The Solutrean hypothesis thread

reply to post by Hanslune


Hi there Hans,

In the case of new Technologies, it doesnt take large numbers to have an effect on a population.
The perfect example is how rapidly firearms changed feudal Japan.
In the 1530-40's ? a Portuguese ship ran aground in Japan, there was a lone survivor and a single musket was recovered. Within five years the Japanese were making firearms whose quality was far superior to European weapons for several decades.
It also changed the way the Japanese conducted warfare, after the gun revolution , you see the rise of effective peasant armies.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by Hanslune

 

Hi there Hans,

In the case of new Technologies, it doesnt take large numbers to have an effect on a population.
The perfect example is how rapidly firearms changed feudal Japan.
In the 1530-40's ? a Portuguese ship ran aground in Japan, there was a lone survivor and a single musket was recovered. Within five years the Japanese were making firearms whose quality was far superior to European weapons for several decades.
It also changed the way the Japanese conducted warfare, after the gun revolution , you see the rise of effective peasant armies.

Hello Punkinworks

Good points but I'm not sure what you were replying too?

reply to post by Hanslune


I was responding to your response to Byrd's comment

While I'm not skeptical about the possibility of people crossing from Europe into the Americas during the Ice Age, I'm skeptical about their being sufficient numbers to make any sort of impact.

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Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by Hanslune

 

I was responding to your response to Byrd's comment

While I'm not skeptical about the possibility of people crossing from Europe into the Americas during the Ice Age, I'm skeptical about their being sufficient numbers to make any sort of impact.

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I'd say the vast difference between these 2 situations is that the Portuguese ship ran aground on an island populated for millennia whereas the Solutrean Hypothesis assumes the land was devoid of humans up to that point.

reply to post by peter vlar


But it's clear from the archaeological record that humans have been in the new world for a a very long time, at least 25 k years, and possibly 200k years. The meadowcroft rock shelter, cactus hill and topper all have extremely old occupations
Pendejo cave in new Mexico has occupations going back 23k years and sites in Mexico have yieldd objects 40 k years old.

And as I said earlier the present state of the solutrean hypothesis is flawed, mostly because it is looking in the wrong direction. The influence wasn't from Europe to the Americas but from the Americas to Europe.
If the dating of the Cinmar point is correct, then the whole hypothosis falls apart, because at 22.7 k years old it predates the appearance of the solutrean complex by 700 years and predates the appearance of the leaf blade pattern by more than 2000 years.

reply to post by punkinworks10


I would definitely agree, when taking sites like monte verde, and the meadowcroft shelter into consideration, that human habitation of the Americas has gone on much longer than most conventional anthropologists would like to admit. The original model never made a lot of sense to me in school when they tried to convince me that the original migration was from Beringia then South, yet the Iroquois and Algonquin were supposed to have moved into the northeastern US via the South. The Cinmar point, regardless of the dating is definitely interesting and could be the cart that breaks the Camels back. However I think we could both agree that even 700 years, geologically is like an afternoon nap and may become inconsequential if further points are found and dated, or the flip side is it could open the doors for further acceptance of the likelihood of multiple migrations into the Americas. Unfortunately, all the best evidence is going to be underwater, like the Cinmar point. I'd be willing to bet that the waters off the east coast of South America would also be a likely place to search. The more I look the more conflicting data I seem to have to sift through like the pattern of X haplo group in the northeast. I don't necessarily back the Solutrean Hypothesis. I just enjoy anything that could possibly shake up the foundations of how we look at the world and correct or incorrect, its certainly an interesting possibility.

reply to post by peter vlar


Very nicely put.

One thing that has bugged me your years, is the idea that hominids can only "evolve" in Africa.
We are, with out a doubt, an extremely adoptable animal.
We know homo erectus left Africa very early, and astralopicenes may have journeyedour even earlier, so why can't modern humans evolve independently from each other, in widely separated areas.
With the discovery of homo florensis, the denisovans , the red deer cave people and the genetic shadow of an undiscovered ancestor the old model for human dispersals is inadequate.

