Great article on the early origins of fishing and human migration. Do you think we immigrated by and land bridge, by sea, or both?"People are discovering antique fishing tackle all the time, in closets and at garage sales, but none of that compares to discoveries made recently by archaeologists at two of the Channel Islands off Southern California. Looking for signs of ancient human settlement, they unearthed meticulously-crafted spearheads and other tools that date back 12,000 years and provide insight into the lives of a seafaring culture that obtained bounty from the ocean.
The astonishing discoveries, at three sites on Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands west of Santa Barbara, strongly support the theory that during an era when the first traces of humans appeared in the archaeological record in North America, a coastal culture existed that was distinct from the well-chronicled inland Clovis culture, which consisted of big-game hunters who subsisted on mastodons and other large mammals.
A 15-member team led by Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History found chipped stone tools, used for fishing and hunting, along with an abundance of discarded seashells and bones. The newly discovered sites might help scientists learn more about how North America became populated. It's widely believed that people arrived via a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, but some scientists believe seafaring migration occurred.
Erlandson explained that his team's find supports the notion that mariners were either first to inhabit North America, or that they arrived at about the same time as those via the land route.
While the recent finds are not the oldest in North America, Braje explained in the New Scientist story that "this pushes back the chronology of New World seafaring to 12,000, maybe 13,000 years ago. It gets us a big step closer to showing that a coastal migration route happened, or was at least possible."
To read the full article check out Grind TV
The astonishing discoveries, at three sites on Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands west of Santa Barbara, strongly support the theory that during an era when the first traces of humans appeared in the archaeological record in North America, a coastal culture existed that was distinct from the well-chronicled inland Clovis culture, which consisted of big-game hunters who subsisted on mastodons and other large mammals.
A 15-member team led by Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History found chipped stone tools, used for fishing and hunting, along with an abundance of discarded seashells and bones. The newly discovered sites might help scientists learn more about how North America became populated. It's widely believed that people arrived via a land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, but some scientists believe seafaring migration occurred.
Erlandson explained that his team's find supports the notion that mariners were either first to inhabit North America, or that they arrived at about the same time as those via the land route.
While the recent finds are not the oldest in North America, Braje explained in the New Scientist story that "this pushes back the chronology of New World seafaring to 12,000, maybe 13,000 years ago. It gets us a big step closer to showing that a coastal migration route happened, or was at least possible."
To read the full article check out Grind TV
0 comments:
Post a Comment