My life has been a complete and total misery ever since Bigfoot stole my precious girlfriend in the middle of the night. 😒 He even took all her clothes and the T.V. 😔
that big flood 18000 yrs ago would have washed away a lot of evidence of habitation because ppl would have been living along rivers for a period of time then it would have all been washed away when ice melted also if they had ice habitations in areas(which if they had migrated around northern pacific they may well have adopted), they would have melted at the same time & washed most of the artifacts away in process
"How come we don't have thousands of sites with tools like this?" Could be there was some massive cataclysm that swept away all the topsoil and submerged it 400ft underwater.
One thing from someone in Brazil that was in the scientific environment at one point. People don't report findings, because 1 they may not have enough knowledge to know how to identify something, 2 they may not even know they should report or 3 if they do know, in the majority of cases, they just covered up to avoid having construction halted, as "is just a headache". Sometimes, they may just sell all the artifacts illegally, as Brazil does not allow any artifacts and fossils to be sold, they all belong to the government. My professor once told he worked in the construction of a huge road here, they found a bunch of things that got all hidden away to avoid any delays, as it was election year and the deadline for the inauguration was the priority. So when you ask why there were no more findings, think studies like these aren't considered of any value to the authorities, this was a rare occasion where this was in a place where it didn't collide with any other interest, or these findings wouldn't exist either.
Nice work as always Stefan. There's so many archaeology or history channels on UA-cam that are just slideshows with robot voices, or pulling straight from wikis and chatgpt that when I see channels like yours, I always subscribe. Thanks for the work you put into your content, it does not go unnoticed.
I agree the content is invaluable but it is the amount of work Stefan puts into it and his passion that brings me back loyally every time. When I grow up I want to be just like him. Unfortunately I’m 60 so times running out.
@@stevefranklin9176never too late to grow up, I don't know if it's an unfair bias but whenever an old guy or gal puts up content on this place people tend to take it seriously just because the person is older. It's perhaps an inherent bias you could use to your advantage.
I found what I later realized was an arrowhead near Lake Superior's north shore as a child. It was made of a greenish agate looking rock and had a very defined and still surprisingly sharp edge and had a chip out on one side of the point. It was beautifully smooth and had a slightly polished look. It was my treasure because it fascinated me, sadly our home burned down, and all was lost but I never see anything about arrowheads without seeing it in my mind's eye. I've always regretted losing that piece of stone history.
If I were a paleolithic human, I'd definitely choose the North shore of Lake Superior to take up my abode. Fresh water as far as the eye can see, beautiful delicious salmon easily caught from the shore, relatively easy canoe travel from place to place. Plus, it's so beautiful! On the other hand, agates are common up there, including on those rocky cliff-lined shores, so at least by the standard the video mentioned of the limestone cave in Mexico, it's possible that your artifact was nonhuman.
Love learning about the changing views on the populating of the Americas. Unfortunate we're missing just so much in the coastal areas, but it's amazing how much we've learned on the subject in the past 20 years alone!
I think it's somewhat expected to find less stuff by the coast since there's been so much sea, rain and wind erosion, besides a humid environment which is terrible for bones. Central brazil, though, has always been dryer.
Yes, and I wonder about potential for finding early sites raised up via isostatic rebound from glacier melt loss of weight? Do Washington and Oregon have strata now higher and more accessible, that could still date to 20 to 30KA yet not be only found under the sea currently? This has happened in S.E. Ak, perhaps close to the southern edge geology of the glaciation in Canada and northern WA?@@amelliamendel2227
Also, hormones likely fueled the move eastward from the Oregon/Wa coast, looking for mates, yet they did not know there were none to be found. Did they reach the Fort Rock lake areas before they got too frustrated, and possibly went back west to the coastal band to report? Did they tell great tales of rich resources around the E.OR lakes?
@@luizarthurbritoand hundreds of feet of sea level rise, where many miles deep of coastline have disappeared underwater in some areas. Northern Chile is an exception since we got some continental uplift there, which is likely why the early dated Monte Verde site was discovered.
Howdy Stefan , old Az cowboy here, in earlier days ( I’m 70 now) I’ve dabbled in flint knapping & I’ve followed the “Clovis First” trails for years & i dare say as a novice Archaeologist, those Beautiful fine examples of spear points could not have been created in one or two settings, they had to have rough origins at first & improved them later on as they acquired better stone materials & skills, just saying , it’s also taken quite a few years for “us” to advance from chariots to Viper cars ! Keep “digging” & I - we, will keep watching ! Love your show! See ya down the trail, Pard !
That little scraper is made from Carnelian agate, which is just a form of quartz. Agate and other knappable quartz is fairly common in Oregon, but I've not personally seen Carnelian cropping anywhere near Rimrock Draw in my meanderings. Lots of obsidian nearby - it's nice, but brittle. Agate takes a strong sharp edge. The elder folk used whatever stone was available, but as they traveled through quartz-bearing regions hunting and gathering, they would have harvested or cached any clean agate, jasper and obsidian they found along the way as they're all glassy silica and can be knapped beautifully. Heck, you can knap ugly old basalt or plain chert if it's fine-grained enough, but they seem to have enjoyed nice tools made with pretty rocks when they had them, and ownership probably indicated or conferred high status. They also probably made valued trade items. Sorry, seems I tend to geek out over our Paleo stone tool history here in the Pacific Northwest lol
Geek on, my friend! As someone living in Southern Ontario (lots of quartz lying around here), it's always fascinating to read about knapping materials other than flint! We can't really speak to the status such a tool would convey, but I'm certain that these tools would have been just as sought in their day as a finely inlaid knife or nickel-plated rifle is among huntsman today. After all, we all like pretty things. :)
All of this... I'm always surprised how little archaeologists seem to factor in that humans just enjoy things that look nice, be it 20 or 100 or 1000 or 2000 years ago
Divers found a paleo settlement down about 85 feet on the Washington coast. Sea level rise has hidden most of the evidence. A lot of good work being done on the retreating glaciers in Canada. Thanks, great talk.
The Washington coast was probably subject to significant isostatic rebound since glacial melting, so the paleo sea floor probably was uplifted somewhat more than the Oregon coast IMHO.
Great video! As someone who lives in the 'channeled scablands' of WA state, I can attest to it's beauty! I wanted to provide some greater context for your explanation of the flooding events, however. You are correct in that it was likely water from glaciers that caused the flooding, but it's a bit more intricate to that. Essentially, the Laurentine ice sheet would grow over the natural course of the Columbia river, causing it to dam up and overflow the banks all the way back to the Missoula valley in Montana! And when I say filled, I mean FILLED. You can still observe the high water marks in the valley today near a thousand feet above the valley floor. So periodically the ice dam would break, causing that massive reservoir to spill out catastrophically across the land scape seeking the lowest elevations. It was probably early on in these periodic flooding and daming events (Estimated to be 30+) that the basalt bedrock canyons were eroded away around where the Coulee Dam sits today, creating the alternative flow of the Columbia river that would go on to carve out dry falls. It is estimated when the dam broke and water flowed over Dry Falls, it had a greater volume of flow than all of the rivers in the world combined. We're talking so much water that the entire valley from Ephrata to Yakima was likely completely submerged in a hundred feet of water or more. The falls themselves are ten times the width of Niagra. When you drive across the landscape here and try to fathom these details, it breaks your mind. :D There's a lot more to it than that, lots of cool little details. For example, I live in a particular area that's carved out by the ice age flooding events, but not directly. The canyons I live within were carved out by the Columbia river when the path was diverted by the growth of the Laurentine ice sheet. Geology is a language like any other, and when you learn to read it, the landscape tells a story that you can't help but marvel at. Cheers!
Fellow Washingtonian who can't stop falling more in love with our state's geology/history/etc: That's such an awesome summary, and I hope other people reading it really GET how insane all these details are. One of my other favorite fun facts is that a HUGE amount (I originally heard it was the majority) of the basalt flows covering the area came out of a gash in the ground currently on some farmer's property near Ritzville.
From what I know now, the coastal route seems more plausible than the gap in the ice sheets model. People have to eat, and coastal areas would have better forage than the gap.
Possiblly the reason there hasn't been evidence of the boats they came in is that 1. sea level rise, and 2. once south enough, they moved inland period. Catalina off CA has some stuff, and what about the footprints in NM?
@@cathjj840 And most of the West coast of North America is submerged, rather than accumulating sediments to preserve fossil sites. I do not know of much coastal plain north of the Los Angeles basin. There are bits around Monterrey Bay, but not much more.
From what I came across recently, there is evidence that Beringia was a refuge during the last glacial maximum that supported its own ecosystem between the continental ice sheets. It's likely that the ancestral native Americans could have supported themselves in that environment while it is equally likely they could have expanded from there prior to the glacial melt by following the coastline.
@@wavetactics13That's interesting. I've heard minor rumblings about the sustenance available in the gap possibly being quite sufficient to support human migration over that distance, under the environmental conditions at that time. Everything I've read about though, it's all been stated as if the whole idea is heavily theoretical and low to null on tangible evidence. Hmm. I'll look into it. Cheers! 😀🌎
I think it's worth considering that there is actually another pre-Clovis site in South America, Monte Verde, with some dates going back to around 19,000 years ago. Perhaps even Huaca Prieta pre-dates Clovis as well.
I'm not an archeologist, but I am someone who makes stuff. The simple answer about why only 3 if the osteograph(sp?) pieces are made by humans is that they didn't make only 3, they threw out 3. Every artisan has screw up pieces, they just got tossed with other bits they weren't using because they drilled the hole wrong or something. They could have just yeeted them down the cave in frustration for all we know.
You're not an acheologist and you're not a Paleolithic artisan. I hope you're not suggesting that an artisan 27,000 years ago thinks like a guy who makes things today. These ancient people weren't watching UA-cam and being over critical of their work, with time to kill, and tossing aside their work willy nilly. By necessity they were much more practical. Nevertheless, there are thousands of these osteoderms and there is no continuum of workmanship where some are nicely made and others appeared to be the product of subpar workmanship and tossed. And even so, 3 +3 = 6 pieces out of thousands found at the same site. This is not a smoking gun. What any good scientist would use this evidence for is to suggest further analysis and collection of evidence is warranted. Stand alone, those three pieces do not make a rock solid case for people being in the Americas 27,000 years ago. If indeed there were people in the Americas 27,000 years ago, there would be more evidence than an ambigous bone that is remarkably similiar to other osteoderms that arose by natural processes.
@@commodoor6549 This is a comment on UA-cam, not a scholarly paper. It's a suggestion for discussion based on an outside perspective, as someone who practices craftsmanship. Sometimes that can be valuable and see things in a way someone who's looking at it from a more academic point of view isn't. Ever hear about the way they figured out strange Roman hairstyles by finally having a practicing hairdresser look at it? And no, paleolithic people aren't watching UA-cam but you can darn well bet they are scrutinizing their work. People still think like people no matter the age, and sometimes you just need things to be a certain way. Mistakes are a hallmark of our humanity. Not sure why you decided to be intensely antagonistic and frankly a jerk over a comment made months ago, but here we are. At least my comment generated discussion and got that old engagement algorithm moving.
@@sinisterbutterfli Feel entirely free to respond as you wish, but don't try to stifle my freedom of expression. You opened up the discussion, I replied. It's not complicated. Your comment is an opinion... my comment is an opinion. But neither is above criticism. Relax and grow some thicker skin and learn how to deal with criticism. Again, thinking that a modern cultural perspective closely resembles a perspective of a human living in the Paleolithic Age is the height of arrogance.
Hey, it should be mentioned that Santa Elina in Brasil isn’t the first extremely early site in the Americas to stir up controversy. There’s also MV-I in Chile which has been radiocarbon dated to a whopping 33,000 BP. There’s also the Pedra Furada site in Brasil where charcoal from very ancient fires and stone shards that may be interpreted as tools were dated from 48,000 to 32,000 BP. At the Topper site in South Carolina, carbonized plant remains were radiocarbon dated to approximately 50,000 BP, although that is the upper limit of radiocarbon dating.
@@licheong The Austronesian migrations departed Taiwan circa 3500-3000 BP. They reached Hawai’i by 1100 BP and Rapa Nui by 1000 BP. These dates precede Polynesian cultures by tens of thousands of years.
Hey, any sites on islands near shorelines may have been well below our current sea level since this is were lower 12,000 years ago. Additionally, it’s possible that some islands have been submerged. Lastly, since Polynesians would likely be occupying the best places to live, they may have erased traces of earlier Inhabitants simply by living there.
@@liamstacey419 True. But I just want to emphasize, for those who aren't paying attention, that the Austronesians [including Polynesians] started their journey across the Pacific _10,000 years _*_after_* the oldest Clovis points. Thus, Polynesians, as you point out, Liam, arrived long after any previous seafaring settlers of the Americas and erased any non-submerged traces of previous inhabitants.
