{"id":3881,"date":"2012-02-28T22:38:52","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T05:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2012-02-29T11:41:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T18:41:44","slug":"ancient-europeans-were-first-to-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3881","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Europeans Were First to North America?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This announcement might upset some apple carts.<\/p>\n

Actually, the idea that some of the early settlers of North America might have come from Europe as well as Asia has been kicking around for a while.<\/p>\n

Now the claim is made that based on analyses of stone tools, they were first.<\/a><\/p>\n

The similarity between other later east coast US and European Stone Age stone tool technologies has been noted before. But all the US European-style tools, unearthed before the discovery or dating of the recently found or dated US east coast sites, were from around 15,000 years ago – long after Stone Age Europeans (the Solutrean cultures of France and Iberia) had ceased making such artefacts. Most archaeologists had therefore rejected any possibility of a connection. But the newly-discovered and recently-dated early Maryland and other US east coast Stone Age tools are from between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago – and are therefore contemporary with the virtually identical western European material.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, chemical analysis carried out last year on a European-style stone knife found in Virginia back in 1971 revealed that it was made of French-originating flint.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An archaeologist whom I know adds, “I\u2019ve met [Stanford and Bradley] both, they are not crackpots.”<\/p>\n

Based on what I understand about DNA evidence, however, the bulk of the people who\u00a0 first settled the Americas must still have come from Asia. After all,\u00a0 they could have walked across the tundra on the Ice Age land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Hence:<\/p>\n

As a result of these [geographical and travel] factors the Solutrean (European originating) Native Americans were either partly absorbed by the newcomers or were substantially obliterated by them either physically or through competition for resources.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This announcement might upset some apple carts. Actually, the idea that some of the early settlers of North America might have come from Europe as well as Asia has been kicking around for a while. Now the claim is made that based on analyses of stone tools, they were first. The similarity between other later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-10B","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":553,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=553","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":0},"title":"The stone circles of MassachusettsIn\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The stone circles of MassachusettsIn the 1970s, the publication of Barry Fell's America BC introduced me to the an idea that was then completely out of fashion in mainstream archaeology: That other Europeans besides the Norsemen might have crossed the Atlantic before Columbus. Critics referred to this as \"cult archaeology\".That\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10228,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10228","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":1},"title":"Megaliths Started in France, Say Archaeologists","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 13, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I read this article, and all I could think about was the potential for historical-fantasy novels on the line of Jean Auel or Michael and Kathleen Gear: The Megalith Mission. Or something like that! The earliest megaliths were built in what\u2019s now northwestern France as early as around 6,800 years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/021119_BB_megalith_feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/021119_BB_megalith_feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/021119_BB_megalith_feat.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/021119_BB_megalith_feat.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12490,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12490","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":2},"title":"Who Benefited from the Vinland Map?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Vinland Map has been controversial since the 1960s when it popped into public view. Did it really record a Norse partial-mapping of North America? Its modern history is viewed as scandalous. Most scholars who examined it leaned toward its being a forgery. But from when? And for whose benefit?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/vinland_map_hires-300x208.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":613,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=613","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":3},"title":"Vinland 1On November 8, 1898,\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Vinland 1On November 8, 1898, a Norwegian immigrant farmer, Olaf Ohman, unearthed a large stone block covered with runic writing while cutting down a tree on his land--or so the story goes. Ohman lived about 145 miles northwest of Minneapolis. This \"Kensington Runestone\" was translated most recently as follows:We eight\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7884,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7884","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":4},"title":"New Norse Site in Newfoundland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The discovery of Norse ruins at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, in 1960 proved once and for all that the sagas were right: settlers from Iceland and\/or Greenland came to North America. Now a new discovery on the other side of the island suggests even more of a Norse presence. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12269,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12269","url_meta":{"origin":3881,"position":5},"title":"How the Ancestors Danced","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I feel obligated for my North American readers to note that in Scandinavia \"elk\" means \"moose\" (Alces alces).((Like a Norwegian elkhound is a dog you take moose-hunting, just to locate the moose is all.)) I suppose the Finns use that word \"elk\"\u00a0 in English because Finland was ruled by Sweden\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/rainio_fig20_002-edit-1024x438.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/rainio_fig20_002-edit-1024x438.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/rainio_fig20_002-edit-1024x438.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3883,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}