Re: Question re. Copper artifact CanadianArcticformerRe:CopperCasting In America (Trevelyan)

From: stevewhittet (whittet_at_adelphia.net)
Date: 07/24/04 

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:31:44 -0400

"Floyd L. Davidson" <floyd@barrow.com> wrote in message
news:87ekn2z0nv.fld@barrow.com...
> "stevewhittet" <whittet@adelphia.net> wrote:
> >"Floyd L. Davidson" <floyd@barrow.com> wrote:
> >> Mesa is the North Slope of Alaska, not Canada.
> >
> >Like Clovis and Folsom Mesa is both a place and a technique
> >named for the place where lithics evidencing the technique
> >are used. Mesa is one of the earliest sites in Alaska
> >dated c 11,600 BC if I recall correctly
>
> What (little) I've read on this topic does not broadly apply it
> that way, which might be just an artifact of my interest only in
> the Alaska related information. The URL you provided didn't use
> it that way either, though given it is by Kunz that is not
> surprising. However, one of the articles you cited specifically
> lists sites with similar "Mesa-like assemblages", and they are
> all in Alaska. That is the only specific information that I've
> ever seen on the subject.
>
> >That technique is found distributed throughout
> >northern Canada generally in association with the
> >obsidian sources found along the north slope of
> ...
>
> >the Brooks range,
> > (This is a serious impediment to the belief
> >> that people migrated through the Beringia area 12,000 years ago
> >> to people North America. The evidence simply does not support it.)
> >
> >I put this forward just for that reason. What does the evidence support?
> >
> >It does not seem to support a Clovis style blade technology anywhere
> >in Siberia. If you view this from the experience of making fluted blades
> >you can see while some people propose that it was paleo Indians
> >migrating north who left the assemblages in Alaska!
>
> Despite the commonly stated "There are no Clovis artifacts in
> Siberia" apparently there have been some found. But it also
> appears that they might well have been manufactured in North
> America and transported to Siberia too, because there just are
> not enough to demonstrate any common usage or manufacture.

Right. Siberia is a very big place with very few people in it c12,000 BC

Citing a tool assemblage that's thousands of miles away from Alaska
isn't a very effective argument. Even a tool assemblage in Kamchatka
is a stretch.
>
> Except if there is any connection between the Paleo-Indians of
> Alaska and the southern areas, whatever technology there is
> should have migrated with them. The problem is the older Clovis
> points didn't migrate to Alaska. And nothing in Alaska is older
> than various things farther south.

The Oldest accepted date is actually Mesa Verde in South America
and Meadocroft in Pensylvania claims a date that is even older!
>
> It appears that the people who made Clovis points had been in
> North America for *long* time prior to the points being found in
> Alaska (or for that matter anything identified as Clovis), and
> that there probably is no direct connection between them. The
> Clovis makers, whether they originally came from Siberia or
> somewhere else, didn't migrate to Alaska once the Clovis
> technology was developed. And the people in Alaska can't be the
> ancestors of the Clovis makers.

The Mesa technology found in Alaska is a little different than the
Clovis or Folsom Technology but basically yes where I'm directing you
is somewhere else. Sibereria and the Bering Straits don't work as a route.
>
> If there is a common ancestry in Asia it definitely goes back
> far more than a few thousand years. Probably back to 30-50k
> years ago... and may or may not have ever walked across the
> Bering Straits.

30-50 K doesn't work for boats, land bridge or sites.
Fladmarks refugia on the other hand works really well...
that's c 12,000 BC
>
> One thing definite though, the idea that North America was
> settled at the end of the last ice age by people walking across
> a land bridge in Beringia is certainly not true. (Kunz,
> immediately after his first published analysis of the Mesa
> artifacts, tried very hard to make it fit. Even to the point of
> all but claiming these people almost ran from the Bering Straits
> to the tip of Tierra Del Fuego!)

