For those who want to see criticism of Monte Verde, I recommend Anna C. Roosevelt and Stuart Fiedel.

Right now, however, this title is misleading: It should read "Plant and Animal DNA Suggests First Americans Didn't Use Ice-Free Corridor." That's all it demonstrates.

I'm seeing a lot of "fudge factors" on the dating of Clovis, etc. Willerslev is an extremely competent geneticist, but the DNA evidence strongly suggests that Native American ancestors came from Central, not East Asia.

There's a "romance" about boats, but despite claims the "evidence is underwater," it seems to me that there would've been "inland settlements" as well, and we haven't found any that are "pre-Clovis."

Science advances one funeral at a time. -_-

Britboy: Super interesting.

Thanks for posting.

P.S. Australian aborigines had a "romance" for boats, too.

Sea levels were considerable lower then, and their voyages consisted of sailing short distances, probably staying within sight of land.

They were also in tropical seas, and the Pacific around the Aleutians is colder than the proverbial witch's mammaries...

If you want to do some research and investigation, Google up Anna C. Roosevelt's video on the subject. She puts Monte Verde at around 8,000 years ago.

In that same conference, Jon M. Erlandson (the "Kelp Highway guy who originated all this "nonsense") speaks of flint "crescents" and insists they were the "WMD's of their day. Check out his "fudge factors on the dates"; he has them in use for over 3,000 years (given their early "post-Clovis" presence in the Great Basin). He also claims they were hafted to spear points (the bow and arrow was unknown; presumably they were atatl darts). If you believe that design was aerodynamically stable, I've still got that beach front propery north of here along the Great Salt Lake.

Simple explanation (the Eskimo "Ulu knife" is the same basic design) is they were used for cleaning fish and butchering waterfowl, which they trapped with snares.

Just an observation: The original post was an article about a possible way the Americas were settled 12,000 years ago. Nothing more or less. Nothing supports the BoM or Meldrum. Not in the least. So the attacks are misplaced.

The OP, being British, probably didn't know he was venturing into sacred cow territory when it comes to Clovis first. He probably had no idea that if he mentioned boats, people would jump to the ridiculous conclusion that he was supporting Jaredites, Mulekites, or any type of -ites.

Also, coming from a dogmatic religion, sometimes, it's just more of the same here--self appointed experts spouting off. It gets old.

Science evolves.

Assuming you're in the greater metropolitan Salt Lake area...

That codependent/narcissistic entitlement issue you've just put on display here is pretty resistant to therapeutic interventions, however. I'll check and see if there's an "Authorities Anonymous" meeting somewhere...

To wit, you're the one in violation of the boards rules with that personal attack against me (and I've been a well-respected regular here for 15 years).

Back in the rehab, we use to identify individuals like you by pointing out their lights are so dim, yet they persist in putting out others'...

Too, process comments of the sort you engaged in are generally avoided in polite conversations, although they are part-and-parcel to LDS psychopathology.

And that's an area I posses grad training in and professional experience.

Science isn't a club you can use to beat others with, particularly those better schooled on a subject than you are. Your rigidity is indicative of some pretty gross immaturities. I was careful to include both sides of the debate (the LDS view is irrelevant, of course, since it's a proven myth).

Now would you care to speak to the facts I raised? Otherwise I'll treat you as I used to a student when I taught in the rehab. He peristed in farting, and there's very little difference between his attention-getting tactics and yours.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2016 01:59AM by SL Cabbie.

Cabbie, I was quite surprised with your vitriol.

I don't see that you've fairly represented both sides that's all. Maybe you do. In any case, I wasn't the one doing the attacking. Re-read the post. Then read yours.

I didn't attack your education. I didn't presume you have a psychiatric condition and then make that public on the board. I didn't use social status as a weapon. I didn't compare you to patients or talk about my education.

Here is what I did:

1. I disagreed with the manner which you dominated the conversation and acted like an authority and dismissed other viewpoints and I made a snotty remark about holiday inn. Immature? Guilty. I saw it as funny.

2. I mentioned that the OP probably doesn't know that Clovis first is a touchy subject.

3. I said that science evolves. It does. Science isn't personal it's just facts. Sometimes as humans we don't know exactly how to interpret the facts we have, but that's part of the process.

Next, "Science isn't a club you can use to beat others with..."

I completely agree with that statement. In fact, I wrote the post because I felt some of the original posters were being railroaded for their views.

Rigidity? I don't see how supporting room for differing points of views is rigid.

Lastly, "....particularly those better schooled on a subject than you are." Condescending and not true.

And the biggest element in your denial is that perceptual blindness you've put on display with your "victim mentality."

You attacked me personally, and rather than report you, which I probably should have done, I elected to try to get past your perceptual filters.

Silly me... And unlike you, I made no pretext of minding my manners; I purposely went after your defenses and your anger is evidence I succeeded. Your phrase "self appointed experts spouting off" was decidedly pejorative and insulting.

And a moment of silence for a really sharp former poster who's no longer with us...

FlattopSF aka XYZ aka Kerry once noted,

"Because I said so isn't an effective academic argument" (or words to that effect; he was more articulate, however)

All your statements amount to "because I said so."

