Re: REPOST: Re: Siberian Arctic site dated to 27,000 BP

From: Philip Deitiker (Nopdeitik_at_att.net.Spam)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: 17 Mar 2005 22:05:08 GMT

In sci.archaeology, Daryl Krupa created a message ID
news:reposted.0.1110871980.988948.248400
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of
> available evidence. Dyke, et al. are pretty comprehensive
> the subject.
>
> If you want the latest and best informationas of
> early 2001, hunt down a copy of the Quat. Sci. Rev's
> article:
>
> A. S. Dyke, J. T. Andrews, P. U. Clark, J. H. England,
> G. H. Miller, J. Shaw and J. J. Veillette
> 2002
> The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during
> the Last Glacial Maximum.
> Quaternary Science Reviews.
> Volume 21, Issues 1-3, Pages 9-31
>
> It's online (go to the links in upper right for "Full
text" or
> "PDF"):
>
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?
_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-44MX5WF-2&_user=10&_coverDate=01%
2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=2
&_fmt=summary&_orig=browse&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221
&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=
8aa8e436161ff08f7ff6ffdfed1bd1d5
>
> OR
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3o65l
>
>> It is interesting however that clovis technology
>> appears after the corridor opens, and one might
>> surmise that a technology push from asia into the
>> new world coupled with the opening provided two
>> components required. If you look into Japan where
>> the incipient Jomon started earlier, the appearance
>> of clovis like tools appeared later, in addition
>> there are the elements in the genetics which argue
>> for a slightly later middle eastern wave therefore
>> it is possible that there was
>> a specific migration at around 11 kya that followed
>> an earlier migration
>> that did not make it into the new world,
>> but then followed
>> the migration. Who knows.
>
> I don't: which migration was it that followed
> which other one into the New World?
>
> -
> Daryl Krupa
>

I pretty much understand you are very strongly in favor of
this as the primary possibly only route. However I question
the verosity of stance on several grounds.

1. That even the most knowlegdable scientist can deduce extent
based on end point phenomena. These tills allow to mark the
ends of the reciprocation but they do not neccesarily advance
at certain stages, for example exactly where the ice feilds
were at certain stages.

2. The claim that BC was only lightly glaciated is rather
difficult to believe because you don't have to go far north of
the US border to see glaciers streaming down the passes of
many mountains. In fact cold periods more recently might have
covered up earlier advances. The consideration of isolated
mountain top glacies in BC in the middle of an ice age I think
is presenting a foolishly understated case. [Have you been to
british columbia?]

3. The situation with humans is that they are most productive
as complex hunters and forage not only mammals but fish, grain
seeds, flowers, etc. You are trying to present a rosey
situation that I don't think you are capable of
substantiating.

A. Being between a moutain range and a very tall glacier,
obviously capable of advaning and closing together by 24 kya,
my have presented an ecology that was harsh,

B. The biomass of flora may not have been substantive enough
to support large populations of animals, there may have been
no fish and the plant seeds might have been sparse.

C. Animal bones found could be from regional specialist
species and from animals that ventured off and simply starved.

D. This is most important. The human specialist from the
western asia did not arrive until after 18 kya, I am presuming
that the siberian/alaskan population at the time is derived
from the west pacific rim via tiawan region some from inland
china via Japan or Korea. We know the occupation of the more
balmy Japan started between 45 and 35 kya, and the tools for
megafauna hunting were not apparent until the incipient Jomon,
prior to that the tool culture was largely composed of pebble
stone tools most adapted to smaller to moderate sized animals.
If there was specialization in that region it was toward
maritime culture.
  So while humans could have been in siberia 30 kya, the
bigger problem with making vast inland migrations is cultural
adaptations. If these peoples were culturally adapted to
smaller animals and fish, and used also to seasonal migration
by boat (IOW it became difficult for them to stalk herds 100s
of miles), IOW they were small time garden variety foragers,
then there could be reasoning in terms of their culture for
not heading 1000 miles down a path with few resources
scattered very sparsely. Their efficiency of tracking and
killing arctic specialist of the time may not have been good
enough, and if those animals were spread to widely then it is
possible that 'culturally' the trip was impossible..

We can put this into a more abstract equation. A glaceir,
apriori is not a inpenitrable wall. Even 100 years ago people
travel across the expanse of antartica. The difference however
is that 100 years ago the people who did it successfully
combined aspects of several modern and arctic cultures. One
has to consider the west pacific rim dwellers as the wave
front of human expansion, the attraction of new lands always
pulling them away from the centers of technological complexity
closer to africa.
  Again we have to use Japan as an example of the contrast,
because when the Paleolithic Japanese run into these western
asians via the transbiakal region, a cultural transformation
takes place that rapidly expands technological complexity in
the region. It should be no surprise that these Soluterean
like tools appear about the same time as pottery and other
refined products that subsequently we are seen new tool
cultures and new morphologies appear in the new world, at the
same time you are seeing megafauna extinctions. But the shell
culture did not die out with the incipient Jomon, and it
persisted as a strong and evolving culture, which means it
was, as a maritime culture competitive in its own separate
domain. Again this should be considered because since the
peoples of the regions, whose genetics closely matches the
people in south america I think arrived first, there
specialization and expertise may have been in maritime,
coastal and riparian foraging, and not hunting migratory herds
across the interglacial expanses of canada. This is not to
argue that humans could not have done it, or that some humans
somewhere could not have done at that time. Its just to say
that the population history of the poeple of the region is
a population in relative global isolation.
  Gisele presented a paper in MolAnth that talks about this,
and this does not even address the issue of later admixture,
as one heads away from africa the gene pool becomes less and
less diverse during that period of time one could reasonably
expect that these were amoung the least diverse, excepting
possibly solomon islanders and tasmanians, there cultural
diversity would also been reflective of this, and while the
adaptions to the arctic might exemplify some cultural
innovations, the drive for these adaptations may have been
concentration of resources.

    

-- 
Philip
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