New Evidence Suggests Stone Age Europeans Discovered America

[Ridann]

Why do you assume they were "genocided"? Could they not have just been out competed?

Much like the aborigines of Australia! Go whitey!

[Seangoli]

"New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe..."

Says the Independent, which is based in the UK.

Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.

There are two important names in the article, Bradley and Stanford. They have been drumming this crud for about two decades, and the entire idea is taken less than seriously in the Americas for a myriad of reasons. It had a brief hit of popularity in the field during the 90's. They are simply trying to ride this out as long as possible. Simply put, this concept isn't relevant these days in the archaeological field. It has long since been debunked by relatively simple analysis of the manufacturing styles between the Solutrean and the American Lanceolate complexes. Let alone the fact that every pre-Clovis site that has been found has not used anything even remotely similar to the Solutrean complex(Or later paleo period American complexes).

[Farnhamia]

"New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe..."

Says the Independent, which is based in the UK.

Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.

There are two important names in the article, Bradley and Stanford. They have been drumming this crud for about two decades, and the entire idea is taken less than seriously in the Americas for a myriad of reasons. It had a brief hit of popularity in the field during the 90's. They are simply trying to ride this out as long as possible. Simply put, this concept isn't relevant these days in the archaeological field. It has long since been debunked by relatively simple analysis of the manufacturing styles between the Solutrean and the American Lanceolate complexes. Let alone the fact that every pre-Clovis site that has been found has not used anything even remotely similar to the Solutrean complex(Or later paleo period American complexes).

What do you mean, not even remotely similar? The Clovis and Solutrean artifacts are both made out of stone, right? Right?

Exactly.

[Seangoli]

There are two important names in the article, Bradley and Stanford. They have been drumming this crud for about two decades, and the entire idea is taken less than seriously in the Americas for a myriad of reasons. It had a brief hit of popularity in the field during the 90's. They are simply trying to ride this out as long as possible. Simply put, this concept isn't relevant these days in the archaeological field. It has long since been debunked by relatively simple analysis of the manufacturing styles between the Solutrean and the American Lanceolate complexes. Let alone the fact that every pre-Clovis site that has been found has not used anything even remotely similar to the Solutrean complex(Or later paleo period American complexes).

What do you mean, not even remotely similar? The Clovis and Solutrean artifacts are both made out of stone, right? Right?

Exactly.

Heh, a joke, I know.

However, as a serious answer to jovial question, the answer is relatively simple. Although both have similar appearance, and there's only a few ways to actually manufacture stone tools, there are many different methods and reduction techniques that can be used. These reduction techniques can leave tell-tale signs of how a tool was made. Given enough data, you can gain a pretty accurate understanding of each step along the way. These processes will have a degree of variability, but will follow a general pattern within a group as it is sort of learned yet unlearned behavior. You are learning to do so by example and experience, and through said example you are learning your group's means of production rather unconsciously. Trace it back, learn the basic steps involved, and you have yourself a pretty good indicator of how a tool was made.

Problem with the Solutrean hypothesis is that the technique to produce the Solutrean points appears to be quite different than Clovis. Although the basic concept is there(as it is with all stone tools), there are quite a few different trajectories that can be taken once you have begun the process. I can go into more detail if you want, but it gets dull from here on out.

[New Ziedrich]

The first people of North America were from Europe. Thousands of years later, invaders from Asia crossed the land bridge from Siberia and stole our land.

You know, I can't help but feel a little weirded out by the tone of this statement.

[Fartsniffage]

What do you mean, not even remotely similar? The Clovis and Solutrean artifacts are both made out of stone, right? Right?

Exactly.

Heh, a joke, I know.

However, as a serious answer to jovial question, the answer is relatively simple. Although both have similar appearance, and there's only a few ways to actually manufacture stone tools, there are many different methods and reduction techniques that can be used. These reduction techniques can leave tell-tale signs of how a tool was made. Given enough data, you can gain a pretty accurate understanding of each step along the way. These processes will have a degree of variability, but will follow a general pattern within a group as it is sort of learned yet unlearned behavior. You are learning to do so by example and experience, and through said example you are learning your group's means of production rather unconsciously. Trace it back, learn the basic steps involved, and you have yourself a pretty good indicator of how a tool was made.

