Poop Changes Our History!

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RedGlitter
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Poop Changes Our History!

Post by RedGlitter »

Fossil Feces Is Earliest Evidence of N. America Humans



David Wolman

for National Geographic News

April 3, 2008

It's no load of crap: Scientists have discovered the earliest evidence of humans in North America—in 14,300-year-old fossilized feces.

The discovery of the preserved scat fragments, known as coprolites, levels a major blow against the popular Clovis-first theory of how people first came to the Americas.

Since the summer of 2002, University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and his research team have uncovered about 700 coprolite samples from a group of bone-dry caves in the desert of central Oregon, including several from humans.

After repeated radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses, the scientists concluded that the oldest of the human-produced material was deposited at least a thousand years before the so-called Clovis culture, according to a paper appearing in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"Clearly Older Than Clovis"

The popular Clovis-first model (named for the New Mexico town where artifacts of a certain type were first found) holds that humans arrived in North America via the Bering land bridge that once connected Alaska to Asia. They then walked southward through an ice-free corridor during a period of glacial retreat.

For a long time, that model was king, ensconced in countless high school textbooks. But in the 1990s, an ancient settlement at Monte Verde, Chile, was found to be 14,500 years old.



Monte Verde posed a problem for the original theory, because the ice-free corridor hadn't formed by 14,500 years ago. Travelers must have arrived some other way and at an earlier date.

(Related: "Clovis People Not First Americans, Study Shows" [February 23, 2007].)

But Monte Verde remained an isolated case.

"People who don't like Monte Verde said, Well, it's only one site, and we need to replicate that," explained Don Grayson, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington.

"The importance of the find at Oregon's Paisley Caves is that it is that second site."

What's more, the researchers have done "exquisite" radiocarbon dating. "It's clearly older than Clovis," Grayson said.

Covering All the Bases

It's not the first claim to fame for Oregon's Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves, which in the 1930s were the site of extensive excavation. At the time, archaeologists claimed to have found secure evidence of human artifacts alongside the remains of extinct mammals.

No one believed it, and they were right not to, Grayson said, because the methodology was flawed.

"Jenkins and his group went back to Paisley to see if there was still material worth excavating, and to do the job right," he said.

Jenkins said that in the past, researchers had made several claims about pre-Clovis sites, but "they were all proven wrong."

"I wanted to be really cautious, because this site is simply too important," he said.

To verify that that the coprolites they found were human and date accurately, Jenkins enlisted DNA experts to conduct multiple tests on the samples.

Results indicated that the people in those caves were of the Native American founding genetic groups, or haplogroups, A2 and B2.

This means researchers must recalibrate when humans first migrated to the New World,

Jenkins said. Ideal For Study

In his lab in Eugene, Oregon, Jenkins opens a drawer to show one of the samples. The plastic bag is labeled with a bunch of numbers and letters—a meticulous coding system for tracking which cave the sample came from and where and from what depth it was excavated.

The coprolite itself looks like a hardened clump of brown mud of a, uh, familiar shape.

For archaeology, coprolites are ideal remains, Jenkins said. Bones can be controversial, because indigenous people may take offense to excavation. Bones also calcify over time, making it difficult to extract viable DNA.

In contrast, no one takes offense to examining stool samples, which are filled with cellular material shed by the harsh environment of the colon.

"You don't think of it," Jenkins said, "but you're leaving behind genetic signatures every morning."

The University of Washington's Grayson added: "No one would have predicted that the next Monte Verde would be based on turds."



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Galbally
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Poop Changes Our History!

Post by Galbally »

Thats interesting RG, but I don't believe it, I believe God has put those corpolites there to test your faith. The first humans didn't reach America until it was created and that was 6,000 years ago, and they were all put in place with their little teepees and wigwams by god with his big god hands, as were all the trees which he stuck in with the heavenly shovel, and the animals, which Noah very cleverly managed to collect up when the flood happened because of the fatted calf and all of that stuff, even though he was in the Holy land, probably god did that as well. So there's my theory, God put the crap there to confuse the liberals and the homosexuals who are all going to hell, which is run by muslims. :D
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dubs
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Poop Changes Our History!

Post by dubs »

Galbally;827779 wrote: Thats interesting RG, but I don't believe it, I believe God has put those corpolites there to test your faith. The first humans didn't reach America until it was created and that was 6,000 years ago, and they were all put in place with their little teepees and wigwams by god with his big god hands, as were all the trees which he stuck in with the heavenly shovel, and the animals, which Noah very cleverly managed to collect up when the flood happened because of the fatted calf and all of that stuff, even though he was in the Holy land, probably god did that as well. So there's my theory, God put the crap there to confuse the liberals and the homosexuals who are all going to hell, which is run by muslims. :D


:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl




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Bryn Mawr
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Poop Changes Our History!

Post by Bryn Mawr »

I thought that for several years the belief was that man had been in the Americas for at least 20,000 years.

Evidence from flint tools which exactly match tools found in Spain dated at least that far BP.

You might find :-

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037905/posts

of interest but I'll try to pull out the New Scientist article I'm thinking of that gave full details.
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spot
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by spot »

Bryn Mawr wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:55 pm I thought that for several years the belief was that man had been in the Americas for at least 20,000 years.

