[Aztlan] SKEPTICS WEIGH IN ON MEXICAN FOOTPRINTS

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

In an article at National Geographic about the new finds concerning  
the claimed 40,000 year old footprints in Mexico, archaeologists  
expressed some skepticism about the new finds. Here are their comments;

"I am amazed that they are still flogging that dead horse," said Paul  
Renne, of the University of California, Berkeley's Geochronology  
Center. Renne led that team that initially dated the Valsequillo  
Basin strata.

"We are about to publish even more data showing that the rocks are  
1.3 million years old and that the 'footprints' are not," he said by  
e-mail.

Rafael Suárez of the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural y  
Antropología in Montevideo, Uruguay, is more cautious—but also dubious.

"Very old human occupation of the Americas is possible," he said,  
"but if there were indeed people here that long ago, what happened to  
them in the next 25,000 years?"

"In this time, surely the population should have increased, and this  
would bring the presence of a high quantity of sites 16,000 to 20,000  
years old," he said by email.

James Dunbar, an archaeologist at Florida's Bureau of Archaeological  
Research in Tallahassee cautions that carbon-14 dating in the 40,000- 
year age range is often suspect, because the samples might include  
"dead carbon," or carbon not originally from living organisms.

Dunbar is impressed, though, by the digital laser imaging system used  
in scanning the footprints.

That method, he said by email, is a "very sophisticated way … to help  
see features that are sometimes not detectable to the human eye."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080606-ancient- 
footprints.html



Mike Ruggeri



Mike Ruggeri's The Ancient Americas Breaking News
http://web.mac.com/michaelruggeri