Problem with the Solutrean hypothesis is that the technique to produce the Solutrean points appears to be quite different than Clovis. Although the basic concept is there(as it is with all stone tools), there are quite a few different trajectories that can be taken once you have begun the process. I can go into more detail if you want, but it gets dull from here on out.

Go into more detail.

It's the only way I'll learn....

[Rio Cana]

Doesn't concern me that some ancient Europeans were in America first and were absorbed or defeated by a superior civilization (in this case, the Native Americans). The Native Americans were still defeated/absorbed by another civilization later on.

The Shuar were never defeated or absorbed by the Spanish or Inca. Both tried to avoid them at all cost.

Watch this really short video clip of the Shuar -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVAXwdco ... re=related

[The Archregimancy]

It was only a matter of time before I weighed in, right?

"New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe..."

Says the Independent, which is based in the UK.

Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.

There are two important names in the article, Bradley and Stanford. They have been drumming this crud for about two decades, and the entire idea is taken less than seriously in the Americas for a myriad of reasons. It had a brief hit of popularity in the field during the 90's. They are simply trying to ride this out as long as possible. Simply put, this concept isn't relevant these days in the archaeological field. It has long since been debunked by relatively simple analysis of the manufacturing styles between the Solutrean and the American Lanceolate complexes. Let alone the fact that every pre-Clovis site that has been found has not used anything even remotely similar to the Solutrean complex(Or later paleo period American complexes).

This is no longer entirely true; largely, but not entirely.

I subscribe to several North American archaeology professional discussion listservs in my work capacity, and this has been getting a fair amount of discussion, by no means all of it negative. Several sceptics of the Solutrean hypothesis - and I should add that I'm currently unconvinced - are at least willing to re-examine Bradley and Stanford's evidence. That doesn't mean they're convinced, but simply that they're willing to have another look. A Washington Post article which is far more detailed than the Independent article in the OP (and is fairly balanced about the current debate) can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

Now, the story's partially getting this amount of play right now because Bradley and Stanford have a book out, and publicity is good for a book; and even Stanford acknowledges that the hypothesis is skeletal and based on sparse evidence. So it's worth taking some of the publicity with a pinch of salt

But if Bradley and Stanford haven't necessarily convinced anyone that they're right, they have convinced a surprising number of people that they deserve the chance to at least put forward and test their hypothesis without being considered fringe loons.

I'm monitoring the behind the scenes professional discussion with some interest. If anyone adds something particularly new and salient over the next couple of days, I'll post it here.

[1000 Cats]

This isn't that new. Europeans of the Stone Age are very different from Europeans of the Colonial Age. The fact is that one culture conquered and destroyed another in some of the harshest ways possible. That destruction has no positive point. It wouldn't matter if it was Europeans or Asians or Africans who did it: it still happened, and it still sucked.

[Blazedtown]

There's a secret third option with American fascists, but that's not important.)

You rang?

[The Black Forrest]

I'm monitoring the behind the scenes professional discussion with some interest. If anyone adds something particularly new and salient over the next couple of days, I'll post it here.

Thank you.

[Walden Pond]

Wow this is funny, look I have a tool, that sort matches European style and it is from 10,000 years after Asians colonized the continent, that means Europeans got here first ... wait.

Your summary is wholly innaccurate.

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

What’s more, chemical analysis carried out last year on a European-style stone knife found in Virginia back in 1971 revealed that it was made of French-originating flint.

The tools date from 10,000 years before known Asian settlement, and have been chemically analysed to be from Europe.

plus you have to love people who think sourceless editorials can be relied upon to accurately portray science.

The sources are all pretty solid, naming specific evidence and specific scientists. By this logic, no one on NSG should ever cite anything from any "sourceless editorial" (newspaper), and they do with regularity.

