Discoveries Challenge Beliefs on Humans’ Arrival in the Americas
- Monday, 31 March 2014 21:54
The debate over the peopling of the Americas gets more interesting by the day. Recently, DNA from a child found at the Anzick site, which dates to around 12,700 years ago, was analyzed, and it was discovered that his ancestors definitely came from Asia. Which is nothing new. For over fifty years, archaeologists have thought that the earliest Americans crossed the Bering Strait land bridge between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago and moved south across the Americas. That was the most widely held archaeological opinion when we wrote PEOPLE OF THE WOLF in 1988.
New DNA research, however, is adding significantly to this debate. Last year, for example, molecular geneticists showed that the Botocudo people in Brazil in the late 1800s were genetically similar to Polynesians. And evolutionary anthropologist, Walter Neves, has demonstrated convincingly that the 11,000 year old skull of a woman in Brazil, known at Luzia, resembles aboriginal Australians. To make this even more complicated, in November, paleontologists in Uruquay published their findings that humans hunted giant sloths there around 30,000 years ago.
There is so much convincing evidence now that humans inhabited the Americas long before anyone thought, that any archaeologist who holds to the “Clovis first” paradigm is not so quietly referred to by other archaeologists as a “troglodyte.”
Personally–as of today–we think there’s mounting evidence that humans may have been in North America as early as 40,000 years ago. Just as an interesting aside, around 37,000 years ago the maternal lines (mitochondrial DNA diversity) of Bison priscus in Beringia underwent a dramatic and sudden decline. There’s no good explanation for this decline. We’ve always wondered if Bison priscus didn’t meet up with the first human hunters, who were also crossing the land bridge.
For anyone who’s interested in a deeper understanding of this debate, there’s a fascinating synopsis of most of this information in PALEOAMERICAN ODYSSEY. Chapter 30 is called, “North America before Clovis: Variance in Temporal/Spatial Cultural Patterns, 27,000-13,000 cal yr. BP.
Eagles, Red Canyon Ranch, Wyoming
- Sunday, 30 March 2014 06:56
We saw the first mating pair of golden eagles yesterday. They were hunting the bird feeders in the back yard. Mixed emotions about that.
MOONLIGHT WATER, a book by Meredith and Win Blevins
- Saturday, 29 March 2014 07:00
We just read, with delight, the upcoming novel by Meredith and Win Blevins. With this book, they may well become the new Edward Abbey of the Southwest. MOONLIGHT WATER is filled with Navajo wisdom and an impeccable sense of the vast and wonderful desert from which it is born. We’re reading the Advanced Reading Copy, so we’re not sure when the book will be released, but when it appears on the shelves, we think you’ll enjoy the heartfelt story of a lost soul just trying to find some meaning in life.
We did.
Russia and Crimea, an anthropologist’s perspective
- Friday, 28 March 2014 11:07
For anthropologists the past couple of months have been especially interesting. We call it Deprivation Theory, but what we mean is that when people feel deprived of something they consider essential in their lives–even something as intangible as a sense of justice–the inevitable result is social upheaval and violence.
There was an intriguing article in the Moscow Times, written by Russian military expert Alexander Golts. Golts wrote, “Unfortunately, the same Western states that so loudly tout their supposed observance of the rule of law at times prefer circumventing those rules for the sake of political expediency. Recall how Washington struggled to make its case for the invasion of Iraq, or how the West granted independence to Kosovo in violation of international law. As Moscow annexes Crimea, it happily reminds the West of those precedents. It is this behavior that reinforces Putin’s conviction that the world is ruled by force, not by law.”
If that is Putin’s conviction, he’s a fool–at least from an anthropologist’s perspective. The world is ruled neither by force nor law. It is ruled by the raw and bleeding passion of the people. People who unite beneath a banner of “deprivation,” the belief that they are being deprived of something essential to their lives, do not care about law or the threat of force. Force may rule for a time. The Rule of Law may rule for a time. But in the end it is the tears of the masses that change the world.
COPPER FALCON
- Thursday, 27 March 2014 08:40
As of this posting, March 27th, 2014, our first novella, COPPER FALCON is available for download. The story is about a young man named Flint Knife who is making his first visit to the great prehistoric American city, Cahokia. Traveling with his father, and a party of warriors, all Flint Knife wants is to find help from relatives in repelling invaders in their home village. But, of course, things go terribly wrong.
COPPER FALCON is only available in e-format, but if you don’t have a dedicated e-reader like a Kindle or Nook, you can download the free ap from Amazon and read the story on your smartphone or home computer.
Now the countdown begins for the hardback release of PEOPLE OF THE MORNING STAR on May 4. If you enjoyed COPPER FALCON you’ll find many of the same characters in PEOPLE OF THE MORNING STAR.
And if you’re in the St. Louis area on May 31, please join us at the Cahokia Mounds museum and bookstore at 2:00 pm for a book signing and lecture! For more information contact
http://www.cahokiamounds.org.