@@John_Weisswe don’t know when the earliest austronesians sailed east across the ocean, we only have physical evidence for those recent trips. There is genetic and cultural evidence of much earlier voyages. Genetic evidence in a tribe in Brazil, and cultural similarities between modern Australia aboriginals and people of Tierra del Fuego. I was considering how hard it would be for physical and evidence of their (theoretical) voyage to survive
Have you been to Brazil? There are vast areas of it that people almost never go to because the rain forest makes it so difficult. LIDAR scans have fairly recently shown that there are the foundations of a very large set of interlocking villages, farms, and ceremonial sites in the Amazon basin, linked by a network of well-planned roads. Without LIDAR technology, we'd have no idea they were there. It is only recently that 'modern' populations have populated many of these areas. We also have to consider that, especially in areas where stones are scarce, tools might be rare, and recycled until destruction. Some apparently 'recent' sites may have been recycled from much earlier times, as is the case with the Great Sphynx in Egypt, and perhaps the Great Pyramids as well. The parts of these Egyptian sites that are less than 6 thousand years old may well have dismantle previous structures for the materials to build with.
I agree. But LIDAR may not see pre-clovis evidence due to environmental change. The finds in Santa Elina are somewhat deep underground and LIDAR may not have the capabilities to notice these patterns (considering these pre-clovis populations did change their environment significantly to be noticed). Maybe other tools like ground penetrating radar may help but we'd need to know where to look. The sites you mentioned may not have been the 27000 year old population but the more recent 14000 year old population, which is still amazing in my opinion.
@@ulysisxtr I'm not saying lidar can see everything, I'm saying that even huge structures over vast areas have been missed in parts of the world where there's not much foot traffic or construction activity. In other words, it's no surprise that something as small as some pre-clovis tools have not been found in great numbers, especially in Amazonia. There could millions of them lying just under the leafmold.
Here is something to blow your mind. The Sahara and the Amazon have not always been they way they are now. The Sahara at the very least has been (maybe as recently as 5000 years ago) been a lush forested area. Not sure if Lidar can slice away the desert... but you can see stuff out in the dunes that haven't been dug out by Archeology from Google Earth satellite snapshots.
Yes, I was also ashamed of years ago that I always taught at school that there had to be a "time of wooden day -to -aid" in front of the famous "Stone Age". And at the same time, I did not think that the low frequency of stone chipped material in the southern parts of Asia has the cause of the stone knife represented an easy -to -manufacture bamboo knife with the same quality of the same quality. So the obligatory question of enthusiastic laymen "How they could do it", our guaranteed primitive ancestors are answered in the prince. Something we don't know. But!!! I have a video of how the American moves and lifts many -ton blocks with only a few simple machines, which is actually a teaching theme in Europe for about a variety, perhaps a little older, a pupil. Simply "simple machines" . Tom, formerly professor of comprehensiv school to university
Soy to mistakes: Yes, I was also ashamed of years ago that I always taught at school that there had to be a "wooden/skin/bone Age" in front of the famous "Stone Age". And at the same time, I did not think that the low frequency of stone chipped material in the southern parts of Asia has the cause of the stone knife represented an easy manufactured bamboo knife with the same quality. So the obligatory question of enthusiastic laymen "How they could do it", our guaranteed primitive ancestors, are answered in the prince. Something we don't know. But!!! I have a video of how the one merican moves and lifts many-ton blocks with only a few simple machines, which is actually a teaching theme in Europe for about a variety, perhaps a little older, a pupil. Simply "simple machines" . Tom, formerly professor of comprehensive school to university
I just retired from the University of Oregon. Used to have to clean the natural history museum at night. I remember seeing the scrappers in the case! I also got to get up close and personal with the oldest shoes in the world! It was great fun!!!
There were, according to presentations given by Nick Zentner, a geologist who teaches at Central Washington University (CWU), a number of floods related to repeated rapid discharges from glacial termini and glacial lakes across what is now western Montana, northern Idaho, southern British Columbia and Washington State. These very high discharge floods occurred over a period of several thousand years. There was also at least one great flood, via the Snake River, related to the rapid draining of Lake Bonneville in what is now the endorheic Great Basin. These episodic high-volume flood pulses scoured much, though not all, of what is now eastern Washington and western Idaho, leaving Eastern Oregon as the better prospect for the preservation of early ‘Pre Clovis’ artifacts.
It sounds like a lot of land but they only covered 30,000km2 which leaves plenty of drainages that wouldn’t have been affected. There’s recent scientific work that shows that ancient floods are often overestimated by as much as 80% when scientists use the modern topography to model the floods. The main reason for this is when the floods started they hadn’t cut their way down into the rivers and land and the channels weren’t as deep. There’s also the back cutting effect that makes measuring ancient flows difficult because that changes the ancient high water lines and reconstructing that geologic process and measuring the material is complicated. There was also more materials in the channels that would displace water making the flows seem deeper than they actually were, similar to how pebbles or ice cubes in a glass displace water. So personally I don’t think the ice age floods are a good enough reason to not find human artifacts in the western states.
@@alexburke1899 I think we are underestimating the loss of artifacts and sites due to rise in sea-level. Sure, its possible that sites further inland may have escaped the damage, but if the earliest sites are along the water, which would be a resonable prediction in line with the theory that humans traveled via boats, then its the rise in sea level caused by the floods that would do the most damage. we lost miles of coastline so even sites that were considered inland at the time may be suberged or in areas subject to increase erosion and disturbance.
Stefan have you ever covered on considered the Hueyatlaco site in Mexico that was dated to 250k years. Thanks for your research! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueyatlaco?wprov=sfti1
As a brazilian, one of the possible answers might be that there's not enough investiment in archeology, and not for as long as there's been in the USA and Europe. Our archeology is often funded by foreign teams and depends on their wills. Plus it's a big country with some tricky terrain/weather, and conditions for preservation might not be as good.
Scientists: We have all the answers! We know the human history! Any opposition must be met with hostility and name calling... oh look, discoveries showing we were wrong all along... doesn't matter, trust the science and its priest class!
@@JBaker-lh8pl lol. science consists of scientists are human. ergo yes all the flaws of humans exist in science Do you know how many examples exist of scientists keeping to their dogma and rejecting facts? The entire fields of cosmology and physics is fraudulently fake. Observable. Do you see scientists going. Yeah we were wrong about big bang and the standard model.
My tribes' (Hopi) origin story is from time immemorial, coming out of the Grand Canyon from the inner world that was wicked. Also interestingly Maya and Hopi people have super similar prophecies and culture. Who knows maybe everyone pushed South while the glaciers and floods were happening and came back up later. Anyways great freaking video Stef, always getting my mind thinking!
It's interesting, like if you see that map of Clovis point distribution in North America you can clearly see that there are points found in the gap in the ice sheets, but I think I'm right in thinking that they are younger than points below it. So the first Native Americans did travel through the gap in the ice, just the opposite way that earlier archaeologists imagined lol. I think you're idea might be right though! The earliest Clovis points found so far are actually in Mexico, so my hypothesis (could be wrong of course) is that native americas travelled really quickly down the west and then when they reached Mexico and the land narrows crossed to the east cost and went further north again.
That origin story lines up with theories from people like Matthew lecroix, Randall Carlson, graham hancock and others who are finding these underground cities in places like Turkey. The theory is Civilization got reset by a major catastrophe during the younger drias and the survivors had to live underground for a long time because the world above was so uninhabitable. So interesting, and I’m open to all of these possibilities. If you date the pyramids and other megaliths back to that period, it makes a lot more sense than king kufu and his slaves building them with copper tools.
@@heraldgreenbanger5488it is more likely they tried to replicate a lot of the structures of old after emerging from underground in some areas. But there are vast caves with some ancient construction in south America. Also check out the Sage Wall in Montana. Would love for some actual archeologists to go investigate that!
Agates are quite common in Oregon, but you generally find them in river beds or along the coastline on rocky beaches and at river mouths. They're formed from heat and pressure through mineral deposits in quartz - igneous rocks. They make wonderful flintnapping material, and I'm always on the lookout for larger ones just for that purpose. Oddly, just due west of Burns Oregon are some of the finest obsidian deposits in Oregon at Glass Buttes. Made from agate the tool is almost certainly a scraper, allowing a greater lateral pressure along the cutting edge than obsidian or dacite.
What we are learning is that much of geology is mistaken for human made tools. It’s unfathomable that every single stone in our creeks in the south eastern United States, is a tool, shaped like a bird and mammoths and humans, 90% of our history is spent in the stone age, and according to the Peabody museum of Archaeology, we know less than 10%. Please take a look at the citizens researching portable rock art.
@@FacesintheStone What we are learning is how to recognize human presence where we thought none had been. If we only know 10% of our history, how is it that we 'know' we've spent 90% of that time as "cavemen"? Even Neanderthal used needles and thread to make tight fitting clothing. Most of the technology and tools of our history would be organic and long ago turned to dust. We don't even know 1% of our actual history.
a little south of there on the north coast of Ca is a beach called Agate Beach, google-able, has nice deposits of there. It is a state park that I have been to!
Agates and jaspers are found throughout the great basin, both in situ and in river gravels. They were deposited in the basin by silica precipitated from volcanic ash, which condensed in vugs in the rocks (often basalt or lava) beneath the ash layers, solidifying into agate and jasper. Much of the fossilized wood in the great basin formed in the same way, when ash fall killed forests, and the trees were covered by ash. That scraper looks like a similar color to the agates and Jaspers found near the Oregon/Idaho border, known in the lapidary world as Bruneau Canyon Jasper, though some of it is more translucent like the scraper, and might be called agate.
I was just on the Columbia River last week in BC for the first time. That whole trench in between the Rocky mountains really gets your mind going on what it looked like 13000 years ago
When i started working at a museum in montana, we thought our clovis culture locally was part of the first wave of migration, in just years, the story has become so much more complex. Its so exciting!
I took a class called ancestral lifeways of the southwest on a field semester expedition hiking around Arizona and new Mexico and we took this class (carrying textbooks and school materials and all the legit college level stuff) and it was a mix between archeology and a cultural studies class, but this debate was one of the main sections we spent some time on and the best argument I heard was that there must have been a people who worked their way along the pacific coast using coastal resources to survive whose archeological remains we can't find due to sea level rise washing it away
The other thing is, if it is a coastal population, maybe with a lifestyle similar to Inuit traditional culture, they could have been migrating generationally down the coast. Could have taken a thousand years.
i'm native american from the columbia river basin and we have always said we've been here since time immemorial. it is cool to see how that could line up scientifically also and not just spiritually :)
@@michaelmathes7162 which geologically there have been proven to be massive flooding in that area, although im assuming you already knew that based on your response!
It always blows my mind to think that there were people living in the columbia river basin when those ice dams started to break, and flood all of eastern washington/oregon. it must have been terrifying and awe inducing to see that much power unleashed by nature.
Many indigenous peoples in the northwest have stories of great floods that forced their ancestors to flee or be washed away and carved rivers into the earth, so clearly it was such a powerful experience that the memory has been passed down over the thousands and thousands of years to today.
Celilo falls on the Columbia River supported dozens of tribes of native americans. An 8 mile encampment on each side of river made it the largest town in north america. I grew up there and remember the falls and all the salmon. I was in grade school with many Indians but to young to understand why they were so sad about dynomiting the foundation and backing up the dalles dam and covering it all. We were promised cheap power for life and won't effect the salmon runs and got gold madalin awards for all electric homes. Oregon even had there own death March with the Shoshone.
@@SupahTrunks7 - People from all over the world have stories of past floods because floods are very dangerous everywhere. Unfortunately, while precious, those tales are not proof of anything.
@@MossyMozart I've left a rather long essay in reply to a separate comment on this video (including citing a few of my sources) which I would be happy to also copy and paste here if you're interested, but suffice it to say that it is the contents of these flood stories that leads us to believe they date to this time period, not just the fact that they are about floods. For instance, correctly citing the flood(s) as the cause of various geographical features such as rivers which had not existed prior to the Missoula Floods, pointing to mountains which would have been above the height of the Missoula floodwaters as being places their ancestors took refuge, these stories coming from tribes living in what would have been slackwater areas where the flow of water was much slower and more survivable, several oral traditions recount not just a single flood but multiple (the Missoula Floods were likely cyclical and may have even occurred as often as every 50 years), and even at least one tribal history explicitly states that there had once been a lake behind the Rocky Mountains which, when breached, caused the flood as it emptied. So while we of course can never have concrete proof (as we so rarely do when discussing pre-history) the similarities between many of these oral traditions and our current scientific understanding of the Missoula Floods makes them a fascinating possible avenue for investigating the impact glacial floods had on humans, especially since sites like the one in Oregon shown in the video provide evidence that the affected areas WERE seeing human habitation during the timeframe of the Missoula Floods.
