Comments on: About that 130,000 y.o. Human Occupation in California https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/ Wed, 06 Dec 2017 04:08:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: Li D https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461825 Thu, 20 Jul 2017 09:25:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461825 Just popping this here in case anyones interested in Australian stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/19/dig-finds-evidence-of-aboriginal-habitation-up-to-80000-years-ago

]]> By: Wow https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461824 Wed, 24 May 2017 13:12:11 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461824 Given it’s the telegraph, it’s probably the reporting rather than the scientists. I’d go with “not” as the headline puts it, but it could be that the paper shows the earliest form of tool-using specialisation and demarcation (you know, like stonemasons or that sort of thing, where only initiated groups are allowed) or similar.

]]> By: David Kirtley https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461823 Wed, 24 May 2017 12:29:54 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461823 Great article, Greg.

In similar news, a new fossil hominid discovered in Europe has “rewritten” our understanding of humans originating in Africa. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/

Or not. I’m going with not.

]]> By: D. Terrill https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461822 Wed, 17 May 2017 18:51:31 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461822 Great article. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

]]> By: Wow https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461821 Thu, 11 May 2017 09:50:58 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461821 OK, where did you get that belief from?

Because as far as I recall, that is the number of COMPLETE skeletons.

]]> By: A. U. Contraire https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461820 Thu, 11 May 2017 06:02:13 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461820 I believe the total number of H. Erectus skeletons found anywhere are on the order of 50 after decades of dedicated searching from China to Africa. It seems a little early to have a lot of confidence that absence of evidence is necessarily evidence of absence.

Just in the last couple of years Aboriginal genes were found to be present in native South Americans but not in native North American populations, which is quite the mystery. Momentum is building for the hypothesis that North America was actually populated from the south via Central and South America after the ice sheet retreated from the last glaciation. If the initial peopling was via seafaring down the Pacific coast, all bets are off on near-Clovis being the final word.

I’ll be surprised if the peopling of America doesn’t get a lot more complicated in the next few decades with the dates getting pushed back. Just how far remains to be seen. Replacement and extinction may possibly be part of the story.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461819 Wed, 10 May 2017 23:26:30 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461819 In reply to A. U. Contraire.

The reasoning you use is reasonable! The counter argument is the lack of evidence where there really should be evidence, combined with the fact that what is presented here as evidence is known to have other much more likely explanations.

]]> By: A. U. Contraire https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461818 Wed, 10 May 2017 22:09:26 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461818 ” If there was some kind of a hominin running around then — which is very unlikely and indeed almost impossible to imagine — but if there was one, it would eventually be bumped into. ”

I don’t get that reasoning, other than a current paucity of archaeological evidence. Hominins were in East Asia by at least 1.5 million years ago. Since then tens of glaciations have occurred, and my understanding is that land mammals have made the trip between Asia and America over that timespan. So, hominins populated the globe from South Africa to Europe to East Asia. There is even some evidence of possible seafaring from Mediterranean islands. But America was a Beringian land bridge too far?

I find it very easy to imagine a hominin in America. In fact, it seems more puzzling to me as to why they didn’t make the trip with other land mammals given their apparent wanderlust. Part of the reason Clovis-first dominated the peopling of America for so long was that archaeologists just stopped digging at the Clovis layer.

]]> By: Tyvor Winn https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461817 Wed, 10 May 2017 21:58:02 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461817 #58: It reminds me of earthquake damage due to repetitive earthquakes. Even if no single shock of a certain magnitude could cause complete failure, the cumulative effect of several can. Metal fatigue is similar.

]]> By: Li D https://gregladen.com/blog/2017/05/02/about-that-130000-human-occupation-in-california/#comment-461816 Wed, 10 May 2017 09:55:20 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=24025#comment-461816 #56
“…but it does look like many of the New World megafauna went extinct each Glacial Maximum, with a few species going extinct each time. ”
This feels intuitivly correct at the same time as intuitivly incorrect.
An odd feeling indeed!
I bow to whatever hard evidence suggests.

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