[Walden Pond]

Because they're not the first people in America, they came to America and genocided the Native white people.

The "Native white people"? Are you that ... I don't even know what the word is, that you have to dig up people who have been dead millennia to justify yourself?

What? White people can be native.

[Walden Pond]

Beyond the obvious arguments, I think humans would have had some trouble crossing the Atlantic when we were still struggling with two plus two.

I don't see how this follows. You don't need advanced calculus to navigate an ice bridge in a canoe. Regardless, the Ice Age hunters probably did understand two plus two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat#History

Boats have served as short-distance transportation since early times.[1] Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, and findings in Crete dated 130,000 years ago[2], suggests that boats have been used since ancient times. The earliest boats have been predicted[3] to be logboats. The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7,000–10,000 years ago. The oldest recovered boat in the world is the Pesse canoe; it is a dugout or hollowed tree trunk from a Pinus sylvestris. It was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 B.C. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands;[4][5] other very old dugout boats have been recovered.[6][7][8][9] A 7,000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait.[10

At the time of the crossing, humans had been using boats for over 100,000 years. I think they could handle it.

[Seangoli]

The tools date from 10,000 years before known Asian settlement, and have been chemically analysed to be from Europe.

I still have to get to Fartsniffage's inquiry (Damn you!), but this is relatively quick. All flints are essentially what Archaeologists call "chert". Chemical analysis on chert is rather well-known to be difficult if not impossible due to the wide variety of inclusions that are present. The problem comes in that there has been no real or true "marker" found that is necessarily exclusive to a single chert source. Two chert samples known to be from the same source have been analyzed and appear to have widely different chemical signature, with one occasionally "appearing" to originate from a wholly different source.

That said, it's an intriguing find but hardly conclusive. In reality, you can't even rule out local sources a great deal due to the wide variation in chemical signatures that can be present in the same source, let alone sources an ocean away. Only in certain cases where a given chert type is known to be relatively homologous is such an analysis really conclusive. Most cherts, however, are incredibly variable which makes this piece of evidence rather suspect.

[Walden Pond]

Because they're not the first people in America, they came to America and genocided the Native white people.

You don't know that they genocided. There's also a high liklihood that they were simply absorbed.

What's the difference?

[Walden Pond]

I wonder why do these types of debates always degrade to flame wars...

I don't see what this discovery has to do with contemporary race relations or politics. Those stone-age Europeans weren't even Indo-European (modern European ancestors, respectively) to begin with.

Speaking of which, it still hasn't been accurately determined where Indo-Europeans themselves originated. Some speak of Caucasus and Asia Minor, others point at Southern Russia, Central Asia or even Western China.

Europeans != Indo-Europeans. There were humans in Europe long before the Indo-Europeans arrived, and they mixed. The Germanic languages in particular show signs of a pre-Indo-European substrate. To this day, Finnish, Estonian, Basque and Hungarian are non-Indo-European European languages/people.

[Farnhamia]

I wonder why do these types of debates always degrade to flame wars...

I don't see what this discovery has to do with contemporary race relations or politics. Those stone-age Europeans weren't even Indo-European (modern European ancestors, respectively) to begin with.

Speaking of which, it still hasn't been accurately determined where Indo-Europeans themselves originated. Some speak of Caucasus and Asia Minor, others point at Southern Russia, Central Asia or even Western China.

Europeans != Indo-Europeans. There were humans in Europe long before the Indo-Europeans arrived, and they mixed. The Germanic languages in particular show signs of a pre-Indo-European substrate. To this day, Finnish, Estonian, Basque and Hungarian are non-Indo-European European languages/people.

The Non-Indo-European Substrate in Germanic hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis. It's controversial and by no means proven.

You asked in the OP if this would or should affect race relations in North America, but I don't think you explained why you think they should or how. Let me ask you that now. If you've already answered, just point me to the post.

[Nazis in Space]

I repeat...