So humans could also have seen the holes and where like mm there are holes in them let's try to make something out of this. And if you have a group of people that do not leave allot of traces for there is plenty and do allot with wood. 😊
The Missoula floods 13,000-15,000 years ago, shaped the landscape here in eastern Washington. I have toured many of the sites here and it is incredible. Actually the entire state has some incredible geology.
I wish I recalled the source of this story told by a native elder. It was decades ago. The story told of this tribe following their shaman who was leading then to new land, new hunting grounds. They traveled eventually into a frozen land, and the tribe worried, but followed their shaman. After a time they came to warmer new land. Seems to me to be a story about the land bridge crossing into North America. Considering where they had come from, I think they knew very well how to cross some frozen land. Not the only peoples to come here, not the first either.
The smoothness and polish especially on the surfaces of the objects, as well the holes, would seem more likely to be the product of the action of water and soil creating a slurry and polishing them over thousands of years. It might also explain why the holes are a bit larger as well. Being the jungle one has to guess they got a lot rain over a lot of years. That the flea holes were possibly already present in the them, then time and erosion could have done the rest...but I could be wrong! As always thanks for the exceptional content and presentation.
It is certainly possible but there is a slight chance they are right so let's stuff this one away until we either find more sites from that time or we don't. If think we agree that this site alone can't prove anything but 50 years ago anything Pre Clovis was in the same position so there is a possibility there were a somewhat small population in the area. But that has to be proven first. I don't like dismissing sites like this just because it doesn't work with our current narrative but neither do I think a single possibly mistaken site should change our history books. The correct thing is to log any sites that have a question mark somewhere and wait for more evidence. If it is real, more sites from the same period will show up and if not, then it seems like there were some natural process going on.
I agree that our current narrative is certainly open to future reinterpretation and dating. I'm not one who subscribes to the Clovis uber alles orthodoxy but in this instance more convincing and abundant evidence is called for, such as charcoal in the strata or just simply refuse such as other animal bones and greater evidence of human occupation at that early a date which seems to be missing. Humans have a way of cluttering up the caves we sleep in. Little has changed that way now we use the oceans! So there should be more evidence of many sorts it would seem. And that these bones could only be some form of adornment ( and how and with what did they polish then to such smoothness? And why aren't there more of them) which is how we would like to imagine such an early group to have been because it satisfies and lends them an element of humanity we can easily identify with because we and later groups might have fashioned such objects into something similar and pleasing to our sense of esthetics strikes me as a matter of more modern projection. And the remoteness of the site is telling as well being that remote with what must have been very small numbers of people and the chances of survival slim. Nearer the coast, of say Chile, even at that very early date would be more believable even at a stretch having migrated by sea. But where it is seems to me highly unlikely at that time in the middle of the Ice Age. And that only three objects found in close proximity out of thousands argues against them being human made as well. What strikes me most is how they resemble pieces of driftwood which is hollowed and polished out by the persistent action of salt water into shapes that are pleasing to us but not intentionally made by us. Thanks for the comment. Milo is to be thanked for his gift for sharing his contagious uninhibited curiosity and enthusiasm. It's a great standout channel.
Seems like the most reasonable course of action, i.e. it's the hallmark of Any scientific investigation. More data will reveal much more than less or preliminary data!! : ) All that, or, as that guy with the weird hair might say, the ancient aliens left some sort of little laser drills for these people to use. Yes, that must be it; travel the vastness of interstellar space to leave a few tools behind for the poor old hominids to use to make jewelry!! LOL ;D@@loke6664
@@loke6664I still think the most plausible hypothesis is that a sloth was initially infected with abnormally large fleas and later it’s carcass was found and scavenged by early South Americans that wore/polished it.
@@josea1707 Interesting idea. Curiously sloths, today at least, don't usually attract blood sucking parasites like fleas or ticks because they have the lowest body temperature of any endothermic animal between 74° and 91° fahrenheit because they metabolize so incredibly slowly and those little bloodsuckers Milo so rightly detests just don't it seems go in for them. They prefer a hotter meal. It's anybody's guess what the megatherium's body temperature was (and it's theorized they even occasionally ate some meat by picking on carcasses which would fit your idea very well and picked up some fleas then because they would have had to have metabolized at a higher body temperature to have digested meat and not plants...so maybe you're right) but it probably wasn't much different so if fleas tastes for hotter blood haven't changed one has to wonder if the fleas infested their thick fur. They don't have fleas now but back then who knows? Though once we can be sure humans did finally show up in Brazil about 10 to 12 thousand years ago the giant sloths were hunted to extinction quite quickly. The question is were there any humans living in that part of Brazil 27 thousand years ago. I have my doubts. Maybe in a future podcast Milo will figure it all out.
Did I miss the part where you mentioned that there are more Clovis sights on small strips of land on the east coast than everywhere west of thee Mississippi? No mention of possible migration from the east when there are flint blades quarried in Spain but found on barrier islands off the east coast.
So excited to see that you've got a video on White Sands coming up! I'm an archaeologist working in New Mexico and it's the talk of the town down here. I was expecting it to be in this video, but a video all its own is even better.
I always think of human expansion like a tide coming in. At the large scale the water comes up and covers the beach in one steady event but at the small scale the waves lap over and over the land until the force of water behind them moves the leading edge further up the beach.
It's a good analogy. And it's supported by the history of Europeans conquering the Americas. You have tentative pushes, individuals and small groups exploring, and the permanent settlements follow generations later. Those settlements don't always make it, either. Consider Scandinavians in Greenland as an example. I think it's reasonable to surmise that some humans managed to get to the Americas well in advance of any permanent occupation. Some of those humans left evidence and some of that evidence will be found... eventually. Whether any of those people were still around when later, more successful, occupation occurred can probably never be known.
Hey Stefan great video, you left out the White Sands NM site of footprints from 23,000 years ago. It does seem weird the older sites are further south. Maybe bands of explorers in small groups wound up in isolated pockets before a larger migration?
My grandfather had an older half sister (Aunt Pauline) had one of the largest arrow head collections in Wyoming (where she lived) she did all of her collecting when collecting such things was still legal. When she passed the State got her entire collection and it can still be seen in the museum there.
As someone with Native American ancestry from South America, this channel makes me so happy. Strange to find a channel produced by a British person that discusses the latest archeological findings in America, but it is refreshing to hear an outsider's perspective to realize how unique our continent and its people are. Keep it up brother!
Strange because I can get a better presentation and analysis on new American sites from a European than from an American. I think there is an overall low interest in native history for the general American public. Doubly true for people in the United States talking at all about south American history. @@davidviner5783
Yes, I did not know that scholarship and discoveries in all branches of science had any geographical boundaries! Why not tell that to the Indians, who just landed a robot space craft on the moon, for example!! ;D@@davidviner5783
Hi Milo there are agates in the USA especially around Michigan and the lakes !There are videos that show how to find them and cut them and make them jewelry! It's known from the ancient times that it's semiprecious stone in Greek it's called αχάτης! thanks for the knowledge you give ! greetings from Greece!
Hi Stefan, love your channel. Im a flintknapper and love practicing experimental archaeology. Ive made stone drills and used them on stone, bone, and shell. They leave very distinct tapered holes with circular striations inside the walls of the hole due to the uneven nature of the chipped chert drill. I think that the shallower striations could gradually be worn away by cordage or leather thong but the deeper ones would likely be there as evidence of the drilling process even after a long time. Also depending on how the bone was hung on the string may wear off some striations but leave others where the cordage had no contact with the hole. Just some thoughts. It seems easy to inspect these things under a magnifier.
Not available west of the Rockies in Canada. Too bad, this is one plan that really appeals to me as I'm 74 live alone and don't feel like cooking. Well maybe some day.
Hi Stefan.Thanks for this video. About the pronunciation of Cuiabá, put a stress on the final syllable : ) The word 'Cuiabá' is of indigenous origin, specifically from the Bororo language. There are several interpretations for the meaning of the name, but one of the most accepted suggests that 'Cuiabá' is derived from 'Ikuîâba,' which could be translated as 'place of the ikuí fish' or 'river of the ikuí fish.' The ikuí fish is a species locally known.
yeah. good rule of thumb for gringos: when reading brazillian-portuguese, if you see an accent over a vowel thats for sure where to emphasize the pronunciation. so ku-yah-BAH
Some of the scrapers found at the Santa Elina site actually look pretty similar to that Rim Rock Draw scaper tool too, although perhaps the rock that was used isn't as compelling. Shown in "Peopling South America's centre: The late Pleistocene site of Santa Elina" 2017. From that paper: "microlithic industry evidenced by three small, well-worked siliceous blade cores with retouched edges. Several limestone microblade cores (20mm) with cortical butts exhibit evidence of retouch with denticulate edges (Figure 8). The robust, notched or denticulated tools (Figure 9) contrast with the smaller flakes. Evidence of microwear, such as polishing on the cutting edges, is visible on some artefacts. The raw lithic materials used are exogenous to the shelter, with some coming from sources as far as 2km away."
Yep, but a prestigious archaeologist as he is, prefers to look at a picture for 5 seconds and say that it just looks like a simple stone 🤷♂ The same fascinating methodology that Gary Haynes (University of Nevada) uses to defend the Clovis First theory and discredit any other discovery made in South America.
I live around the Tennessee Valley area Northern Alabama, a lot of sites around here get swept under the rug because somebody does not want a archaeological site where they're trying to build their house. Not mentioned once the Tennessee River was dammed it flooded most sites that were along its banks.
Great job! You entertain and inform. I love this subject. I wish a boat 60 miles off the coast of California would drag up a bunch of artifacts. So cool.
Good show, Stefan. I have found a lot of agate, as well as Jasper and obsidian tools in the path of the Missoula floods. So, not very far from Burns. And there were many Missoula floods- at least 11 that we know of.
I live in Portland and just a few weeks ago took a week-long trip from Idaho to back home, right through the middle of Oregon. I was thinking of your previous video all the time on that trip, ended up stopping in Blue Basin and Painted Hills which are both very archaeologically-themed, couldn't get my mind off how incredibly far back the human history in this region must have gone, and the stories that for now are lost to us. Crazy to think that I passed probably no more than 45 minutes from the site you highlighted in this video. So freaking cool that my backyard is a nexus of human history. Not that abnormal in Europe I suppose, but feels very special for an American like me. The pre-historic human world is far more fascinating than high fantasy with knights and dragons, IMO.
I live in Europe, in the Netherlands. When disturbing the soil for building etc, archeological exploration is mandatory, and if important finds turn up, a full excavation follows to record and salvage the archeology. I moved to my current city 12 years ago and in that relatively short period, a large Roman-era city, or densely populated suburb was found, a little down the road there was a giant fortress that was likely used as a stepping stone for the Roman invasion of Britain, also a prehistoric settlement that must have been one of the largest in North-Western Europe, in another direction they found Merovingian/migration era graves, warriors with fragments of weaponry. Close by is the central "low plain" of Holland, which is actually a drained swamp, and which was colonised and drained about 1,000 years ago. The communities were more or less planned by local rulers and grew from central roads. Farmers dug drainage canals on either side of their house and extended them until they reached a river, or someone else's plot. This created elongated plots which are still visible in the landscape today. The communities are largely still inhabited by descendents of those colonizers from 1,000 years ago. So yes, there is so much history and archaeology around us, but it's all under a thick layer of modern landscape or it's still in use and therefore not so exciting....
These floods which laid bare the Channelled Scablands occurred long before there was any civilization in Europe. This was the same time when Dogger Land existed, and when the great tidal wave came down from present day Norway and inundated Dogger Land beneath the English Channel and the North Sea. This was before the construction of the first hill forts, and long before even Stonehenge was first built on the west coast, and before it was subsequently moved to the Salisbury Plain. It even predated the birth of Sumerian or any of the Indian and Southeast Asian civilizations by many thousands of years. It was later than the last Neanderthals, but modern humans had a long way to go before they would make significant sedentary communities of more than a few generations at all. This was a time when all humans were still hunter/gatherer societies with a little opportunistic fishing around the edges. Sites this old and much older are found in Europe though, else we would not have Neanderthal finds, nor would we have Heidelbergensis. Those, and Homo erectus lived long before those massive glacial floods, and probably long before any kind of human showed up in North America. There were many animals in north America at the time which would have made a quick snack out of any early human which might have shown up. There were dire wolves which were up to four times the size of a modern wolf There was the short faced bear which was bigger than a Kodiak bear, and could run as fast as a horse. There were several species of sabretooth cats some of which were as big as a cow. There were large, bone crushing dogs which could easily crack the bones of the rhinoceros species which lived here at the time, and probably did the same to mastodon bones. It was a much wilder west than 18th century tappers and cowboys found. It was not a place where humans would have survived for long. Those animals would all go extinct before humans found a place here.
Dang...you did a great job of introducing your factor meals sponsor..i listened to you, viewed their link...and actually thought about the meals. Never done that before.
