Tuesday 28 February 2012

Peopling of the Americas: Stanford and Bradley's Across Atlantic Ice

Dennis Sanford has his Pre-Clovis people at last? Thanks to Mark Collard for sharing this article from The Independent on facebook.
New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America

It's probably news to no one but me, as usual, but they're claiming to have found, among other tantalyzing items, French flint on the Atlantic continental shelf of North America.
     I'm calling that intriguing! More soon.


Okay. Time out. The faithful readers of SA have spoken and there is skepticism in the air. [Big surprise.] Has anyone actually seen whatever published findings gave rise to this claim of Solutrean-tool-making Europeans migrating across sea ice or along it, just to stake a claim on a place they'd never seen before and had no reason to know even existed?


Me neither. Here's your homework. Go find it! And if Dennis is out there... man, you gotta point us in the direction of the primary literature. [Or, barring that, someone's gonna haveta bite the bullet and click on the link at the right and buy the danged book just to find out. Hey, a girl's gotta make a living! And the Pod hradem cave collection plate is still disappointingly nearly empty.]

2 comments:

  1. Well, I've found European flint on the west coast of North America at several sites. The knapping technique showed clear evidence of people using a sophisticated polyhedral core-and-blade lithic technology. Of course, the blades were manufactured in factories for the firearms trade, but its still European flint.

    More to the point, I've also found European flint nodules mixed in with ballast stones dumped from 19th century cargo ships.

    There can be alternate explanations.....

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  2. Morley, I found your comment about flint nodules while searching for possible sources of flint in ships' ballast in Massachusetts. I'm hoping to find some along the shore. Do you have any suggestions?

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