Look like funny shaped rocks to me :dunno:
'Like finding the Holy Grail': Discovery of stone tools dates humans in U.S. to 2,500 years earlier than previously thought
The first humans in North America may have arrived up to 2,500 years earlier than originally thought, new archaeological finds suggest.
Stone tools that are 15,500-year-old were discovered in central Texas, smashing long-held theories about native settlement.
For 80 years it was widely accepted that the Clovis culture had arrived from Asia about 13,000 years ago and became the first inhabitants of what is now the United States.
Extraordinary find: Artifacts from the 15,500-year-old site in Texas, uncovered five feet below the layer associated with the earliest-known humans in North America
So the new finds at a site near Austin represent a huge breakthrough in our knowledge of the native peoples of the continent.
Lead archaeologist Michael Waters, of Texas A&M University, described it as like finding 'like finding the Holy Grail'.
‘This is almost like a baseball bat to the side of the head of the archaeological community to wake up and say, “Hey, there are pre-Clovis people here, that we have to stop quibbling and we need to develop a new model for peopling of the Americas”,’ he added.
The treasure trove of 15,528 artifacts, including chipping debris from working stones and 56 tools - such as blades, scrapers and choppers - was found at Buttermilk Creek.
'Meticulous scientific work': Archaeologists painstakingly uncover historical evidence at the Buttermilk Creek site near Austin, Texas
Team leader: The dig is being led by Michael Waters, a professor of anthropology at Texas A&M University
The location is the oldest credible archaeological site in North America.
The artifacts were found in an eight-inch layer beneath five feet of earth and other material from later human occupation at the site.
The small tools were 'a mobile tool kit', Professor Waters said, and of the type that could have led to the later development of the fluted points that trademark Clovis technology.
While there are other pre-Clovis sites across the country, Professor Waters said the new find included significantly more artifacts than the others.
Anthropologist Tom D. Dillehay of Vanderbilt University, who was not part of the research team, said he is concerned that the separation of layers at the site 'appears not to be as clear as the authors would have us believe'.
University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis L. Jenkins said he was also initially sceptical of the find, commenting 'it would have been a hard sell' from many other researchers.
Dr Jenkins, who three years ago reported discovery of 14,000-year-old evidence of human DNA in a cave in Oregon, said he was concerned that settling or rodents had mixed up the specimens in Texas.
But he said Professor Waters' team had done 'incredible, meticulous scientific work', adding: 'I believe he's made the case.'
Treasure trove: While there are other pre-Clovis sites across the country, Professor Waters said the new find included significantly more artifacts
Dr Jenkins said he would have preferred carbon-dating of the specimens, but that couldn't be done because there was no organic material to be tested in the newly found layer.
Steven L. Forman, of the University of Illinois, Chicago, a co-author of the paper, said the team used luminescence dating - which can determine when the material was last exposed to light.
They took samples by hammering black, sealed copper pipe into the layers.
In a separate paper in the journal, researchers report evidence of early humans in south India more than a million years ago.
Researchers discovered more than 3,500 quartzite tools of the distinct Acheulian design used by the earliest humans in Africa starting more than 1.5 million years ago.
They dated the tools to at least 1.07million years old and some possibly 1.51million years old.
The discovery at a site called Attirampakkam in the Kortallayar river basin helps anthropologists understand the spread of ancient people from Africa into Asia.
Leading the research team was Shanti Pappu of the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in Tamil Nadu, India.
The find is unprecedented for archaeological studies in India, said archaeologist Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford, who was not part of the research team.
He said it could mean that early humans migrated out of Africa earlier than the oft-cited 1.4 million years ago, carrying the tools to southern Asia - adding: 'The suggestion that this occurred at around 1.5 million years ago is simply staggering.'
WHO WERE THE CLOVIS CULTURE?
Before the Texas find, the Clovis culture, sometimes referred to as the Llanos, was a prehistoric race who were thought to have been the first people to populate the New World.
They first appeared in North America at the end of the last glacial period 13,500 to 13,000 years ago. They are so named because of the discovery of their distinctive 'Clovis point' hunting tools in the 1930s at Clovis, New Mexico.
Archaeologists came to the conclusion that the Clovis were the first to inhabit North America because no evidence of an earlier civilisation had been found.
Several theories exist about their eventual decline and disappearance. The most common-held belief is that the Clovis culture merely adapted across America and eventually was assimilated into other cultures (such as the Folsom culture).
Another, more controversial theory, believes that their over-hunting of 'megafauna', like the mammoth, contributed to their extinction.
Another, known as the Clovis Comet event, suggests an extraterrestrial impact led to mass extinction and climate change that abruptly wiped out the Clovis. But now recent finds suggest that another culture may have beaten them to the Americas.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...earlier-previously-thought.html#ixzz1Hf3YWHcn