The Missoula Floods across Washington State and the Columbia River occurred dozens of times, in a cycle of every fifty years or so, ending around 13,000 years ago. So the natives living along the Columbia would have seen repeated massive floods, wiping out anything they had built along the river all the way to the sea. There was also a huge Bonneville flood at about 17,400 years ago from Utah that came down the Snake River and then the Columbia. The local natives still have stories of their people high on the Columbia Hills watching the floods go by.
I was actually born in Cuiabá. Did you ever get around to reading the work of Niède Guidon? She claims to have evidence of human presence in Brazil over 100k years ago. She's quite celebrated among Brazilian academics, and a lot of them feel slighted by the way she was treated by international academia. I don't know what to make of her claims, but it's a discussion that interests me.
100,000 years ago we were barely leaving Africa. American migration at that time would fly in the face of the plethora of archeological and genetic evidence we have from all over the world on early human migration history so she would need some very compelling evidence if she wants to be taken seriously with a claim like that.
@@ninovelez100may be, but you'd still need some radically compelling evidence to make such a claim, or few will ever take it more seriously than "an interesting idea"
Great video and fantastic job gathering and presenting your data. This really is an intriguing mystery, one that I can only hope will be solved in our lifetime.
Love all of your videos, Stefan! Infinite thanks to you from one Cascadian to another 💜 And, I know you're increasing your production values lately, but will we ever see SpoonMic™ make a reappearance?
I love that you are willing to welcome new evidence with excitement- while also scrutinizing and questioning the evidence . The mark of the truly curious to to be able to hold conflicting ideas in the same thought. Thank you. Aaaannnnd Don’t worry about what you look like, worry about keeping healthy and happy so we have your videos for many many decades!!! Be full of joy with your family and fans - leave the anxiety behind. Warm wishes to you, yours, and the chat.
My husband was born and raised in Central Oregon. His grandfather and great grandfather have found a ridiculous amount of native American artifacts. The tools tend to look very different than the Clovis style. A little town out by Prinville Oregon called Alfalfa was full of that stuff. Of course this was all before it was illegal to pickup such things. That whole area is full of pictographs and all that type of stuff, which I've been honored to see with my own eyes. Lots obsidian and pink rock that looks like obsidian turned into all kinds of arrow heads, spear tips and so on. I've always believed that native Americans have been here longer than believed by the powers that be. I enjoy your channel. Thank you for sharing
Unfortunately much of that area was scoured down to bedrock during the breakages of Glacial lake Missoula and Lake Bonneville. Lake Bonneville (where the Bonneville salt flats are now) was broken by an earthquake which emptied it. The much larger Glacial Lake Missoula was much larger with a total volume estimated to have been larger than Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in the Great Lakes. That's a lot of water, and when the ice dam broke, all of that drained out and ran to the ocean in no more than two days. If you are familiar with the Channelled Scab lands and the coulees in the area, including the one which was dammed up by Grand Coulee Dam, then you know the area I'm talking about. There is strong evidence that it emptied and filled many times, and when it broke, it carried a lot of dirt and debris far out into the Pacific ocean. To this day, large portions of the Channelled Scab Lands are not arable, as the earth still has not filled in enough for anything with deep roots to grow there. The only places were there are trees are the areas near creeks and rivers where the it has silted in over the millennia. You can find an old, but solid video regarding the flooding of this area here: ua-cam.com/video/t3Km-NjcEvM/v-deo.html You can also search "Glacial Lake Missoula floods" and find additional videos on the topic. There are some videos put up by Creation "scientists". If you want solid ages for when this happened, it would be best to avoid those videos, as they say this was all created by Noah's flood and that its only 6000 years old. That simply cannot be the case for a vast number of reasons. It isn't too surprising that the tools look different than Clovis tools. Clovis points are rare to begin with. Further, any tools older than the Lake Missoula floods would have either been destroyed, or washed far out to sea. It would have been quite something to have been anywhere in the neighbourhood of those floods. The sound would have been loud enough to carry hundreds of miles, and it would have shook the ground for quite a distance too. One can only imagine how it must of looked for the first paleo Indians who came across it after the flooding. They would have been looking out into a canyon which was barren of any living thing... even so much as a blade of grass, I'm sure the devastation would have been stunning, and I doubt that anyone would want to try to cross it for decades after the last of the floods. The animals they were hunting would not go into there since there was no food for them to eat. It would have remained a wasteland for a very long time. Even now, vegetation is sparse. Trees grow only in low areas where dirt has collected over the centuries. Everything else growing in the area are plants which have a fairly shallow root system, such as sage, rabbit brush, greasewood, and some grasses. The pictographs and the points were made more recently than the last flood which swept through the area 15,000 years ago. Older points may be found in the areas just outside of the Scablands, both to the north and to the south, but not within the area where the flood once raged. I don't doubt that paleo Indians have been here for a very long time. They were very likely the first humans to come here. Exactly when they came, and whether they came through the ice free corridor or followed the coast is up for debate, and may be for a very long time. It's likely that they came by both routes at one time or another, maybe within a few decades of each other. Considering what has been found in South America, it is likely that they were here much earlier than the oldest times we can securely date at present. We don't currently have anything older though, so it's anybody's guess. Maybe in your lifetime we will find evidence of it. Or maybe we won't since this is a scientifically driven field, we cannot say for certain when they came. Only that they came, and that they first came a very long time ago.
@@ChompchompyerdedThank you very much for this ultra-informative comment. I grew up in Montana and heard about glacial lake Missoula a few times. I've only recently realized that the draining and flooding incidents occurred at times where it would have swept away evidence of human occupation along the pathway. I look forward to revisiting your comment, and the video link you shared, to keep learning more.
@@Chompchompyerded Neither the missoula or bonneville floods went as far south as Alfalfa Oregon or the site of the rimrock draw. these were mainly in the scablands of Washington. Alfalfa is 100 miles south of the columbia and Rimrock draw is 150 miles south the area around rimrock draw was a huge lake and was likely very green the lake dried up and left a desert. Alfalfa is roughly 3200' elevation and rimrock draw is 4500'. the columbia river gorge rim due north of these areas is 1200' with the river itself being around 200'. the floods just physically couldnt have got to these areas given that the floods started north and east of the Columbia.
Definitely another great segment. I would love to see you have a regular show on paleontology that would take you all over the globe to interview scientists and show us these fascinating sites and artifacts. I’m not criticizing your UA-cam channel, it’s a great resource and thoroughly entertaining and informative. I would just love more of you, that’s all! Take care !
I'm from Oregon , corvallis(rainy 70% of the year) but in the higher desert and in particular Eastern Oregon is very very common to come across tools like this that are not made of obsidian they're actually made of also Jasper,agate, cert, etc and I personally have several I wish I could post photos on here. Absolutely native made tools
Hey Stefan, just wanted to tell you a bit about agate and microcrystalline quartz. So to start microcrystalline quartz, of various types, are probably the most common tool making rocks. Usually called flint by archeologists, or chert by rock collectors. The grains of the quartz crystals are tiny, which leads to very smooth, sharp, conchoidal fractures. Agate is just a particularly pretty form of microcrystalline, defined by the presence of banding, often with transparent or translucent areas in it. A nice solid chunk of agate big enough to make that scraper out of would be a fun rock to find.
South American site: item A is a perfect flake that did not need any extra work to do its job as a mini-knife. You can see where it was struck to remove it from the core -- at that small flatt-ish area at the bottom. The bulb of percussion (the raised curved fan shape) is the ripple effect from the point where the rock was struck with another rock all the way to the edge, which will be razor sharp. Item C is very similar to the agate tool from Oregon: same shape and configuration, edges "retouched" (the fine trimming after the basic tool is struck off from a larger piece and roughly shaped) in little chips all around the wider back of the tool to make a scraper. Item E is harder to see, but it looks to be retouched along the thinner edge. All 3 look good for man-made. Item B looks retouched, and may be a burin (a sort of hole punch) but the photo is poor. Item D has the same problem: it may be mildly retouched but from this photo is not completely convincing.
Great, as usual. Wonderful illustration of paleolithic histories. Regarding the scraper found in Oregon, agate is found all over Oregon. With our volcanic/metamorphic geology, we have an abundance of this type of rock. That scraper is unquestioningly human-made, though. Wow, what a find...
Interesting that the scraper was made out of agate. That type of rock is pretty much exclusively found on or near the coast. So it was indeed carried hundreds of miles inland. Also its a more rare color of agate called a fire agate (because its orange instead of the more common white/opaque color). Cool stuff.
The coastal thing isn't true. Agate is composed of the most common mineral on the planet (quartz/silica), and is all over the place. Where I live, completely landlocked in central US, where all the bedrock is sandstone and granite, we still have huge gravel beds full of microcrystalline quartz stones (flint, jasper, agate...) Agate is definitely easy to find on gravel beaches, but that's far from the only place it's found. Heck, I've got some seam agate from the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas.
Agate's a metamorphic semi-precious gemstones usually washed out from any previously volcanic area, which means it can turn up pretty much anywhere. Its also very varied in colour even within a local area, every colour of the rainbow. Defining what exactly Agate is by chemical composition is, well ... just as variable, as different parts of the world call it by different general names.
My dad was a rockhound in eastern Oregon (among other areas but he grew up in The Dalles and I've been camping with him when he was exploring somewhere in the region) and there's lots of agate in eastern Oregon, places where thick bands of agate many inches thick have folded up to the surface.
They could (semi-obviously) be speaking of Oregon, and that there "That type of rock is pretty much exclusively found on or near the coast". Maybe in the center of the continent, agate is "all over". @@Curdledgorilla
Agates are found on the coast, in river gravels and in situ, pretty much world wide. They form from silica which is the most common mineral in the earth's crust, so thy are common worldwide. The Great Basin in eastern Washington, Oregon, western Idaho and northern NEvada is simply littered with agates and jaspers, in situ, not just in the river gravels. The agate and jasper formed when silica precipitated out of volcanic ash layers and hardened in vugs in the basalt and lava layers beneath the ash. The Great Basin agates and jaspers are well known and popular among lapidaries, who cut and polish them to make jewelry: Bruneau canyon jasper, Owyhee jasper, Gary Green Jasper, Biggs Jasper, Mt Airy agate and Ellensburg blue agate are some of the most well known. Agates are commonly found in river and beach deposits mostly because they are easiest to find in that situation. Finding them in situ is difficult in places where the land is covered in vegetation. But in the great basin, there is little vegetation, so agates and jaspers can be found easily in their host rock formations. Digging them out of hard rock is not so easy, though!
I remember being really confused during high school history when we were told that the first Americans crossed the land bridge and settled in New Mexico. Like, how did they get from ALASKA to NEW MEXICO? It's not like they went straight from A to B, there had to have been older settlements in the way, and as the population grew, it would have spread out, not just continue as a single group to this far off location. Yeah. That just always bothered me. I'm glad new findings are coming out about this.
I also wonder about that. Today, we have people who see a sheer cliff and insist on climbing it. Those people existed at the beginning of time. Imagine the few who came and went before the groups. Those who came back with stories.
The idea of humans traveling so far is only a problem for modern day lazy humans who can't even walk to the corner store. Hunter gathering people HAD to travel constantly to where the food was because they would eventually eat their current area out of food. They had a wide range of travel normally........until populations rose enough that conflict with other groups would arise. Before that the Americas were a literal buffet for the first people to come here. Especially along the coasts where travel was the easiest. Alaska to new mexico is only a little over 4000 kilometers. If each generation increased their range from where they were born 100 kilometers it would only take them 400 years to make that journey without even trying. Look how fast humanity spread out of Africa. It's easily doable. If they had simple canoes it's even crazier how far they could travel. Fur trade voyageurs use to average 75 kilometers a day in their hand paddled canoes. on the great lakes. Less in smaller rivers etc but that's pretty darn far in a day. Judging things through modern eyes is always a huge mistake.
N America was completely devastated at end of ice age and possibly a few times after. I live in SE USA. Our ground has a very thin layer of top soil followed by a 2 to 3 foot layer of pure red clay. Beneath the red clay there is a 1 inch thick layer of rock hard, compressed ash. Below the ash is a sandy yellow soil that goes to bedrock, as far as I can tell (only got 10 feet down in a few places). Obvious to me there was a massive fire then a flood of some kind that left the layer of red clay above it.
Can the absence of artifacts on the North American continent be tied to the Younger Dryas floods somewhere around 12,000 years ago? With the spectacular floods that carved out the Columbia River basin, it would make sense that artifacts were washed away by the torrents sweeping over the land. If they were forceful enough to carve out cliffs and valleys, small artifacts would not have stood a chance.
Also, sea level rise that caused the breakup of Beringia into the Berring Straight likely also flooded coastline communities and human artifacts that are probably under the ocean's waves.
Oregon has a beach named "Agate Beach". After big storms you can see agate rocks scattered around on the beach. Maybe the agate scraper was traded from coastal dwellers long ago.