Yes.
>
> >> Outlook Express, which is one of the worst examples of news
> >> software in existence, ends up deleting white space when things
> >> like URLs are cut and pasted into articles. About half of your
> >> links were mangled that way. Here they are again, formatted
> >> with real news software! :-)

Sorry, I used to use winvin but got used to Outlook which posts through
eudora
> >>
> >> http://www.ele.net/art_folsom/preclvis.htm
> >>
> >> Toss that one, as anyone who insists that all things which
> >> amount to a technical advance are necessarily invented by
> >> Europeans, can't be trusted.
> >
> >Tony Baker and Bruce Bradley are making observations about lithics
> >which should probably be evaluated according to how well the reader
> >figures they know their subject.
>
> I don't mind their observations about lithics. Their theory
> human migration is silly on its face.

You ruled Siberia and a land Bridge out, You could follow the
refugia route but there is no population on the other side
to make the trip if we don't allow its as easy for maritimes
c 12,000 BP to use the Vikings route as the Aleutians
where do they come from?
>
> >> http://www.adp.fsu.edu/saa98.html
> >> http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/aucilla10_1/flutes.htm
> >>
> >> Those two are interesting, and provide good information. They
> >> lack a broad enough base though, because they largley consider
> >> only artifact distributions within what is now the Lower-48
> >> United States.
> >
> >Actually they consider quite a range of sites in Europe, Asia,
> >Canada, Alaska and the US
>
> But they "largley" [sic] stick with a limited range in North
> America. The point I was making the the other sites are given
> only casual accord.

There is a long list of cites, after you have read all their
references what comes across is that they kept trying to get
peieces of the puzzle to fit the land bridge or Aleutians
and the straw that finally broke the camels back was the
similarities and differences in the lithic technologies.
>
> > >That is interesting, but the borders are
> >> artificial and unrelated to ancient people and technology.
> >
> >They seem to be placing their borders based on lithic distributions
> >as determined by source, place of fabrication, killing zone,
> >retouching zone and lithic paridigm.
>
> I think the problem is that the science and the collection of
> information is too young. They lend weight to numbers, and the
> numbers are biased by which areas are easiest to investigate
> rather than where the artifacts were originally manufactured.

This discussion has been ongoing at mamoth trumpet forever.
>
> Only time will tell, and perhaps 100 years from now there will
> be a much better database to rely on.
>
> >Thats why I added the mesa info.
> >>
> >> http://www.ele.net/mesa_folsom/mesa_fol.htm
> >>
> >> This URL doesn't go into the big picture of what it means as far
> >> as population dynamics, but regardless is again tainted by any
> >> opinions from Baker (see the first URL above). Kunz has always
> >> attempted to remain solidly within the previously accepted
> >> interpretations, even when much of his own work has made those
> >> interpretations highly suspicious if not impossible!
> >
> >"Michael Kunz, who discovered Mesa in 1978, says the site's old date
>
> Keep in mind too that while the site was discovered in 1978, it
> was not studied significantly until the 1990's. Kunz and
> Reanier did more work in 1988-89 and discovered there had been
> dating errors for what was done in 1979. That caused them to
> become more interested, but of course it was several years
> before enough work had been done to make it the heavy influence
> that it is today.

I can remember going to the library to get xerox copies of their
articles before all this stuff was on the internet. Believe me their
positions have all gone back and forth several times. The Beringa
theory that dates to the fifties was something everyone has
seemingly always just accepted.
>
> >and classic Paleoindian artifact assemblage may cause many archaeologists
> >to rethink theories of how North America was originally settled
> >by way of the Bering Land Bridge."
> >
> >http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt10-4.html
>
> Kunz does not go out on limbs with chain saws in hand. He didn't
> say that in 1978! He didn't say it in 1988 either! He would
> barely admit it was possible in 1998, which is about when the
> significance became so overwhelming that the accepted nature of
> what it meant began to dramatically change.