Here's some more good advice you can ignore: Let the original posters weigh in rather than engaging in "codependent caretaking."

Finally, it's a straw man argument to suggest I claimed boats didn't exist ~15,000 years ago. What I said was I'm of the school--along with Anna Roosevelt, Stuart Fiedel, C. Vance Haynes, Dina Dincauze, and others, all of whom have far bigger degress than I do--that boats--or to use the more precise term "watercraft"--were not used to ferry people to this hemisphere. The genetic evidence strongly indicates the ancestors of Native Americans orginated in Siberia/Mongolia around the Lake Baikal region. There's a lot of land between here and there.

There are others who believe otherwise, and they have their followers of course. There's "considerable prestige" attached getting publicity for one's claims; we saw this with Tom Dillehay and Monte Verde... Waters has a similar site, Buttermilk Creek, that he's trying to gain acceptance for, only the problem is there are no organic remains, so he's opted for "optical thermoluminescent dating" because C-14 dating methods are unavailable.

What you're claiming as "science" isn't that, because the science "isn't settled yet," and what we're seeing instead is salesmanship.

And yes, my analyses could be vulnerable to the same "because I said so" charges, but I'll be happy to provide evidence to support my claims.

In fact, I already have.

If you imagine yourself as a primitive people thinking of moving away from enemies, would you be safer walking into the territory of strangers, or would it be smarter to boat down the coast looking for human habitations?

Wouldn't it be smart to view the reaction of strangers to new people from a safe distance in a boat than to just show up on foot?

Seems to me they would send out scouts in boats with gifts and have them report back, no matter how long it might take.


Kathleen

"If you imagine yourself as a primitive people thinking of moving away from enemies, would you be safer walking into the territory of strangers, or would it be smarter to boat down the coast looking for human habitations?"

The first Americans probably weren't looking to escape other humans; they were probably looking for food and warmth.

There was food and warmth to be had in Europe when the Mayflower came over....

Humans have always left physically comfortable surroundings for more freedom, more safety, etc.


Kathleen

>
> Humans have always left physically comfortable
> surroundings for more freedom, more safety, etc.
>

...or less oppression, less danger... They may have not have been all that concerned about where they were headed as much as they were concerned about getting out of where they were...

"There was food and warmth to be had in Europe when the Mayflower came over...."

The article in this thread refers to the prehistoric people who emigrated from Asia to the Americas circa 12,000 years ago. Because the earth was still warming up from the last Ice Age at that time---and those people came from frigid Siberia/Mongolia---when they, or their descendants, reached the western American coast, they undoubtedly kept traveling southward, because the further south they went, they found warmer temperatures and more food sources. That's why native American cultures grew larger and more technologically advanced the closer they settled to the equator, as opposed to those who remained in cold areas.

As for the Pilgrims---of course, they came to America primarily to practice their desired religions, free of the dictates of the Church of England. But they also knew that the Americas held the promise of warmer climes and better crop growing than they were used to in Europe. The Spaniards and the French had already been in the Americas for more than a century, and the English colonists were aware of the reports of the vast new lands and opportunities. If everything that the Europeans wanted was already available in Europe, they wouldn't have bothered risking all to colonize America.

I'm with you on that one (with a likely "isolation period" either in Berengia or Siberia that may have lasted from 18,000 to 15,000 years ago. The "genetic timetable" strong suggests that one, and it's likely the original population that migrated here only numbered in the hundreds if that many), but as long as Monte Verde is "claimed to be legitimate" (some very articulate and educated sorts don't think it is), then we're stuck with what looks to me like a lot of chaos and wrongthink.

The "Coastal Migration Hypothesis" is popular right now, but even if that happened (there's no evidence, just a lot of speculation), we're only talking a difference of 1-2,000 years.

Regardless, this was way before the Mulekites, and there's absolutely no evidence for any Middle Eastern connections, despite what Rodney Meldrum and Wayne May are claiming (John L. Sorenson, too).

At least that's what the genetic evidence indicates so far.

Too, unlike later "farming sorts," hunter-gatherers were generally peaceful sorts (warfare is inefficient and not conducive to survival).

/wannabe anthropologist voice off

See my post above, also, about water temperatures of the Aleutians... Also, there's this picture, taken in Mongolia, not Montana:

https://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsingleimage.html?mode=singleimage&orig_handle=habataku&orig_number=916&handle=habataku&number=916&album_id=291

More and more evidence is leading towards both early humans and even archaic humans using boats. Whether the Americas were settled by boat, I don't know, but to pre-suppose that they weren't able to is very culturally centric.

So interesting how dogmatic people can be even when it comes to science.

I still presuppose that Jaredite submarines are a crock of shit.

"More and more evidence is leading towards both early humans and even archaic humans using boats. Whether the Americas were settled by boat, I don't know, but to pre-suppose that they weren't able to is very culturally centric."