I have found local agate in the mountains near the Rimrock draw site, and the lakebed gravels nearby have lots of small pebbles of agate that probably came geologically from those mountain sources IMHO.
I didn't look too much into it, but we do have sites that in the very least claim to be pretty old in south America, much older than we normally see in North america
@@ImperfectVoid8479 By boat how? From where? The coastal migration theory is basically mainstream now, but is essentially crossing the Bering Strait. An open ocean crossing of thousands of miles would be unprecedented for that time period.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 maybe not, as there was a dna test done that found that some indigenous south Americans are actually not descendants from north Americans or Europeans but instead they are connected to the indigenous people of Australia, so somehow the same ancient people managed to reach 2 of the hardest places to travel to.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 From Europe and Africa. Crazy idea. Even if coasts were closer at the whatever time they claim it happened, they couldn't have been that much closer! But some idiots will say anything, and other idiots will believe anything. People will believe anything they hear/see on UA-cam, even if it's aliens.
The Brazil objects could have been made more recently. The bones may be old but may have been found and used much later. I have a cello bow with a mastodon frog that was made only twenty years ago from ancient materials.
They have been dated to that old age because they were found in a layer of that age. The dating isn't just based on the objects themselves, but on the layer they were found in.
HEY Stefan, thank you for this. I do appreciate hearing about these discoveries now that the old people have died. Hopefully your generation will continue to be open to listening to young people when they make discoveries.
The episode is great, and yes the conversation on this subject is interesting. Perhaps you could do one on the Topper site, btw I wonder if the south American site was a place where ornaments were made. I also find it odd that the majority of Clovis sites are in the east rather than the north west.
Another interesting side note is Kings valley oregon, where I am near in Corvallis, they have found several giant sloth bones. I believe they call it the "Harlen sloth" as a nickname after the near by Harlen Oregon which is close to what I assumed a holler is in the Appalachian community. My grandparents grew up there so I'm very familiar with the area and history. Very rural area with no cell service in our coastal mountain range below the highest peak, Mary's peak. They have apparently found these bones in our natural springs which we have scattered all over this area in the Willamette valley. Also Mammoth bones and Oregon State University has done lots of studies on these obviously being the nearest University. I mean they just dug up one here in Corvallis on 9th Street putting in a restaurant not too long ago and they dug up one right in the center of the osu reser stadium!? So wherever we dig a Little deeper we find them here. Would be interesting to see the university findings. Apparently we don't find dinosaur bones here because this area was under water and a part of the ocean floor when dinosaurs were here.
We have lost quite a bit of coastal lands on the west side or North America in the last 15000 years... that I think whole ancient coastal communities locations have fallen into the ocean and been ground to sand by the waves.
Can it be that the people mostly lived on the coast (which was probably much further into the ocean as it is today) and only then started moving inland once the sealevels started rising? Similar patterns as Doggerland and the Black Sea. Would be nice to see what is below the ocean there on the west coast aswell.
Most first people at the Oregon coast, probably were most comfortable sourcing food from the marine environment, but I'll bet that the younger members of that band wanted desperately to explore eastward ASAP, if just to get away from adult supervision. And, they were probably driven to do this by hormone power to look anxiously for potential mates, but did not know that there were no potential mates, as they WERE the first people in the new world.
Too many comments to go through to see if anyone else mentioned this, but your opinion at about 15:50 that archaeologists would have found artifacts earlier than Clovis were it there, perhaps doesn't take into account that archaeologists may have stopped digging at about 13,000 years ago because it was "known" that Clovis was first. At least that's what my archaeology classes taught me, that extra effort to dig lower was often not taken because of the assumption they probably wouldn't find anything. Limited funds and all that. Great video!
It was “known” for way too long that because Clovis was the oldest layer, there wasn’t any reason to dig deeper, thus I suspect there are a LOT of pre Clovis tools a layer or two down from many of these sites.
Yes. And blowing up prior beliefs with new evidence is how you earn your spurs in archaeology. To get a doctorate you need to add to the sum total of knowledge in your field and, contrary to popular opinion, it’s far easier to get new knowledge from new discoveries than to milk new knowledge from old knowledge. If Ergaster or Rhodesiensis (or their descendants) crossed over on an earlier land bridge (or by following an island chain across water, which is my best guess at the original mode of migration) then it’s certainly possible that they arrived in North America far, far earlier than the current hypothesis suggests. It’s a good idea; the hard part is proving it. And remember, proving it requires two things: it has to explain known facts (new evidence *and* past evidence both) better-usually more simply, but definitely more comprehensively-than the older hypothesis, and it is has to testable (if this is true, then X). If you don’t have both of those traits in your idea, it’s not a hypothesis, it’s a darned good story idea. It’s cool, but it’s not science.
As Stefan says in the video, a lot of finds are accidental - found during construction or other digs. Paleontologists also do a lot of digging for animal fossils, much deeper than Clovis. They certainly wouldn't ignore human evidence if it showed up.
I visited a quarry in Georgia not to far from Atlanta and found lots of fossils insects , tree logs, ferns but no arrow heads. But the guy that worked there assured me they were all over the area. I did show him the fossils and he was amazed and said he never seen them. I couldn’t see the arrow heads for the fossils and he couldn’t see the fossils for the arrow heads. 😂
The floods were super intense! (didn't actually form the gorge, which is about 50 million years old...). But it's def cool that you're linking the human experience with the Ice Age floods. Love all the context in your videos.
The "a few people showed up here and there before Clovis, but didn't take hold" scenario is weak when applied to central Brazil. Such outposts would tend to be on the coasts, reached by boat.
Idk, hominins did make it to Asia 1.8 mil years ago.. we are to assume they just stopped traversing the world? It is certainly plausible another group showed up and didn't take hold long long long ago.
@@KAZVorpal the site in question was in the state Mato Grosso, near the local capital city, Cuiabá, which was founded during the period of colonization (1700's when slavers and colonists from São Paulo came for gold and Indian slaves) I described in my comment
It is also a matter of how deep you go and whether you document and date the find or not. The Clovis first lobby was particularly nefarious about stopping funding for further digs or green lighting construction projects involving pre Clovis finds. On top of that there was also academic pressure on peer reviewers to find arguments against pre Clovis origins. All that worked together in creating a highly misleading body of evidence.
Sure, but most sites aren’t found by archaeologists. I don’t personally think you could conceal thousands upon thousands of examples of a material culture across two continents. As for digging down far enough, it depends on the location right? Some areas Clovis sites are on the surface, some areas they’re deeply buried. I’m not saying that Clovis was first, but are they close to the first? Maybe. Are they first in some areas of the continent? Maybe.
Clovis and later finds are usually closer to the surface and generally what is found by casual inspection. When one digs deep right away as for road construction pre Clovis finds are often deliberately ignored or one gets something like the Cerrutti mastodon site in San Diego.
@@zeideerskine3462 You have listened to too may of Graham Hancock's fans, and/or to too many crazy right wing fanatics who hate all science and scientists, and believe every crazy conspiracy theory out there. Stefan doesn't dare say that to his audience, including you, but it's obvious that's what he's thinking.
I live in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. I found a scraper? We had a trench dug across our driveway that was about 4 ft deep. After we laid the electrical lines, the trench was filled. A bit later walking to the gate, I noticed what looked like a large arrowhead. When I brushed away the dirt, it was way bigger. It fit in my palm.
hey stefan, can you make a video about monte verde? It's a site in southern chile that is 14500 years old and was a key site in the shift from the clovis first and beringia only theory of the peopling of the americas. if you need footage I live very near and would be happy to film some for you :)
The people living in those caves 14000 years ago may have found those bones that were already 13000 years old and modified the existing flea holes to make necklaces.
Use code STEFAN50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/4595ZaA!
My life has been a complete and total misery ever since Bigfoot stole my precious girlfriend in the middle of the night. 😒 He even took all her clothes and the T.V. 😔
Munchies
that big flood 18000 yrs ago would have washed away a lot of evidence of habitation because ppl would have been living along rivers for a period of time then it would have all been washed away when ice melted also if they had ice habitations in areas(which if they had migrated around northern pacific they may well have adopted), they would have melted at the same time & washed most of the artifacts away in process
Should have had them make the code TRICKY1
"How come we don't have thousands of sites with tools like this?"
Could be there was some massive cataclysm that swept away all the topsoil and submerged it 400ft underwater.
One thing from someone in Brazil that was in the scientific environment at one point. People don't report findings, because 1 they may not have enough knowledge to know how to identify something, 2 they may not even know they should report or 3 if they do know, in the majority of cases, they just covered up to avoid having construction halted, as "is just a headache". Sometimes, they may just sell all the artifacts illegally, as Brazil does not allow any artifacts and fossils to be sold, they all belong to the government. My professor once told he worked in the construction of a huge road here, they found a bunch of things that got all hidden away to avoid any delays, as it was election year and the deadline for the inauguration was the priority. So when you ask why there were no more findings, think studies like these aren't considered of any value to the authorities, this was a rare occasion where this was in a place where it didn't collide with any other interest, or these findings wouldn't exist either.
It is really sad to think about what is all lost worldwide due to things like this
Nice work as always Stefan. There's so many archaeology or history channels on UA-cam that are just slideshows with robot voices, or pulling straight from wikis and chatgpt that when I see channels like yours, I always subscribe. Thanks for the work you put into your content, it does not go unnoticed.
I agree the content is invaluable but it is the amount of work Stefan puts into it and his passion that brings me back loyally every time. When I grow up I want to be just like him. Unfortunately I’m 60 so times running out.
those robot voices drive me crazy! i can't listen.
Between Stefan Milo and History with Kayleigh, no robo-voices, just great presentation of paleo discoveries and ideas.
@@stevefranklin9176never too late to grow up, I don't know if it's an unfair bias but whenever an old guy or gal puts up content on this place people tend to take it seriously just because the person is older. It's perhaps an inherent bias you could use to your advantage.
yes, thee work he does shows up vividly in his productions!!
I found what I later realized was an arrowhead near Lake Superior's north shore as a child. It was made of a greenish agate looking rock and had a very defined and still surprisingly sharp edge and had a chip out on one side of the point. It was beautifully smooth and had a slightly polished look. It was my treasure because it fascinated me, sadly our home burned down, and all was lost but I never see anything about arrowheads without seeing it in my mind's eye. I've always regretted losing that piece of stone history.
Wow. I myself found a site with what I gathered to be paleolithic with generational or progressive habitation . Lots of artifacts .
Something like this is not to keep for yourself
If I were a paleolithic human, I'd definitely choose the North shore of Lake Superior to take up my abode. Fresh water as far as the eye can see, beautiful delicious salmon easily caught from the shore, relatively easy canoe travel from place to place. Plus, it's so beautiful!
On the other hand, agates are common up there, including on those rocky cliff-lined shores, so at least by the standard the video mentioned of the limestone cave in Mexico, it's possible that your artifact was nonhuman.
@@nicklasschmltt6959 you found a site? Lol
Love learning about the changing views on the populating of the Americas. Unfortunate we're missing just so much in the coastal areas, but it's amazing how much we've learned on the subject in the past 20 years alone!
I think it's somewhat expected to find less stuff by the coast since there's been so much sea, rain and wind erosion, besides a humid environment which is terrible for bones. Central brazil, though, has always been dryer.
In the future we will do archeology in the ocean where the coastline used to be.
Yes, and I wonder about potential for finding early sites raised up via isostatic rebound from glacier melt loss of weight? Do Washington and Oregon have strata now higher and more accessible, that could still date to 20 to 30KA yet not be only found under the sea currently? This has happened in S.E. Ak, perhaps close to the southern edge geology of the glaciation in Canada and northern WA?@@amelliamendel2227
Also, hormones likely fueled the move eastward from the Oregon/Wa coast, looking for mates, yet they did not know there were none to be found. Did they reach the Fort Rock lake areas before they got too frustrated, and possibly went back west to the coastal band to report? Did they tell great tales of rich resources around the E.OR lakes?
@@luizarthurbritoand hundreds of feet of sea level rise, where many miles deep of coastline have disappeared underwater in some areas. Northern Chile is an exception since we got some continental uplift there, which is likely why the early dated Monte Verde site was discovered.
Howdy Stefan , old Az cowboy here, in earlier days ( I’m 70 now) I’ve dabbled in flint knapping & I’ve followed the “Clovis First” trails for years & i dare say as a novice Archaeologist, those Beautiful fine examples of spear points could not have been created in one or two settings, they had to have rough origins at first & improved them later on as they acquired better stone materials & skills, just saying , it’s also taken quite a few years for “us” to advance from chariots to Viper cars ! Keep “digging” & I - we, will keep watching ! Love your show! See ya down the trail, Pard !
Damn Gramps you old
What a heartwarming comment ❤
Absolutely correct. They didn't put off eating until after .they had the spear points perfected.
new hole drilled in old bone?
Thanks!