Yes
>
> Kunz provided the artifacts, but he was never a loud voice for
> new concepts of what it all meant on the grand scale. (Which
> probably means he is twice as smart as he appears to be, which
> is significantly bright!)
>
> > Whatever,
> >> I suppose that means the two of them in collaboration might
> >> produce middle of the road opinions??? :-)
> >
> >""The Mesa site artifacts sure looked like paleo stuff," Kunz recalled.
> >Initial testing of the site in 1979 revealed three hearths each
containing
> >a mix of charcoal and cultural material, which was radiocarbon dated
> > to 7,620 years before present. Further testing in 1980 by Kunz and
> >Richard Reanier of the University of Washington, revealed a near-surface
> >stratigraphic stability uncommon in periglacial environments, and also
> >provided a more complete picture of the cultural assemblage.
> >
> >The 7,620-year date represented a little- known period in Alaska
prehistory
> >and was interesting for that reason alone, yet the Paleoindian-looking
> >assemblage
> >nagged Kunz, who does not subscribe to the idea that Mesa represents
> >a "backwash" of Paleoindian culture that developed in the lower 48
states,
> >then migrated north to Alaska."
>
> When he first began getting even older dates, he initially said
> it meant that the wave which populated the rest of North America
> must have moved with extreme speed from Asia, though Alaska and
> south to the rest of this hemisphere.
>
> >> Regardless, some very interesting information is presented in
> >> that particular article. Look at the map showing distribution
> >> of Mesa artifacts. Note that Barrow (center north on the map)
> >> is excluded. Those folks simply did not have the technology to
> >> live here. Yet at a later point in time, when the technology
> >> that allows taking many large marine mammals (ugruk, walrus and
> >> whales) was developed, this point of land jutting out into the
> >> ocean was transformed from the least habitable location to the
> >> most habitable.
> >
> >The question is how did the Maritime population manage to
> >avoid Barrow and reenter the Beaufort Sea with the same
> >enviornmentally adapted maritime culture.
>
> I don't understand what you mean. I don't believe that Barrow
> was ever avoided by Eskimo cultures, though it certainly was
> by the Paleo-Indian cultures that were at Mesa.

The Mesa style lithic technology is generally found on the north
slope of the Brooks range so what you have is two cultures
with different technologies sharing some parts of the same range.
>
> First, the area shown was not inhabited by Eskimos until much
> later than the Paleo-Indian cultures. The maritime Eskimos
> pretty much stuck to the coast, even before Thule Technology.
> (There some who did not though, so that does not exclude inland
> and riverine Eskimo cultures.)

c 7600 BC in the Brooks range is more or less Archaic rather than Paleo
Indian
with on one side Pacific Eskimo and then the c 4000 BC Artic small tool
tradition
maritime dates for Barrow being mostly microliths as in Siberia and the
Beaufort Sea
lithics being fluted in the Mesa tradition representing an interface of two
different cultures
one much earlier than the other..
>
> There would have been no place along the coast where they did
> not go. The difference is how long they stayed there, and how
> much of their time they concentrate in such areas. Prior to
> Thule Technology they would have been very much transient in the
> area around Barrow for example. Afterwards this would be a base
> of operations rather than a location they passed through.

Most of the early sites were probably shallow beaches that are now submerged
>
> Point Hope, on the western end of that range shown on that map,
> would probably have always been an area of concentration.
> Indeed, the areas just south of Point Hope are where Thule
> Technology probably developed, and that may well have been due
> to the resources available right there at Point Hope.
>
> One effect of Thule Technology on Point Hope (aka Tigara or
> Tikigaq) was that it became a very large, and very powerful,
> population center. It is known that in the centuries prior to
> Western contact the people living in the surrounding areas found
> it necessary to form a confederacy similar to the United
> Nations! They apparently kept the Tigaramiut at bay only with
> the threat that any aggression would bring the entire group down
> on them all at once.
>
> >> Largely that change was due to dogsleds and larger skin boats,
> >> the umiaq, but also to other tools. Given the similarity of the
> >> area around Barrow to much of the Arctic coast eastward into
> >> Canada and to Greenland, it becomes clear that Thule Technology
> >> spread to rapidly because it allowed access to very rich but
> >> previously unaccessable geography and the associated resources.
> >
> >What you get is a maritime based culture used to using kayaks
> >in artic seas adapting to using dogsleds which are of a similar light
> >construction to essentially portage between the north flowing rivers
> >leading across Barrow into the artic ocean.
>
> But, even without dogs, they were still a *very* mobile people.
> That is also very true of other (Indian) cultures in the Arctic.