Evidence from flint tools which exactly match tools found in Spain dated at least that far BP.

You might find :-

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037905/posts

of interest but I'll try to pull out the New Scientist article I'm thinking of that gave full details.

The nail for the Clovis-first coffin has finally arrived.
Humans reached the Americas at least 7,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new findings.

The topic of when the continent was first settled from Asia has been controversial for decades.

Many researchers are sceptical of evidence for humans in the North American interior much earlier than 16,000 years ago.

Now, a team working in New Mexico has found scores of human footprints dated to between 23,000 and 21,000 years old.

The discovery could transform views about when the continent was settled. It suggests there could have been great migrations that we know nothing about. And it raises the possibility that these earlier populations could have gone extinct.

The footprints were formed in soft mud on the margins of a shallow lake which now forms part of Alkali Flat in White Sands.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58638854

Clovis-first adherents are now falling back on all inhabitants before Clovis becoming extinct without interbreeding with the newcomers. I can hear straws being grasped.
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Bryn Mawr
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by Bryn Mawr »

spot wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:54 pm
Bryn Mawr wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:55 pm I thought that for several years the belief was that man had been in the Americas for at least 20,000 years.

Evidence from flint tools which exactly match tools found in Spain dated at least that far BP.

You might find :-

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037905/posts

of interest but I'll try to pull out the New Scientist article I'm thinking of that gave full details.

The nail for the Clovis-first coffin has finally arrived.
Humans reached the Americas at least 7,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new findings.

The topic of when the continent was first settled from Asia has been controversial for decades.

Many researchers are sceptical of evidence for humans in the North American interior much earlier than 16,000 years ago.

Now, a team working in New Mexico has found scores of human footprints dated to between 23,000 and 21,000 years old.

The discovery could transform views about when the continent was settled. It suggests there could have been great migrations that we know nothing about. And it raises the possibility that these earlier populations could have gone extinct.

The footprints were formed in soft mud on the margins of a shallow lake which now forms part of Alkali Flat in White Sands.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58638854

Clovis-first adherents are now falling back on all inhabitants before Clovis becoming extinct without interbreeding with the newcomers. I can hear straws being grasped.
Teach them not to discard evidence just because it doesn’t fit their pet theory.
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by LarsMac »

How do they know that the footprints were not made by the same type of hominids that eventually developed the Clovis Points?

I mean we do know that humans probably did not just magically air drop into New Mexico and start making really cool Spearpoints.
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spot
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by spot »

I think they can trace similarities of flint-napping technique and product along the migration route between North-East Siberia and Mexico. Bryn might have a better notion.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by Betty Boop »

Galbally wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:07 pm Thats interesting RG, but I don't believe it, I believe God has put those corpolites there to test your faith. The first humans didn't reach America until it was created and that was 6,000 years ago, and they were all put in place with their little teepees and wigwams by god with his big god hands, as were all the trees which he stuck in with the heavenly shovel, and the animals, which Noah very cleverly managed to collect up when the flood happened because of the fatted calf and all of that stuff, even though he was in the Holy land, probably god did that as well. So there's my theory, God put the crap there to confuse the liberals and the homosexuals who are all going to hell, which is run by muslims. :D
Trying to catch up with the discussion but this post reminded me just how amazingly funny Galbally was. :lol: :(
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spot
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Re: Poop Changes Our History!

Post by spot »

spot wrote:
Bryn Mawr wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:37 pm
spot wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:54 pm [...] Many researchers are sceptical of evidence for humans in the North American interior much earlier than 16,000 years ago.

Now, a team working in New Mexico has found scores of human footprints dated to between 23,000 and 21,000 years old.

The discovery could transform views about when the continent was settled. It suggests there could have been great migrations that we know nothing about. And it raises the possibility that these earlier populations could have gone extinct.

The footprints were formed in soft mud on the margins of a shallow lake which now forms part of Alkali Flat in White Sands.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58638854

Clovis-first adherents are now falling back on all inhabitants before Clovis becoming extinct without interbreeding with the newcomers. I can hear straws being grasped.

Teach them not to discard evidence just because it doesn’t fit their pet theory.




Allow me to add today's Guardian piece to the thread:

New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.

Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.

Dating of the ornaments and sediment at the Brazil site where they were found points to an age of 25,000-27,000 years ago, the researchers reported. That’s several thousand years before some earlier theories had suggested the first people arrived in the Americas, after migrating out from Africa and then Eurasia.
During the second migration, the same lineage of people settled in Japan, which could help explain similarities in prehistoric arrowheads and spears found in the Americas, China and Japan.
Some of the first humans in the Americas came from China, study finds
Read more

“We now have good evidence – together with other sites from South and North America – that we have to rethink our ideas about the migration of humans to the Americas,” said Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, study co-author and archaeologist at the Federal University of São Carlos in Brazil.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... e-americas

Anyone clinging to Clovis-first these days can scarcely describe themselves as scientists, I've lost count of the number of findings they've dogmatically rubbished. They're as far down the ladder of credibility as phrenologists.

Discussion turned earlier this week on whether the Anthropocene should be officially recognized, and whether 1800 would be a good date to set as the start. Allow me to suggest 40,000 BP instead. Go and ask a Giant Sloth where it figures on the archaeological evidence of mass human depredation.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
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