That little scraper is made from Carnelian agate, which is just a form of quartz. Agate and other knappable quartz is fairly common in Oregon, but I've not personally seen Carnelian cropping anywhere near Rimrock Draw in my meanderings. Lots of obsidian nearby - it's nice, but brittle. Agate takes a strong sharp edge.
The elder folk used whatever stone was available, but as they traveled through quartz-bearing regions hunting and gathering, they would have harvested or cached any clean agate, jasper and obsidian they found along the way as they're all glassy silica and can be knapped beautifully.
Heck, you can knap ugly old basalt or plain chert if it's fine-grained enough, but they seem to have enjoyed nice tools made with pretty rocks when they had them, and ownership probably indicated or conferred high status. They also probably made valued trade items.
Sorry, seems I tend to geek out over our Paleo stone tool history here in the Pacific Northwest lol
Im sure the finer looking tools were widely desired. In the craftsmanship trades, tool envy is a tradition we still enjoy to this day lol.
No - thanks for your informative comment!
Excellent comment. I learned a lot & enjoyed everything. Thank you 🙏
Geek on, my friend!
As someone living in Southern Ontario (lots of quartz lying around here), it's always fascinating to read about knapping materials other than flint! We can't really speak to the status such a tool would convey, but I'm certain that these tools would have been just as sought in their day as a finely inlaid knife or nickel-plated rifle is among huntsman today. After all, we all like pretty things. :)
All of this... I'm always surprised how little archaeologists seem to factor in that humans just enjoy things that look nice, be it 20 or 100 or 1000 or 2000 years ago
Divers found a paleo settlement down about 85 feet on the Washington coast. Sea level rise has hidden most of the evidence. A lot of good work being done on the retreating glaciers in Canada. Thanks, great talk.
The Washington coast was probably subject to significant isostatic rebound since glacial melting, so the paleo sea floor probably was uplifted somewhat more than the Oregon coast IMHO.
Can you speak more on this please?
Great video! As someone who lives in the 'channeled scablands' of WA state, I can attest to it's beauty! I wanted to provide some greater context for your explanation of the flooding events, however. You are correct in that it was likely water from glaciers that caused the flooding, but it's a bit more intricate to that. Essentially, the Laurentine ice sheet would grow over the natural course of the Columbia river, causing it to dam up and overflow the banks all the way back to the Missoula valley in Montana! And when I say filled, I mean FILLED. You can still observe the high water marks in the valley today near a thousand feet above the valley floor. So periodically the ice dam would break, causing that massive reservoir to spill out catastrophically across the land scape seeking the lowest elevations. It was probably early on in these periodic flooding and daming events (Estimated to be 30+) that the basalt bedrock canyons were eroded away around where the Coulee Dam sits today, creating the alternative flow of the Columbia river that would go on to carve out dry falls.
It is estimated when the dam broke and water flowed over Dry Falls, it had a greater volume of flow than all of the rivers in the world combined. We're talking so much water that the entire valley from Ephrata to Yakima was likely completely submerged in a hundred feet of water or more. The falls themselves are ten times the width of Niagra. When you drive across the landscape here and try to fathom these details, it breaks your mind. :D
There's a lot more to it than that, lots of cool little details. For example, I live in a particular area that's carved out by the ice age flooding events, but not directly. The canyons I live within were carved out by the Columbia river when the path was diverted by the growth of the Laurentine ice sheet. Geology is a language like any other, and when you learn to read it, the landscape tells a story that you can't help but marvel at.
Cheers!
Fellow Washingtonian who can't stop falling more in love with our state's geology/history/etc:
That's such an awesome summary, and I hope other people reading it really GET how insane all these details are.
One of my other favorite fun facts is that a HUGE amount (I originally heard it was the majority) of the basalt flows covering the area came out of a gash in the ground currently on some farmer's property near Ritzville.
From what I know now, the coastal route seems more plausible than the gap in the ice sheets model. People have to eat, and coastal areas would have better forage than the gap.
Possiblly the reason there hasn't been evidence of the boats they came in is that 1. sea level rise, and 2. once south enough, they moved inland period. Catalina off CA has some stuff, and what about the footprints in NM?
Not to mention fish, shellfish and seals...
@@cathjj840 And most of the West coast of North America is submerged, rather than accumulating sediments to preserve fossil sites. I do not know of much coastal plain north of the Los Angeles basin. There are bits around Monterrey Bay, but not much more.
From what I came across recently, there is evidence that Beringia was a refuge during the last glacial maximum that supported its own ecosystem between the continental ice sheets. It's likely that the ancestral native Americans could have supported themselves in that environment while it is equally likely they could have expanded from there prior to the glacial melt by following the coastline.
@@wavetactics13That's interesting. I've heard minor rumblings about the sustenance available in the gap possibly being quite sufficient to support human migration over that distance, under the environmental conditions at that time. Everything I've read about though, it's all been stated as if the whole idea is heavily theoretical and low to null on tangible evidence. Hmm. I'll look into it. Cheers! 😀🌎
I think it's worth considering that there is actually another pre-Clovis site in South America, Monte Verde, with some dates going back to around 19,000 years ago. Perhaps even Huaca Prieta pre-dates Clovis as well.
I'm not an archeologist, but I am someone who makes stuff. The simple answer about why only 3 if the osteograph(sp?) pieces are made by humans is that they didn't make only 3, they threw out 3. Every artisan has screw up pieces, they just got tossed with other bits they weren't using because they drilled the hole wrong or something. They could have just yeeted them down the cave in frustration for all we know.
great idea. Do you have an explanation for why they're polished then, since the theory is they got polished from wear?
@@KiaraEnriquez-q4cthe children practiced polishing them in order to get their allowance.
You're not an acheologist and you're not a Paleolithic artisan. I hope you're not suggesting that an artisan 27,000 years ago thinks like a guy who makes things today. These ancient people weren't watching UA-cam and being over critical of their work, with time to kill, and tossing aside their work willy nilly. By necessity they were much more practical. Nevertheless, there are thousands of these osteoderms and there is no continuum of workmanship where some are nicely made and others appeared to be the product of subpar workmanship and tossed. And even so, 3 +3 = 6 pieces out of thousands found at the same site. This is not a smoking gun. What any good scientist would use this evidence for is to suggest further analysis and collection of evidence is warranted. Stand alone, those three pieces do not make a rock solid case for people being in the Americas 27,000 years ago. If indeed there were people in the Americas 27,000 years ago, there would be more evidence than an ambigous bone that is remarkably similiar to other osteoderms that arose by natural processes.
@@commodoor6549 This is a comment on UA-cam, not a scholarly paper. It's a suggestion for discussion based on an outside perspective, as someone who practices craftsmanship. Sometimes that can be valuable and see things in a way someone who's looking at it from a more academic point of view isn't. Ever hear about the way they figured out strange Roman hairstyles by finally having a practicing hairdresser look at it? And no, paleolithic people aren't watching UA-cam but you can darn well bet they are scrutinizing their work. People still think like people no matter the age, and sometimes you just need things to be a certain way. Mistakes are a hallmark of our humanity. Not sure why you decided to be intensely antagonistic and frankly a jerk over a comment made months ago, but here we are. At least my comment generated discussion and got that old engagement algorithm moving.
@@sinisterbutterfli Feel entirely free to respond as you wish, but don't try to stifle my freedom of expression. You opened up the discussion, I replied. It's not complicated. Your comment is an opinion... my comment is an opinion. But neither is above criticism. Relax and grow some thicker skin and learn how to deal with criticism. Again, thinking that a modern cultural perspective closely resembles a perspective of a human living in the Paleolithic Age is the height of arrogance.
Hey, it should be mentioned that Santa Elina in Brasil isn’t the first extremely early site in the Americas to stir up controversy. There’s also MV-I in Chile which has been radiocarbon dated to a whopping 33,000 BP. There’s also the Pedra Furada site in Brasil where charcoal from very ancient fires and stone shards that may be interpreted as tools were dated from 48,000 to 32,000 BP. At the Topper site in South Carolina, carbonized plant remains were radiocarbon dated to approximately 50,000 BP, although that is the upper limit of radiocarbon dating.
I was wondering if someone was gonna mention Monteverde! 🤩 I hope they get funding to keep reserching the site!
@@licheong The Austronesian migrations departed Taiwan circa 3500-3000 BP. They reached Hawai’i by 1100 BP and Rapa Nui by 1000 BP. These dates precede Polynesian cultures by tens of thousands of years.
Hey, any sites on islands near shorelines may have been well below our current sea level since this is were lower 12,000 years ago. Additionally, it’s possible that some islands have been submerged. Lastly, since Polynesians would likely be occupying the best places to live, they may have erased traces of earlier Inhabitants simply by living there.
@@liamstacey419 True. But I just want to emphasize, for those who aren't paying attention, that the Austronesians [including Polynesians] started their journey across the Pacific _10,000 years _*_after_* the oldest Clovis points. Thus, Polynesians, as you point out, Liam, arrived long after any previous seafaring settlers of the Americas and erased any non-submerged traces of previous inhabitants.
@@John_Weisswe don’t know when the earliest austronesians sailed east across the ocean, we only have physical evidence for those recent trips. There is genetic and cultural evidence of much earlier voyages. Genetic evidence in a tribe in Brazil, and cultural similarities between modern Australia aboriginals and people of Tierra del Fuego. I was considering how hard it would be for physical and evidence of their (theoretical) voyage to survive
Have you been to Brazil? There are vast areas of it that people almost never go to because the rain forest makes it so difficult. LIDAR scans have fairly recently shown that there are the foundations of a very large set of interlocking villages, farms, and ceremonial sites in the Amazon basin, linked by a network of well-planned roads. Without LIDAR technology, we'd have no idea they were there. It is only recently that 'modern' populations have populated many of these areas.
We also have to consider that, especially in areas where stones are scarce, tools might be rare, and recycled until destruction. Some apparently 'recent' sites may have been recycled from much earlier times, as is the case with the Great Sphynx in Egypt, and perhaps the Great Pyramids as well. The parts of these Egyptian sites that are less than 6 thousand years old may well have dismantle previous structures for the materials to build with.
I agree. But LIDAR may not see pre-clovis evidence due to environmental change. The finds in Santa Elina are somewhat deep underground and LIDAR may not have the capabilities to notice these patterns (considering these pre-clovis populations did change their environment significantly to be noticed). Maybe other tools like ground penetrating radar may help but we'd need to know where to look. The sites you mentioned may not have been the 27000 year old population but the more recent 14000 year old population, which is still amazing in my opinion.
@@ulysisxtr I'm not saying lidar can see everything, I'm saying that even huge structures over vast areas have been missed in parts of the world where there's not much foot traffic or construction activity. In other words, it's no surprise that something as small as some pre-clovis tools have not been found in great numbers, especially in Amazonia. There could millions of them lying just under the leafmold.
Here is something to blow your mind. The Sahara and the Amazon have not always been they way they are now. The Sahara at the very least has been (maybe as recently as 5000 years ago) been a lush forested area. Not sure if Lidar can slice away the desert... but you can see stuff out in the dunes that haven't been dug out by Archeology from Google Earth satellite snapshots.
Yes, I was also ashamed of years ago that I always taught at school that there had to be a "time of wooden day -to -aid" in front of the famous "Stone Age". And at the same time, I did not think that the low frequency of stone chipped material in the southern parts of Asia has the cause of the stone knife represented an easy -to -manufacture bamboo knife with the same quality of the same quality. So the obligatory question of enthusiastic laymen "How they could do it", our guaranteed primitive ancestors are answered in the prince. Something we don't know. But!!! I have a video of how the American moves and lifts many -ton blocks with only a few simple machines, which is actually a teaching theme in Europe for about a variety, perhaps a little older, a pupil. Simply "simple machines" . Tom, formerly professor of comprehensiv school to university
Soy to mistakes: Yes, I was also ashamed of years ago that I always taught at school that there had to be a "wooden/skin/bone Age" in front of the famous "Stone Age". And at the same time, I did not think that the low frequency of stone chipped material in the southern parts of Asia has the cause of the stone knife represented an easy manufactured bamboo knife with the same quality. So the obligatory question of enthusiastic laymen "How they could do it", our guaranteed primitive ancestors, are answered in the prince. Something we don't know. But!!! I have a video of how the one merican moves and lifts many-ton blocks with only a few simple machines, which is actually a teaching theme in Europe for about a variety, perhaps a little older, a pupil. Simply "simple machines" . Tom, formerly professor of comprehensive school to university
I just retired from the University of Oregon. Used to have to clean the natural history museum at night. I remember seeing the scrappers in the case! I also got to get up close and personal with the oldest shoes in the world! It was great fun!!!