This statement would be hilariously incorrect even if the solutrean hypothesis was, for some reason, correct.

Besides, Injuns aren't particularly far removed from white, anyway.

Hee. The implication is that if (Darkie) Europeans made it to the Americas, and if they were genocided, the injuns genociding them would've been whiter than them, since their phenotype's characteristics were simply carried over from asia, while the European phenotype had yet to emerge for the whole solutrean shenanigans~

[Mosasauria]

I'd like some more research done into this.
It seems much more likely that Siberian natives crossed Beringia before any European could cross a North Atlantic land bridge.

[Farnhamia]

I'd like some more research done into this.
It seems much more likely that Siberian natives crossed Beringia before any European could cross a North Atlantic land bridge.

There hasn't been a land bridge between North America and Europe for 60 millions years or more. The idea is that they crossed along the edge of the ice sheet.

[The Archregimancy]

I have more time to address this this morning; my last post was typed up right before I went to bed. And while I'm supposed to be preparing a first year tutorial on ethnicity and archaeology this morning, I can at least vaguely claim that this is work-related.

The tools date from 10,000 years before known Asian settlement, and have been chemically analysed to be from Europe.

I still have to get to Fartsniffage's inquiry (Damn you!), but this is relatively quick. All flints are essentially what Archaeologists call "chert". Chemical analysis on chert is rather well-known to be difficult if not impossible due to the wide variety of inclusions that are present. The problem comes in that there has been no real or true "marker" found that is necessarily exclusive to a single chert source. Two chert samples known to be from the same source have been analyzed and appear to have widely different chemical signature, with one occasionally "appearing" to originate from a wholly different source.

That said, it's an intriguing find but hardly conclusive. In reality, you can't even rule out local sources a great deal due to the wide variation in chemical signatures that can be present in the same source, let alone sources an ocean away. Only in certain cases where a given chert type is known to be relatively homologous is such an analysis really conclusive. Most cherts, however, are incredibly variable which makes this piece of evidence rather suspect.

Writing as an actual archaeologist, I must say that Seangoli's grasp of the issues impresses me; he/she has clearly at the very least studied the topic fairly closely.

In any case, there are two serious flaws to Bradley and Stanford's new evidence (and, in fairness, we should also namecheck Darrin Lowery from the Smithsonian/University of Delaware, who's being doing some of the Delmarva field research):

1) To my mind, too much emphasis is being placed on a single unstratified projectile point discovered several decades ago out at sea, and whose context wasn't adequately recorded by the museum which curated it. Let's assume for the moment that it is French. This is not conclusive. I know for a fact that there's a corner of Central Park in New York which contains a surprisingly extensive 14th-century artefact assemblage. This isn't because medieval Englishmen were camping in central Manhattan, but rather because ship's ballast containing fill from a medieval English site was used to landscape that corner. The mouth of the Chesapeake - where this new projectile point was recovered - is an exceptionally busy sea lane that's seen trans-Atlantic trade for some four centuries, so there's a fairly simple alternative explanation if this turns out to be an isolated find.

2) Darrin Lowery's radiocarbon dating for his small assemblage of Delmarva projectile points is indirect; he's dated the soil, not the material culture. This is decent evidence, but not conclusive evidence. He needs a dateable organic feature unambiguously associated with human activity - a shell midden, a hearth, or some such - to conclusively prove the point. The problem here is that you can't radiocarbon date flint; you need something organic to get a C14 date. As anyone who's worked on Tidewater archaeological sites (and I have; I also once helped run a prehistoric archaeology lab in Upstate New York, albeit more than 20 years ago now) can tell you, it's by no means unknown to get intrusive artefacts in earlier stratigraphy. I don't know what Lowery's stratigraphy consists of, so I can't judge the specifics here, but more will need to be done here before the evidence can be considered conclusive.