reply to post by punkinworks10


I agree that its a terribly naïve and potentially complacent position that hominids could only have evolved in Africa. In fact I find it rather contrary to evolutionary theory in general. As you said, homo erectus made its way well into Asia and Gigantopithecus had to have evolved from someone earlier and its remains have been found not just in China but India and Viet Nam as well. Also, the likelihood the homo erectus used at least rafts to cross some fairly large bodies of water can be inferred by remains found on islands off of Java as well as off the coast of Yemen and even England(though I cant remember at the moment if Britain was cut off from mainland Europe for the entirety of H. Erectus existence. But when you consider those facts in with something like Heyerdals Kon Tiki voyage, its at least very possible if not outright likely that Homo Erectus had figured out how to make at least small outings into the ocean that helped lead to its outward expansion. And if H. Erectus could do it then it would not be a huge leap of logic to think that Neanderthal with its larger brain capacity could have also figured it out, possibly via direct observation. Another thought on "out of Africa" is the minor glitch that H.Erectus Georgicus throws into the works as these Asian remains are contemporary with the oldest African H. Erectus remains...that we've found so far. The more we find, sometimes the less we actually know as the puzzle gets larger.

reply to post by peter vlar


There are enough differences between African HE, Asian HE AND HE georgicus that they could represent separated species.
He reached Indonesia morre than a million years ago, and the Neanderthal denisovan, unknown ancestor, moderhuman split was almost a million years ago.
It would seem logical that mankind could reach the new world fairly early. In fact the sum of the data, archeological, genetic, linguistic and mythological, points to two distinct lines on humanity.
One , African derived that spread eastwards into south Asia, Oceana and south America . The other north American/Eurasian that spreads westward into northeast Asia , Eurasia and Europe.
Back to the question at hand, an aspect that nobody pays much attention to is that, in the paeleo Indian period , there are two distinct "cultures"in north America.
One that moved eastwards, they made baskets, woven matts, and woven fiber sandals. They were also generalists foragers, that ate a lot of fish and shellfish. They are represented by paisley cave and other sites in the great basin, and the earlier levels at the Witt site in cali.
The other are leather moccasin wearing big game hunters from the east, that didn't make use of fish or shell fish , as far as we know , the are the Clovis and related peoples .

reply to post by punkinworks10




Even if the morphological differences are minor between African, Asian and Georgicus its absurd to think they weren't as culturally different as the modern British and the Inca. And as I pointed out earlier the African H. Erectus
was around at the same time that Georgicus first appeared and there are definitely enough morphological differences to warrant a closer examination of their Individual spots on our family tree. It's unfortunate that the best places to look for evidence of earlier habitation are under so much water. Thanks for ending ice age but you're really screwing with my answers!

Originally posted by peter vlar
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

Even if the morphological differences are minor between African, Asian and Georgicus its absurd to think they weren't as culturally different as the modern British and the Inca. And as I pointed out earlier the African H. Erectus
was around at the same time that Georgicus first appeared and there are definitely enough morphological differences to warrant a closer examination of their Individual spots on our family tree. It's unfortunate that the best places to look for evidence of earlier habitation are under so much water. Thanks for ending ice age but you're really screwing with my answers!

I'm just enjoying the conversation but one point; we cannot rest on the idea 'that its under water' ancient people like modern day HG also lived inland and stayed within a half kilometer of fresh water.

reply to post by punkinworks10


At a time when the people of Europe and America were at the same level of development, why couldn't any diffusion have started from the west to the east. Cro magnon it seems and is accepted spread across Europe from a westerly direction. The distance between the two Continents would have been a lot less than it is now, .far more dry land. Gene markers suggest that indigenous European populations share the same markers as native Americans. Welsh Irish basque etc. As the time of the migration could very well have happened when the Meteorites hit the Gulf of mexico. Causing devastation to the Megafauna of America.

reply to post by Hanslune


You're absolutely correct on that point. I tend to get hung up on that for some reason. But considering that the cinmar bipoint was able to have its origin traced to South Mountain in Pennsylvania by the Smithsonian shows that they were pretty well inland especially considering the sea levels back then. I have a tendency to go with my gut a little more than the scientific method would prefer and to me, if there were tranatlantic voyages happening prior to 20,000 bce then the coastline that existed at that time would be the most likely placeto search for the earliest signs of new culture. However it's not the easiest option for research and I need to come up for air a little more often and get out of my overly set ways. Irregardless, thanks for starting this thread!

reply to post by anonentity


Atr you referring to the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico? If so it predates not just all hominids but the vast majority of mammals. It's a gap of just over 60 million years before any hominids made their way out of the trees and into the savannah. I'd also like to point out that while there was some extra land off the easy coast of North America and moreso off the East coast of South America, Europe and the Americas weren't more than a couple hundred miles closer at the last glacial maximum than thy are now. In fact aside from the English Channel the North Sea and areas around Ireland the rest of the west coast of Europe is pretty much where it is currently. Considering that Solutrean Culture was predominately in what is now France and Spain the distance wasn't considerably different than it is currently. Though that would be slightly different in the winter with the pack ice but traveling that route presents its own inherent dangers.

