Man in Americas earlier than thought

[Psi Baba]

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

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.

I thought this part was also worth quoting (for those believers who still don't get how real science is done):
Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal next year which is the standard method by which scientists announce their findings

Until research is peer-reviewed, objective experts in the field have not necessarily had an opportunity to evaluate a scientist's methods, or weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.

[Soapy Sam]

Rather makes you wonder why he has issued a press release now though.

[Correa Neto]

Beside´s Soapy sam´s quite valid question, there´s also another issue:

Isn´t 50ky quite beyon the method´s safe precision margin?

[CBL4]

There have been claims of other sites with extremely old dates. Many share a problem with this one in that the dating was done by burned materials. The "burned plant material" could be from human fires or from natural or even other non-fire sources.

I cannot find the name of the claim I am thinking of but it is not accepted. The archeologists involved did not allow proper inspection of the site during the excavation which meant that no one was convinced that the burns were from fire pits and not forest fires. I hope this site has been handled better.

Here is another "firepit" claim that is no longer accepted:
While revisiting a site for the Nevada State Museum at Tule Springs in 1962-63, Haynes initially accepted radiocarbon dates produced by earlier research showing the site was occupied some 25,000 years ago. Further research established the dates came not from firepit charcoal as suspected, but from ancient carbonized plant material (lignite) that had mimicked the appearance of fire pits - producing erroneous readings and scuttling dating accuracy.
http://www.athenapub.com/12firsta.htm

CBL

[Goshawk]

Well, generally speaking, whenever a scientist issues a press release or holds a press conference before he has actually published his data, it's because of funding--he hasn't got any, and he'd like to have some.

And Goodyear has been digging there for a long time, with AFAIK nothing very substantial to show for it. So maybe he finally got some artifacts (last May, actually, it said in the article), and maybe now's the time when somebody somewhere said, "Hey, I'm not made of money ya know", and he had to bring out the Stuff and show it off.