I don't know that any scholars ever questioned the possibility of prehistoric people using crude boats to emigrate. Ancient people probably made crude rafts or boats initially for fishing or crossing rivers, and the technology which improved the crafts and made it possible for longer voyages grew as time passed. I never thought about that issue much until I watched the documentary "The Real Eve" about 15 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ca1AC5hVtE

This program noted that Negroid inhabitants of a Malaysian island called the Samang people had close DNA relationships with Negroid people in East Africa. The DNA research found that they have lived in Malaysia about 50k years. Obviously, their ancient ancestors couldn't have made it from Africa to Malaysia without doing at least some island-hopping.

Also:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/09/aborigines-the-first-out-of-africa-the-first-in-asia-and-australia/245392/

"The first genome analysis of an Aborigine reveals that these early Australians took part in the first human migration out of Africa. They were the first to arrive in Asia some 70,000 years ago, roaming the area at least 24,000 years before the ancestors of present-day Europeans and Asians. They were also the first to live in Australia, according to DNA results of a 90-year-old hair sample of a young man that link Aborigines to the first inhabitants of this part of the world about 50,000 years ago."

Ancient Siberians undoubtedly used boats to hunt fish and seals etc. I see no reason to think that they wouldn't have had boats of some sort as they made their way from Siberia to the Americas 12,000+- years ago.

What we DO know, as far as Mormonism is concerned, is that there's no evidence of any Semitic/Hebrew based people emigrating to the Americas circa 2500 B.C. as the Book of Mormon claims, whether by boat or any other means. No DNA evidence and no physical evidence whatsoever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period

"The Arctic Ocean between the huge ice sheets of America and Eurasia was not frozen throughout, but like today probably was only covered by relatively shallow ice, subject to seasonal changes and riddled with icebergs calving from the surrounding ice sheets. According to the sediment composition retrieved from deep-sea cores there must even have been times of seasonally open waters."

It's their use in "human migrations in Arctic regions" that I find problematic.

Those places are mighty cold, folks, even in summer. Too, the Eskimos are newcomers to Arctic regions; the consensus is they developed their culture around 5,000 years ago (per Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel").

Maritime technologies take time to evolve, often on the order of several centuries, and I realize everyone who's ever believed the Book of Mormon was "the most correct book" was indoctrinated early into the "romance of seafaring." However, in Northern Siberia, reindeer herding was one of the earliest cultural accomplishments. My belief is the ancestors of today's Indians followed reindeer/caribou herds--which are migratory and wide-ranging--into this hemisphere. There's also a "romance to big game hunting" (i.e. megafauna such as mammoths), and there's no doubt that took place, but those were big critters that were difficult to kill.

Finally, there's no consensus on how long ago Australia was colonized. That's not an area I have any expertise, but estimates vary from 40,000 years ago to aound 70,000. Clearly boats were involved then, but I repeat, sea levels were far lower and the temperatures way warmer. The evidence that rising oceans offer against maritime colonization is the isolation Australian native people experienced after the initial peopling of the continent.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2016 12:23PM by SL Cabbie.

The people doing the moving probably never realized they were doing so.

Massive popular movements generally occur very slowly. One generation lives in Place X; its children move 10 or 20 miles to find more farm land or new territory for hunting and gathering. Over this period the group still has contact with its parental culture and society. The next generation then moves a bit farther. It's several generations before a subgroup is in a significantly different place in terms of topography, climate, environment. Its myths and religion, culture and clothing, evolve over the same timeframe. The new group/subgroup may believe that it came from somewhere else, but the change is so gradual that the origin myths may have little or no bearing on the actual history.

So a group moving from lower latitudes of Asia up through the relatively unpopulated parts to the northeast, then across Beringia/Bering Strait, then down into North America would not perceive itself as having relocated. The movement and the displacement of earlier inhabitants, if there was any, is so gradual that it usually goes unnoticed.

Although I strongly suggest, that yes, the people at least knew they were moving, and of course it was their descendants who generally occupied the new regions.

A few years ago we had an academic conference here with a number of archaeologists and anthropologists. I asked a carload about Monte Verde, was quizzed about my own modest credentials, got an "Oh, you're one of us" stamp-of-approval, and then the "lady in charge" asked her colleagues whether they thought the Monte Verde dates were valid."

They all did, but they all answered very slowly and carefully after considerable thought.

The one thing they all chimed in with, though, is that if the residents at MV came from Berengia, they "must've made a beeline" to South America.

I found that problematic, for the reasons you've outlined. Moreover, the migration was from "north to south," which meant they would encounter different temperate zones in short order. Adapting to and "deriving a living" from different climes strikes me as an argument against such a rapid movement to the south.

Always great to see yet another line of evidence that implies the "most correct book" is a con/fraud/BS.

So is it fair to say that regarding the issues of who and when the Americas were settled, the book of mormon is uniquely positioned and acknowledged as having nothing useful to contribute?

Absolutely.

"So is it fair to say that regarding the issues of who and when the Americas were settled, the book of mormon is uniquely positioned and acknowledged as having nothing useful to contribute?"

I wouldn't say that the BOM is unique in that regard. The people who believe that the Americas were settled by ancient space aliens are in the same category.

? There are people in America ??

They asked Ghandi: "What do you think of Western Civilization?"

Ghandi replies:"I think that's a wonderful idea!"