a 9,000 year old skeleton. Upon examination, the 5 feet 9 inches tall specimen had "characteristics that are similar to those of Europeans." (Chatters, 2000) According to Chatters, the skull is dolichocranic (long-headed) rather than brachycranic (round-headed), and exhibits "fairly prominent brow ridges." Now known as Kennewick Man, this skeleton possesses many of the characteristics of our typical Atlantean Cro-Magnons.
The 9,000 year-old skull of Kennewick Man, found near the Columbia River in Washington.
Dr. Douglas W. Owsley (Online), Division Head for Physical Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, has recently described the Kennewick skull, as well as certain other ice age American skulls, as being "long-headed and having a short face" (i.e., "disharmonism"). Dr. Göran Burenhult (Online), professor of archeology at Gotland University in Sweden comments:
"On ancient Caucasians in America, Kennewick man, has not been the only find. Others include the 13,000 year old Peñon skull found in Mexico, the 12,500 year old Monte Verde site in Chile, the 9,400 year old Spirit Cave Mummy in Churchill County, Nevada, and others. DNA distinguishing U.S. Indians from Mongoloids also stengthens the above evidence. Pre-Clovis and Clovis stone tools found in America are similar to those in North Western Europe known as Solutrean. Such tools have never been found in Siberia."
On 9 September 2004 during the international "Early Man in America Seminar" in Mexico City, an archeological team from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History reported one of the most significant finds in recent American archeological history. Three well-preserved skeletons were discovered in underwater caves off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula. Archeologist Arturo Gonzalez led the dive team. The skeletons were found in 65-foot-deep water. Charcoal samples were recovered and sent to the University of California in Riverside, where they were carbon-dated at over 13,000 B.P. Such a find as this is strongly indicative of an "Atlantic" connection.
GENETIC CONNECTIONS
Recent genetic studies, as well as an intensive reevaluation of Mexico's Toloquilla footprints, indicate that the earliest human migrations to the Americas began at least 40,000 years ago.
On the other hand, actual skulls found in North America dating back into the ice age are relatively few in number. If Atlantis did extend eastward toward Spain to a point "facing" (or "opposite") Cadiz as Plato says, the distance from the western shores of Atlantis to the Americas would have been at least ten times as great. This could be the reason for the minimal amounts of skeletal material and archeological sites in the Americas when compared to Western Europe
It should be noticed that it is usually the very oldest American skulls which exhibit the Cro-Magnon trait of "disharmonism" (the short-faced dolichocephalics); rather than the more plentiful broad-faced, round-headed (brachycephalic) skullsmongolian types who entered the Americas from Asia via the Bering land bridge. No one can say with any confidence who arrived here first.
It's rapidly becoming obvious that there was no "First American". The Americas were being populated as far back as 30,000-40,000 years ago by diverse people from all over the world. Today's anthropologists are finally admitting to "a surprising degree of diversity" among ancient skeletons scattered over the two continents. "In addition, signs of violence seen in the bones would seem to indicate the presence of different and competing peoples." (Morell, 1998; Owsley & Jantz, 1997, et al.)
The proximity of the western shores of Atlantis to the American continent does not appear to enter the equation among most academics. But anthropological remains (bones, skulls, or nearly complete skeletons) tell us much about the kinds of people who were coming here during the ice age. On my Anthropology page I mentioned that Cro-Magnoid skulls have been found in the Americas, and throughout this website I have presented evidence supporting the theory that the particular type of man known as Cro-Magnon originated in Atlantis.
Drs. Stanford and Bradley point out important discoveries in genetics which have been made by researchers at Emory University and the Universities of Rome and Hamburg. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited exclusively from the mother, normally contains four markers called haplogroups, labeled A, B, C, and D. These four are shared by 95 percent of Native Americans.
Recently, however, the same genetics team identified a fifth haplogroup, called X, which is present in about 20,000 modern Native Americans. Scientists have also done some testing on pre-Columbian Amerind skeletal remains from before 1300, and found haplogroup X in the same proportion as in modern Amerind populations. A most interesting fact is that haplogroup X is most prominent in European populations, but nearly absent in Asian.
No sooner had this hit the airwaves when geneticists began finding traces, however small, of haplogroup X among the peoples of Asia. Reports soon arose among genetic experts that, yes indeed, the X factor had been discovered there. Shortly afterward, minor variations began to play a part.
So far, it appears that haplogroup X (including its variants) is to be found scattered among people living in Europe, Asia Minor, the Near East and North Africa. A relatively small number of people in the Altai region of Siberia have X also. (Derenko, et al., 2001), although geneticists find this occurrence to be of more recent origin (i.e. more recently than 5000 BC). Some X has been found in Mongolia also, but it's said to be "not commom in modern Asia". (Scientific American Frontiers, 2008). It appears that the haplogroup X has not yet been found in the populations of central Asia.
Haplogroup X is turning out to have so many variations (X1, X1a, X1b, X2, X2a, X2b, X2c, X2d, X2e, X2f) that a sort of "genetic chaos" seems to be emerging. Not being a specialist in genetics, I will leave it to the experts to try to sort this out. Unless this state of affairs can be better defined, no one group of colonizers of ice age America can be declared as "correct" to the exclusion of others. This leaves Paleolithic Europeans as one of the several possible candidates.
It has recently been admitted by some geneticists that the founders of Native America may have included those of "Caucasian" ancestry. (Brown, et al., 1998) Many admit that the presence of X in North America opens up the possibility of an early migration westward from Europe. (Havelock, 2004).
No doubt, the controversy raises perplexing problems, especially for those who insist that all Native Americans came across the Bering Land Bridge (and "political correctness" can also stand in the way of objective study of human remains), but genetic scientists hope to eventually provide answers by sequencing the Mongolian haplogroup X mtDNA to see if it's an intermediate form between European X and Native American X.
However, the possibility that some portions of the Americas were populated from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean must now be considered. To refuse this is to ignore the several non-Mongoloid, European-looking skulls which have been found in both North and South America (the total number of ice age, Native American skulls can be counted on one's fingers). In all fairness such a migration must be included as part of the overall equation.
In addition to the European Marker X in North America, the Araucanians of Chile (most likely arriving in the Americas 18,000-12,000 years ago) carry apparent "Caucasian" genes. For instance, it is common for Araucanians to have curly reddish brown hair and green eyes (Bonnichsen et al., n.d.).
Comprehensive studies of blood types also show that Mayans, Incas and Araucanians are all virtually 100% group O, with 5-20% of the population being rhesus negative. This was the blood type of the original Europeans and stems from Cro-Magnon man (Kurlansky, 2001). The races that possess this blood type are races of the Americas, the Canary Islands, the Berbers, the Basques, and Gaelic Kelts.
I have long suspected that the Araucanians of Chile might be of Cro-Magnon descent, since several Cro-Magnoid skulls have been found in that area, and have also wondered if the language of the Araucanians is in any way related to the Berber-Ibero-Basque Language Complex. It is my hope that some linguist familiar with the native languages of South America will do a study on those languages from that point of view.
We could have descendants of ice age Atlanteans scattered throughout the massive continents of North and South America. All modern scientific theories choose to ignore the possibility of a large Cro-Magnon-populated land mass (Atlantis) lying in the central North Atlantic, which could easily have provided migrations of Cro-Magnon populations in both directions (to Europe and America) during the ice age.
Glossary of Terms
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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