Archaeologists say human in Americas thousands of years earlier than expected

[jay gw]

(CNN) -- Archeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years.

An archaeologist from the University of South Carolina today announced radiocarbon dating results of burned plant material dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago.

"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

That would make it significantly older than previously discovered sites, which were thought by most scientists to be from man's earliest venture into the Americas, about 13,000 years ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/17/carolina.dig/index.html

I guess it would be mean to say, "wow, not only did they get no further than a stone age culture, but had thousands of years more to do it"?

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by jay gw
I guess it would be mean to say, "wow, not only did they get no further than a stone age culture, but had thousands of years more to do it"?

Not necessarily. The find doesn't imply a constant human presence from 50,000 years ago. It might be that small groups of humans arrived in the Americas then, but died out and had no influence on the culture founded 13,000 years ago.

[Cleon]

Originally posted by jay gw
I guess it would be mean to say, "wow, not only did they get no further than a stone age culture, but had thousands of years more to do it"?

It wouldn't be "mean," just "inaccurate," if not "outright baloney."

Assuming this study turns out to be true--and I've seen no indication otherwise--there is no reason to think that the people in this site were the ancestors of what we call "Native Americans." When you think about it, they probably werent; if mankind had been in the New World for 50,000 straight years we'd see more evidence to that effect (sites that would date to 50,000 years like this one, some would date to 45,000, etc).

We already know of two major waves of immigration into the new world; most Native nations descend from one of these. However, other cultures do and have died out; the most striking example I can think of offhand is the Viking colonies set up a millenium ago in Eastern Canada and Greenland. These folks either packed up their bags and left, or died out. (Most likely a combination of the two.) They left no descendants.

The other aspect is what you consider a "stone age culture." Most people think of that as foraging (or "hunter-gatherer") societies. Of course, many Native nations developed sedentary civilizations just fine and dandy, even developing some metallurgic skills. The Aztec, Teotihuacan, Mayan, Inca, and Anasazi civilizations are some examples of societies that moved way, way, way beyond a "stone age culture."

[aerocontrols]

jay gw:

I just want to thank you for altering the headlines of your articles in such odd ways. Changing

Man in Americas earlier than thought

to

Archaeologists say human in Americas thousands of years earlier than expected

Makes it a lot funnier as I imagine the first arrivals showing up while perhaps Mother Nature tries to hurriedly get the place ready for them. When were humans expected to arrive?

And this one:

Quality of life study: World was better in the 1970s than it is today

where your thread title implies that a study of the quality of life in Britain can be extrapolated out to the rest of the world. This had me doing a double-take as well.


I would attribute this tendency to the possibility that you might be a poor English speaker, but aside from your titles, your English seems to be fine.