[Aztlan] PRE-CLOVIS TOPPER SITE REVIEW

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

The Columbia Free Times has published a long article on Al Goodyear  
and his work at the Pre-Clovis site of Topper in South Carolina.  
Goodyear and his team have claimed that they have found human tool  
artifacts as old as 50,000 BCE. Radio-carbon dates and optically  
stimulated luminescence for some of the artifacts uncovered were  
dated at between 16,000-20,000 BCE. Dennis Stanford, curator at the  
Smithsonian was one of those convinced by the scientific data.

In 2003, Goodyear dug beneath a white sand layer as hard as concrete  
and found a layer of charcoal he could date with artifacts sticking  
out. The charcoal layer with the artifacts was dated at 40,000-50,000  
BCE. The article goes on to discuss the theory that the First  
Americans migrated from the Southern European Solutrean culture whose  
blades look similar to the Clovis blade to account for such early  
artifacts being found on the East coast but the alleged 50,000 BCE  
dates of the artifacts at Topper would have been way too early for  
the Solutrean theory to fit the facts.

( my addition) In the end, Goodyear has presented archaeologists with  
some very controversial dates that most are not yet willing to  
accept. Thus far, he has uncovered no human artifacts that could be  
dated by way of DNA as has just recently been found both at Paisley  
Cave in Oregon where human coprolites have been DNA dated and at  
Monte Verde where seaweed found at the site in conjunction with tools  
has been DNA dated to 14,000 BCE.

The radio-carbon dates at Topper will be challenged from many  
quarters until Goodyear and his team can substantiate their findings  
with more data.

The Free Times has the story here;
http://www.free-times.com/index.php? 
cat=1992912064227409&ShowArticle_ID=11011405084293699

Here is a tiny URL;
http://tinyurl.com/4p2w9x

Mike Ruggeri


Mike Ruggeri's Pre-Clovis and Clovis World
http://tinyurl.com/2m8725

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