Mobile yes but territorial also with a given range of hunting and
fishing grounds probably being wotked until it was exhausted
before moving on.
>
> >"There are no good technological antecedents, or techno-cultural
> >antecedents for the classic Paleoindian assemblages in Siberia
> >in the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record," Kunz says.
> >"They just aren't there."
>
> "To Kunz and his colleagues, all of the lines of evidence
> from the Mesa site suggest strongly that North American
> Paleoindian culture is indeed a New World development and
> possibly originated in eastern Beringia or Alaska. These
> lines of evidence include the environmental information
> coupled with the classic Paleoindian assemblage found at
> Mesa with its very old date, and the fact that no similar
> Paleoindian assemblages are found in Siberia, although
> other regional assemblages, such as Nenana, do appear
> cross-continentally related."
> http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt10-4.html
>
>
> >The thing is that if you buy into what Kunz is saying and you allow
> >the Paleo indians moved north not east into Alaska, where did
> >they come from before that?
> >
> >http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt15-1.html#part5
>
> That is also contradictory to what Kunz says the evidence
> suggests. He just says it is even stronger in relation to not
> being from Siberia.

>
> However... all of that is date 1995, and we really should not
> draw conclusions from speculations made that early in the work
> on the Mesa site.
>
> >"Collins stopped short of directly linking Clovis culture
> >(generally dating to between 10,900 and 11,500 radiocarbon years ago)
> >and the older European Solutrean culture. "However, I have been struck
> >by the similarities between those cultures, particularly the Solutrean
> >artifacts
> >and Clovis artifacts." He believes it would be a terrible mistake to
> >automatically rule out some form of influence or contact between
> >the European and Clovis cultures."
> >
> >http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt14-1.html#part4
>
> Until someone provides a link between them, I believe there is
> no choice but to automatically rule out the any influence or
> contact. They are separated in time and space, and links across
> both are necessary to suggest anything other than that two odd
> people at different places and different times just happened to
> discover the same obvious facts.
>
> >""One possibility that we haven't talked much about in this symposium,"
> >said Fladmark, is that the drowned coastal areas "may actually have been
> >focal points for cultural innovation and cultural evolution." Perhaps the
> > workshops where American flintknappers originally developed and
> >perfected tools like Clovis points are somewhere off the coast,
> >underwater. Perhaps an originally maritime people carried new ideas
> >into the continent as people became adapted to life in the interior"
> >
> >Kuntz, Baker, Bradley, Collins and Fladmark among others all think
> >we might want to look at the Aleutians and Greenland as possible
> >waypoints on the routes for the maritime cultures that bring the
> >Paleo Indians to the Americas.
>
> Chuckle. You left a name out of that. Dennis Stanford from the
> Smithsonian is the most public backer of the whole concept of
> European influence.

There are many more names you could add to the list,
I barely got past the ABC's. Personally I'm thinking
you should put "European" in quotes since c 35,000 BC
there really was no "Europe".

Anyway, the theory holds that Soultrean lithics in a maritime tradition
could as easily as not have coasted land bridges and ice floes north
from the continent through the British Isles c 20,000 BC

>From there they might have reached Greenland c 8500 BC and the
New World.shortly after with all of their coastal sites being now under
water.

Unfortunately the earliest well-documented human occupations
of the North American Arctic, between 10,000 and 7000 years BP,
are assigned to a poorly defined phenomenon known as the Paleo-Arctic
tradition. It is known only from lithic artifacts, especially microblades
and small bifaces. The most diagnostic artifacts are wedge-shaped
microcores and that is of course not the Soultrean technology that
it is necessarty to f9ind there to make the theory work.

Like the land bridge from Siberia that is all just speculation

> --
> FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
> Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@barrow.com

regards,

steve

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