reply to post by peter vlar


No more to the fact of the nano diamonds being found world wide, which seem to have there origin, from bolides exploding over the North American area. This seems to be the time the mega fauna took a hit in the Americas, and the ice age ended. Sorry for the confusion. But during the ice age the continental shelves were land, England was joined to Europe, and the Atlantic Islands were a lot larger than they are now. The Azores were the size of Spain. It could be that Cro Magnon developed in America, and migrated eastward when this event occurred. Then after a few thousand years, Asian settlers arrived. I note a jade arrow point in the British museum found in Cornwall, was if I remember correctly was of Wisconsin jade.
Its a lot easier to travel from America to Europe than the other way around owing to the trade winds . I just think that ancient man was a lot more savy than we give him credit for, The fact stone age people built Stone Henge, and that the bones of the "Archers" Potasium levels suggest he came from Switzerland, would suggest they were very mobil, and at that time a Pan European society.

reply to post by anonentity


One issue with the bolide or comet theory is that a lot of the mega fauna had already gone extinct by the time of the Younger Dryas which coincides with the "black mat" evidence shown at the various Clovis sites. Some, like Eremotherium, a rather large ground sloth had gone extinct as long as 28,000 BCE. That's the layer where we've found the most recent fossils from them. Another problem is that anything that altered the climate enough to wipe out all the large animals should also have wiped out the humans who lived near and hunted them for food. As for this potential impact ending the Ice Age, the evidence is rather to the contrary. The Earth started getting warmer approximately 17,000 BCE and at about the time of the proposed impact the Younger Dryas began. The Younger Dryas was a cold snap that ushered in a mini ice age that lasted approximately 1200 years. Though I will say that its not a huge leap of faith to interpret the data that this even is more likely than the "overkill" theory. I find it nearly ludicrous that animals that were certainly being hunted in North America such as Bison, Deer and Bear would survive til today yet larger carnivores who posed more threat than a Mammoth were killed off early on.

Here's a Bipoint from the Northeast. it looks remarkably similar to Solutrian Bipoints. This is from Rhode Island.Northeast Bipoint

As a side note, this looks like a promising find:

phys.org...

At 15,500 BP, it's a pre-Clovis mammoth.

reply to post by Heliocentric


Very cool,
From the article

Text The excavation process has been made more difficult and time-consuming because the mammoth skeleton was disarticulated and scattered—likely by wolves or other scavengers.

So there is dead mammoth that has been "disarticulated" and neatby is à pile of knapping debris, hmmmmm.
I think they eventually be tied together.

What I want to know, is how a wolf , even a real big one , disarticulates an animal the size of a mammoth and scatter the large bones like the skull or the large leg bones A short faced bear could do this .
But like I said before I'd bet that the knapping pile is related to the mammoth, even if it was a case of scavenging.

Back to the subject at hand, as I've gone over image after image of Clovis and solutrean points, an idea came to me, some of the points are not killing tools, some are butchering tools or various sorts .
There are examples of points that are so thin and large that they would be impractical as a killing tool, but used as as butchers knife they would be effective.
Some of the blades are so thin that the only use I could think of is à razor, and that falls in line with the "use everything" mentality of of true subsistance hunter/gatherers.
Many of the species hunted had heavy coats, and hair has many usee. It can be used as insulation, or for stuffing into.bedding,
It can be spun into yarn or woven into rope .
If I'm not correct , I believe that items similar spindle whorls have been found in Europe and NA that date to this time

Bump

I am kind of surprised how little info is available on the web about solutrean archaeology.
In English that is, I've found some papers in French though.

So, if man can navigate the cold and stormy north pacific from Asia to the Americas, then why can't man accomplish the same feat across the Atlantic.
In my reading if the literature, the argument against a "solutrean hypothesis" is the lack of an association with a maritime environment.
But that is a simplistic and incomplete assessment of the evidence.
The known solutrean sites would have all been upland sites in their time. Who would drag a boat or maritime fishing gear 20-30 miles up the hill to an upland seasonal camp? Also, the distribution of solutrean sites Cleary shows they moved along the coast, as there is a lack inland distribution.

As I've said before I believe the solutrean hyppthosis is looking in the wrong direction.
If the dating of the recovered laurel leaf points, in NA, is correct they predate the appearance of the same form in europe by a couple thousand years.