Furthermore, the genetic and linguistic evidence demonstrating that the Americas were settled from Asia is pretty damn conclusive. The DNA evidence seems unequivocal. The latest research here was published in the The American Journal of Human Genetics in 2008 by Fagundes et al in a paper titled "Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas"

Abstract:

It is well accepted that the Americas were the last continents reached by modern humans, most likely through Beringia. However, the precise time and mode of the colonization of the New World remain hotly disputed issues. Native American populations exhibit almost exclusively five mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups (A–D and X). Haplogroups A–D are also frequent in Asia, suggesting a northeastern Asian origin of these lineages. However, the differential pattern of distribution and frequency of haplogroup X led some to suggest that it may represent an independent migration to the Americas. Here we show, by using 86 complete mitochondrial genomes, that all Native American haplogroups, including haplogroup X, were part of a single founding population, thereby refuting multiple-migration models. A detailed demographic history of the mtDNA sequences estimated with a Bayesian coalescent method indicates a complex model for the peopling of the Americas, in which the initial differentiation from Asian populations ended with a moderate bottleneck in Beringia during the last glacial maximum (LGM), around ∼23,000 to ∼19,000 years ago. Toward the end of the LGM, a strong population expansion started ∼18,000 and finished ∼15,000 years ago. These results support a pre-Clovis occupation of the New World, suggesting a rapid settlement of the continent along a Pacific coastal route.

The last sentence deals with the problem of C14 dating at Mesa Verde in Chile, which we'll leave aside for the moment. But even without needing to explain Mesa Verde and a couple of other pre-Clovis South American C14 dates, it's hard to deny the central conclusions arising from that mtDNA evidence. Those of you who can access the full article (I don't know if non-university computers can access it) will note that the authors specifically address the Solutrean hypothesis in their discussion.

Furthermore, we finally have decent linguistic evidence of a connection between North American and Asia in the form of the Dené–Yeniseian language family linking the (near-extinct) Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of North America (primarily in Alaska/Northwestern Canada, but also including Navajo and Apache). While the evidence - published in full as recently as 2010 - isn't universally accepted, the hypothesis has largely been greeted positively, and is certainly considered serious mainstream research even by those who are treating it with caution.

So anyone advancing a Solutrean hypothesis has to explain what happened to these Europeans. Why is there is the genetic evidence so singularly lacking? How can we explain away the genetic and linguistic evidence showing a clear link to Asia?

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't look at the new evidence for the Solutrean hypothesis closely and seriously, and those of you paying close attention to the above will have noticed that the Clovis-first model of settlement that dominated archaeological assumptions about the settlement of the Americas in the second half of the 20th century has come under serious strain of late (indeed, may now have been conclusively demolished if this 2011 publication in Science is accurate). So it's not as if archaeologists are incapable of re-examining existing hypotheses (though yes, we can be a conservative bunch). But a certain amount of caution might be helpful; after all, as I pointed out in my previous post, Bradley and Stanford have a book to sell. That doesn't automatically make them wrong; but it does help explain why this is getting so much publicity right now.

[Galla-]

Well we did take it back and all that, so it turned out alright in the end :smugface:

Because they're not the first people in America, they came to America and genocided the Native white people.

You don't know that they genocided. There's also a high liklihood that they were simply absorbed.

This is probably the only outcome tbh.

I somehow doubt hunter-gatherers would have had the resources to wage genocidal warfare on their enemies.

[Tsaraine]

As far as I can tell from the rather vague article, they are continuing to thump their chests about the "connection" without any actual new evidence being found (The sites in questions appear to be well-known, if not disputed, pre-Clovis period sites). They are just retooling their argument.

A paleolithic technology pun? That's awesome. I commend you, sir.

[Farnhamia]

As far as I can tell from the rather vague article, they are continuing to thump their chests about the "connection" without any actual new evidence being found (The sites in questions appear to be well-known, if not disputed, pre-Clovis period sites). They are just retooling their argument.

A paleolithic technology pun? That's awesome. I commend you, sir.

Very well done, indeed. I know one but it depends on an idiom that doesn't exist any longer and an understanding auroch diet that moderns don't have. I do know a joke from the Boer War, though.