There were, according to presentations given by Nick Zentner, a geologist who teaches at Central Washington University (CWU), a number of floods related to repeated rapid discharges from glacial termini and glacial lakes across what is now western Montana, northern Idaho, southern British Columbia and Washington State. These very high discharge floods occurred over a period of several thousand years. There was also at least one great flood, via the Snake River, related to the rapid draining of Lake Bonneville in what is now the endorheic Great Basin. These episodic high-volume flood pulses scoured much, though not all, of what is now eastern Washington and western Idaho, leaving Eastern Oregon as the better prospect for the preservation of early ‘Pre Clovis’ artifacts.
Thanks for the precisions. I was thinking of just that as I knew a little about the existence of those enormous floods.
It sounds like a lot of land but they only covered 30,000km2 which leaves plenty of drainages that wouldn’t have been affected.
There’s recent scientific work that shows that ancient floods are often overestimated by as much as 80% when scientists use the modern topography to model the floods. The main reason for this is when the floods started they hadn’t cut their way down into the rivers and land and the channels weren’t as deep.
There’s also the back cutting effect that makes measuring ancient flows difficult because that changes the ancient high water lines and reconstructing that geologic process and measuring the material is complicated.
There was also more materials in the channels that would displace water making the flows seem deeper than they actually were, similar to how pebbles or ice cubes in a glass displace water. So personally I don’t think the ice age floods are a good enough reason to not find human artifacts in the western states.
@@alexburke1899who's scientific work?
@@alexburke1899 I think we are underestimating the loss of artifacts and sites due to rise in sea-level. Sure, its possible that sites further inland may have escaped the damage, but if the earliest sites are along the water, which would be a resonable prediction in line with the theory that humans traveled via boats, then its the rise in sea level caused by the floods that would do the most damage. we lost miles of coastline so even sites that were considered inland at the time may be suberged or in areas subject to increase erosion and disturbance.
If you are really interested… take a look at citizen archeologists.
Thanks!
Only Stefan can give a "head scratcher" of a theory right after telling us about flea holes into 27000 year-old osteoderms.
and then end with a premature eboopulation
Stefan have you ever covered on considered the Hueyatlaco site in Mexico that was dated to 250k years.
Thanks for your research!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueyatlaco?wprov=sfti1
27,000 ka plus or minus one 'milo' - or three weeks
Good one, "head scratcher", I see what you did there. :D In Stefan's case, it may be a "beard scratcher" though!! LOL ;D
As a brazilian, one of the possible answers might be that there's not enough investiment in archeology, and not for as long as there's been in the USA and Europe. Our archeology is often funded by foreign teams and depends on their wills. Plus it's a big country with some tricky terrain/weather, and conditions for preservation might not be as good.
Scientists: We have all the answers! We know the human history! Any opposition must be met with hostility and name calling... oh look, discoveries showing we were wrong all along... doesn't matter, trust the science and its priest class!
@@JBaker-lh8pl lol. science consists of scientists are human. ergo yes all the flaws of humans exist in science
Do you know how many examples exist of scientists keeping to their dogma and rejecting facts?
The entire fields of cosmology and physics is fraudulently fake. Observable. Do you see scientists going. Yeah we were wrong about big bang and the standard model.
@@TheBelrickOne of the foundations of Science is falsification. Dope.
Indigenous stopped existing in Brazil. There’s nothing to invest in Brazil besides aids medication and perhaps methadone clinics
Hunter-gatherers in a jungle don't make a tremendously noticeable impact on the landscape. You can see stone tools, but how do you find their sites?
My tribes' (Hopi) origin story is from time immemorial, coming out of the Grand Canyon from the inner world that was wicked. Also interestingly Maya and Hopi people have super similar prophecies and culture. Who knows maybe everyone pushed South while the glaciers and floods were happening and came back up later. Anyways great freaking video Stef, always getting my mind thinking!
And we're still here proud people of the Americas 😊🦅
It's interesting, like if you see that map of Clovis point distribution in North America you can clearly see that there are points found in the gap in the ice sheets, but I think I'm right in thinking that they are younger than points below it. So the first Native Americans did travel through the gap in the ice, just the opposite way that earlier archaeologists imagined lol.
I think you're idea might be right though! The earliest Clovis points found so far are actually in Mexico, so my hypothesis (could be wrong of course) is that native americas travelled really quickly down the west and then when they reached Mexico and the land narrows crossed to the east cost and went further north again.
I recently read about the origin story and I agree, the Hopi origin story is really really cool.
That origin story lines up with theories from people like Matthew lecroix, Randall Carlson, graham hancock and others who are finding these underground cities in places like Turkey. The theory is Civilization got reset by a major catastrophe during the younger drias and the survivors had to live underground for a long time because the world above was so uninhabitable. So interesting, and I’m open to all of these possibilities. If you date the pyramids and other megaliths back to that period, it makes a lot more sense than king kufu and his slaves building them with copper tools.
@@heraldgreenbanger5488it is more likely they tried to replicate a lot of the structures of old after emerging from underground in some areas. But there are vast caves with some ancient construction in south America. Also check out the Sage Wall in Montana. Would love for some actual archeologists to go investigate that!
Agates are quite common in Oregon, but you generally find them in river beds or along the coastline on rocky beaches and at river mouths. They're formed from heat and pressure through mineral deposits in quartz - igneous rocks. They make wonderful flintnapping material, and I'm always on the lookout for larger ones just for that purpose. Oddly, just due west of Burns Oregon are some of the finest obsidian deposits in Oregon at Glass Buttes. Made from agate the tool is almost certainly a scraper, allowing a greater lateral pressure along the cutting edge than obsidian or dacite.
Jasper was also widely used.
What we are learning is that much of geology is mistaken for human made tools. It’s unfathomable that every single stone in our creeks in the south eastern United States, is a tool, shaped like a bird and mammoths and humans, 90% of our history is spent in the stone age, and according to the Peabody museum of Archaeology, we know less than 10%. Please take a look at the citizens researching portable rock art.
@@FacesintheStone What we are learning is how to recognize human presence where we thought none had been.
If we only know 10% of our history, how is it that we 'know' we've spent 90% of that time as "cavemen"? Even Neanderthal used needles and thread to make tight fitting clothing. Most of the technology and tools of our history would be organic and long ago turned to dust. We don't even know 1% of our actual history.
a little south of there on the north coast of Ca is a beach called Agate Beach, google-able, has nice deposits of there. It is a state park that I have been to!
Agates and jaspers are found throughout the great basin, both in situ and in river gravels. They were deposited in the basin by silica precipitated from volcanic ash, which condensed in vugs in the rocks (often basalt or lava) beneath the ash layers, solidifying into agate and jasper. Much of the fossilized wood in the great basin formed in the same way, when ash fall killed forests, and the trees were covered by ash.
That scraper looks like a similar color to the agates and Jaspers found near the Oregon/Idaho border, known in the lapidary world as Bruneau Canyon Jasper, though some of it is more translucent like the scraper, and might be called agate.
I was just on the Columbia River last week in BC for the first time. That whole trench in between the Rocky mountains really gets your mind going on what it looked like 13000 years ago
When i started working at a museum in montana, we thought our clovis culture locally was part of the first wave of migration, in just years, the story has become so much more complex. Its so exciting!
Was it the Kinnewick Man that was 'buried' due to some unpopular possibilities it suggested that some people didn't want to address?
I took a class called ancestral lifeways of the southwest on a field semester expedition hiking around Arizona and new Mexico and we took this class (carrying textbooks and school materials and all the legit college level stuff) and it was a mix between archeology and a cultural studies class, but this debate was one of the main sections we spent some time on and the best argument I heard was that there must have been a people who worked their way along the pacific coast using coastal resources to survive whose archeological remains we can't find due to sea level rise washing it away
The other thing is, if it is a coastal population, maybe with a lifestyle similar to Inuit traditional culture, they could have been migrating generationally down the coast. Could have taken a thousand years.
Add lots of volcanoes too.
i'm native american from the columbia river basin and we have always said we've been here since time immemorial. it is cool to see how that could line up scientifically also and not just spiritually :)
I love that some of the old stories have grains of truth in them. My ancestors from that area have ancient stories that mention catastrophic floods.
We came first. The oldest part of the earth is Guayana
@@EduardoGarcia-u7l lol what
@@michaelmathes7162 which geologically there have been proven to be massive flooding in that area, although im assuming you already knew that based on your response!
@@EduardoGarcia-u7l hate to do this, but the oldest rocks on earth are the acasta gneiss up in canada which are proven by geologic and mineral dating
It always blows my mind to think that there were people living in the columbia river basin when those ice dams started to break, and flood all of eastern washington/oregon. it must have been terrifying and awe inducing to see that much power unleashed by nature.
Many indigenous peoples in the northwest have stories of great floods that forced their ancestors to flee or be washed away and carved rivers into the earth, so clearly it was such a powerful experience that the memory has been passed down over the thousands and thousands of years to today.
Celilo falls on the Columbia River supported dozens of tribes of native americans. An 8 mile encampment on each side of river made it the largest town in north america. I grew up there and remember the falls and all the salmon. I was in grade school with many Indians but to young to understand why they were so sad about dynomiting the foundation and backing up the dalles dam and covering it all. We were promised cheap power for life and won't effect the salmon runs and got gold madalin awards for all electric homes. Oregon even had there own death March with the Shoshone.
@@SupahTrunks7 - People from all over the world have stories of past floods because floods are very dangerous everywhere. Unfortunately, while precious, those tales are not proof of anything.
@@MossyMozart I've left a rather long essay in reply to a separate comment on this video (including citing a few of my sources) which I would be happy to also copy and paste here if you're interested, but suffice it to say that it is the contents of these flood stories that leads us to believe they date to this time period, not just the fact that they are about floods.
For instance, correctly citing the flood(s) as the cause of various geographical features such as rivers which had not existed prior to the Missoula Floods, pointing to mountains which would have been above the height of the Missoula floodwaters as being places their ancestors took refuge, these stories coming from tribes living in what would have been slackwater areas where the flow of water was much slower and more survivable, several oral traditions recount not just a single flood but multiple (the Missoula Floods were likely cyclical and may have even occurred as often as every 50 years), and even at least one tribal history explicitly states that there had once been a lake behind the Rocky Mountains which, when breached, caused the flood as it emptied.
So while we of course can never have concrete proof (as we so rarely do when discussing pre-history) the similarities between many of these oral traditions and our current scientific understanding of the Missoula Floods makes them a fascinating possible avenue for investigating the impact glacial floods had on humans, especially since sites like the one in Oregon shown in the video provide evidence that the affected areas WERE seeing human habitation during the timeframe of the Missoula Floods.
So humans could also have seen the holes and where like mm there are holes in them let's try to make something out of this.
And if you have a group of people that do not leave allot of traces for there is plenty and do allot with wood. 😊
The Missoula floods 13,000-15,000 years ago, shaped the landscape here in eastern Washington. I have toured many of the sites here and it is incredible. Actually the entire state has some incredible geology.
And zentner from central wash U ancient flood series this winter, the ancient stone tools were left jn the mud.
I wish I recalled the source of this story told by a native elder. It was decades ago. The story told of this tribe following their shaman who was leading then to new land, new hunting grounds. They traveled eventually into a frozen land, and the tribe worried, but followed their shaman. After a time they came to warmer new land.
Seems to me to be a story about the land bridge crossing into North America. Considering where they had come from, I think they knew very well how to cross some frozen land.
Not the only peoples to come here, not the first either.
The smoothness and polish especially on the surfaces of the objects, as well the holes, would seem more likely to be the product of the action of water and soil creating a slurry and polishing them over thousands of years. It might also explain why the holes are a bit larger as well. Being the jungle one has to guess they got a lot rain over a lot of years. That the flea holes were possibly already present in the them, then time and erosion could have done the rest...but I could be wrong! As always thanks for the exceptional content and presentation.
It is certainly possible but there is a slight chance they are right so let's stuff this one away until we either find more sites from that time or we don't.
If think we agree that this site alone can't prove anything but 50 years ago anything Pre Clovis was in the same position so there is a possibility there were a somewhat small population in the area. But that has to be proven first.
I don't like dismissing sites like this just because it doesn't work with our current narrative but neither do I think a single possibly mistaken site should change our history books. The correct thing is to log any sites that have a question mark somewhere and wait for more evidence. If it is real, more sites from the same period will show up and if not, then it seems like there were some natural process going on.
I agree that our current narrative is certainly open to future reinterpretation and dating. I'm not one who subscribes to the Clovis uber alles orthodoxy but in this instance more convincing and abundant evidence is called for, such as charcoal in the strata or just simply refuse such as other animal bones and greater evidence of human occupation at that early a date which seems to be missing. Humans have a way of cluttering up the caves we sleep in. Little has changed that way now we use the oceans! So there should be more evidence of many sorts it would seem. And that these bones could only be some form of adornment ( and how and with what did they polish then to such smoothness? And why aren't there more of them) which is how we would like to imagine such an early group to have been because it satisfies and lends them an element of humanity we can easily identify with because we and later groups might have fashioned such objects into something similar and pleasing to our sense of esthetics strikes me as a matter of more modern projection. And the remoteness of the site is telling as well being that remote with what must have been very small numbers of people and the chances of survival slim. Nearer the coast, of say Chile, even at that very early date would be more believable even at a stretch having migrated by sea. But where it is seems to me highly unlikely at that time in the middle of the Ice Age. And that only three objects found in close proximity out of thousands argues against them being human made as well. What strikes me most is how they resemble pieces of driftwood which is hollowed and polished out by the persistent action of salt water into shapes that are pleasing to us but not intentionally made by us. Thanks for the comment. Milo is to be thanked for his gift for sharing his contagious uninhibited curiosity and enthusiasm. It's a great standout channel.
Seems like the most reasonable course of action, i.e. it's the hallmark of Any scientific investigation. More data will reveal much more than less or preliminary data!! : )
All that, or, as that guy with the weird hair might say, the ancient aliens left some sort of little laser drills for these people to use. Yes, that must be it; travel the vastness of interstellar space to leave a few tools behind for the poor old hominids to use to make jewelry!! LOL ;D@@loke6664
@@loke6664I still think the most plausible hypothesis is that a sloth was initially infected with abnormally large fleas and later it’s carcass was found and scavenged by early South Americans that wore/polished it.
@@josea1707 Interesting idea. Curiously sloths, today at least, don't usually attract blood sucking parasites like fleas or ticks because they have the lowest body temperature of any endothermic animal between 74° and 91° fahrenheit because they metabolize so incredibly slowly and those little bloodsuckers Milo so rightly detests just don't it seems go in for them. They prefer a hotter meal. It's anybody's guess what the megatherium's body temperature was (and it's theorized they even occasionally ate some meat by picking on carcasses which would fit your idea very well and picked up some fleas then because they would have had to have metabolized at a higher body temperature to have digested meat and not plants...so maybe you're right) but it probably wasn't much different so if fleas tastes for hotter blood haven't changed one has to wonder if the fleas infested their thick fur. They don't have fleas now but back then who knows? Though once we can be sure humans did finally show up in Brazil about 10 to 12 thousand years ago the giant sloths were hunted to extinction quite quickly. The question is were there any humans living in that part of Brazil 27 thousand years ago. I have my doubts. Maybe in a future podcast Milo will figure it all out.
9:41 "Humans are not the only people who can break rocks" 😂 I know what you meant but still caught me off guard
Which part was confusing, referring to other hominids as people? I guess if you're a white Republican that would be confusing.
Did I miss the part where you mentioned that there are more Clovis sights on small strips of land on the east coast than everywhere west of thee Mississippi? No mention of possible migration from the east when there are flint blades quarried in Spain but found on barrier islands off the east coast.
So excited to see that you've got a video on White Sands coming up! I'm an archaeologist working in New Mexico and it's the talk of the town down here. I was expecting it to be in this video, but a video all its own is even better.
I always think of human expansion like a tide coming in. At the large scale the water comes up and covers the beach in one steady event but at the small scale the waves lap over and over the land until the force of water behind them moves the leading edge further up the beach.
Great analogy. Not a stream, but a tide.
It's a good analogy. And it's supported by the history of Europeans conquering the Americas. You have tentative pushes, individuals and small groups exploring, and the permanent settlements follow generations later. Those settlements don't always make it, either. Consider Scandinavians in Greenland as an example.
I think it's reasonable to surmise that some humans managed to get to the Americas well in advance of any permanent occupation. Some of those humans left evidence and some of that evidence will be found... eventually. Whether any of those people were still around when later, more successful, occupation occurred can probably never be known.
Hey Stefan great video, you left out the White Sands NM site of footprints from 23,000 years ago. It does seem weird the older sites are further south. Maybe bands of explorers in small groups wound up in isolated pockets before a larger migration?
He has a video on that
My grandfather had an older half sister (Aunt Pauline) had one of the largest arrow head collections in Wyoming (where she lived) she did all of her collecting when collecting such things was still legal. When she passed the State got her entire collection and it can still be seen in the museum there.
As someone with Native American ancestry from South America, this channel makes me so happy. Strange to find a channel produced by a British person that discusses the latest archeological findings in America, but it is refreshing to hear an outsider's perspective to realize how unique our continent and its people are. Keep it up brother!
What's so 'strange' about it?
Strange because I can get a better presentation and analysis on new American sites from a European than from an American. I think there is an overall low interest in native history for the general American public. Doubly true for people in the United States talking at all about south American history. @@davidviner5783
Yes, I did not know that scholarship and discoveries in all branches of science had any geographical boundaries! Why not tell that to the Indians, who just landed a robot space craft on the moon, for example!! ;D@@davidviner5783
Europeans can never leave anyone alone that isn’t surprising …
Represent! Love my fellows of Indigenous descent ❤ 🫶🏾
Hi Milo there are agates in the USA especially around Michigan and the lakes !There are videos that show how to find them and cut them and make them jewelry! It's known from the ancient times that it's semiprecious stone in Greek it's called αχάτης! thanks for the knowledge you give ! greetings from Greece!
Hi Stefan, love your channel. Im a flintknapper and love practicing experimental archaeology. Ive made stone drills and used them on stone, bone, and shell. They leave very distinct tapered holes with circular striations inside the walls of the hole due to the uneven nature of the chipped chert drill. I think that the shallower striations could gradually be worn away by cordage or leather thong but the deeper ones would likely be there as evidence of the drilling process even after a long time. Also depending on how the bone was hung on the string may wear off some striations but leave others where the cordage had no contact with the hole. Just some thoughts. It seems easy to inspect these things under a magnifier.
Awesome video! Great information…my wheels are turning and I think I need to make a scraper and do a hide!!!! Thanks Amigo!
Not available west of the Rockies in Canada. Too bad, this is one plan that really appeals to me as I'm 74 live alone and don't feel like cooking. Well maybe some day.
Hi Stefan.Thanks for this video. About the pronunciation of Cuiabá, put a stress on the final syllable : ) The word 'Cuiabá' is of indigenous origin, specifically from the Bororo language. There are several interpretations for the meaning of the name, but one of the most accepted suggests that 'Cuiabá' is derived from 'Ikuîâba,' which could be translated as 'place of the ikuí fish' or 'river of the ikuí fish.' The ikuí fish is a species locally known.
yeah. good rule of thumb for gringos: when reading brazillian-portuguese, if you see an accent over a vowel thats for sure where to emphasize the pronunciation.
so ku-yah-BAH
Seeing the joy and excitement on Stefan's face everytime we as a species discover something new about our history just warms my heart.
Some of the scrapers found at the Santa Elina site actually look pretty similar to that Rim Rock Draw scaper tool too, although perhaps the rock that was used isn't as compelling. Shown in "Peopling South America's centre: The late Pleistocene site of Santa Elina" 2017. From that paper: "microlithic industry evidenced by three small, well-worked siliceous blade cores with retouched edges. Several limestone microblade cores (20mm) with cortical butts exhibit evidence of retouch with denticulate edges (Figure 8). The robust, notched or denticulated tools (Figure 9) contrast with the smaller flakes. Evidence of microwear, such as polishing on the cutting edges, is visible on some artefacts. The raw lithic materials used are exogenous to the shelter, with some coming from sources as far as 2km away."
Yep, but a prestigious archaeologist as he is, prefers to look at a picture for 5 seconds and say that it just looks like a simple stone 🤷♂
The same fascinating methodology that Gary Haynes (University of Nevada) uses to defend the Clovis First theory and discredit any other discovery made in South America.
Great content. Love the enthusiasm.
Leaving a preemptive like. Always glad to see a milo upload bro!
Really loved the overview you presented of the whole conversation going on in the world of archeology right now.
I live around the Tennessee Valley area Northern Alabama, a lot of sites around here get swept under the rug because somebody does not want a archaeological site where they're trying to build their house. Not mentioned once the Tennessee River was dammed it flooded most sites that were along its banks.
Clarence Webb and David DeJarnette checked out that region prior to the TVA building dams, finding some paleo sites
Great job! You entertain and inform. I love this subject. I wish a boat 60 miles off the coast of California would drag up a bunch of artifacts. So cool.
Good show, Stefan. I have found a lot of agate, as well as Jasper and obsidian tools in the path of the Missoula floods. So, not very far from Burns. And there were many Missoula floods- at least 11 that we know of.
I live in Portland and just a few weeks ago took a week-long trip from Idaho to back home, right through the middle of Oregon. I was thinking of your previous video all the time on that trip, ended up stopping in Blue Basin and Painted Hills which are both very archaeologically-themed, couldn't get my mind off how incredibly far back the human history in this region must have gone, and the stories that for now are lost to us. Crazy to think that I passed probably no more than 45 minutes from the site you highlighted in this video. So freaking cool that my backyard is a nexus of human history. Not that abnormal in Europe I suppose, but feels very special for an American like me. The pre-historic human world is far more fascinating than high fantasy with knights and dragons, IMO.
I live in Europe, in the Netherlands. When disturbing the soil for building etc, archeological exploration is mandatory, and if important finds turn up, a full excavation follows to record and salvage the archeology. I moved to my current city 12 years ago and in that relatively short period, a large Roman-era city, or densely populated suburb was found, a little down the road there was a giant fortress that was likely used as a stepping stone for the Roman invasion of Britain, also a prehistoric settlement that must have been one of the largest in North-Western Europe, in another direction they found Merovingian/migration era graves, warriors with fragments of weaponry. Close by is the central "low plain" of Holland, which is actually a drained swamp, and which was colonised and drained about 1,000 years ago. The communities were more or less planned by local rulers and grew from central roads. Farmers dug drainage canals on either side of their house and extended them until they reached a river, or someone else's plot. This created elongated plots which are still visible in the landscape today. The communities are largely still inhabited by descendents of those colonizers from 1,000 years ago.
So yes, there is so much history and archaeology around us, but it's all under a thick layer of modern landscape or it's still in use and therefore not so exciting....
These floods which laid bare the Channelled Scablands occurred long before there was any civilization in Europe. This was the same time when Dogger Land existed, and when the great tidal wave came down from present day Norway and inundated Dogger Land beneath the English Channel and the North Sea. This was before the construction of the first hill forts, and long before even Stonehenge was first built on the west coast, and before it was subsequently moved to the Salisbury Plain. It even predated the birth of Sumerian or any of the Indian and Southeast Asian civilizations by many thousands of years. It was later than the last Neanderthals, but modern humans had a long way to go before they would make significant sedentary communities of more than a few generations at all. This was a time when all humans were still hunter/gatherer societies with a little opportunistic fishing around the edges.
Sites this old and much older are found in Europe though, else we would not have Neanderthal finds, nor would we have Heidelbergensis. Those, and Homo erectus lived long before those massive glacial floods, and probably long before any kind of human showed up in North America. There were many animals in north America at the time which would have made a quick snack out of any early human which might have shown up. There were dire wolves which were up to four times the size of a modern wolf There was the short faced bear which was bigger than a Kodiak bear, and could run as fast as a horse. There were several species of sabretooth cats some of which were as big as a cow. There were large, bone crushing dogs which could easily crack the bones of the rhinoceros species which lived here at the time, and probably did the same to mastodon bones. It was a much wilder west than 18th century tappers and cowboys found. It was not a place where humans would have survived for long. Those animals would all go extinct before humans found a place here.
My neighbor at my college home in Wisconsin found a scraper which was found to be a Clovis tool by an archaeologist at the university.
Dang...you did a great job of introducing your factor meals sponsor..i listened to you, viewed their link...and actually thought about the meals. Never done that before.
The Missoula Floods across Washington State and the Columbia River occurred dozens of times, in a cycle of every fifty years or so, ending around 13,000 years ago. So the natives living along the Columbia would have seen repeated massive floods, wiping out anything they had built along the river all the way to the sea.
There was also a huge Bonneville flood at about 17,400 years ago from Utah that came down the Snake River and then the Columbia.
The local natives still have stories of their people high on the Columbia Hills watching the floods go by.
@@Aqua-Fyre more likely one of the Oregon volcanoes.
thanks for posting. i didn't realize this.
Imagine being high on some hill with your mates 15 000 years ago, watching a mega flood passing by. 🙌😳
Thanks Charlie! I was gonna point that out and you saved me lots of typing! ☺
The Scablands incredible story!!!!
I was actually born in Cuiabá. Did you ever get around to reading the work of Niède Guidon? She claims to have evidence of human presence in Brazil over 100k years ago. She's quite celebrated among Brazilian academics, and a lot of them feel slighted by the way she was treated by international academia. I don't know what to make of her claims, but it's a discussion that interests me.
yeah! i was trying to remember her name! valeu, mano!!
100,000 years ago we were barely leaving Africa. American migration at that time would fly in the face of the plethora of archeological and genetic evidence we have from all over the world on early human migration history so she would need some very compelling evidence if she wants to be taken seriously with a claim like that.
@@jamesmaybrick2001I “believe” the Aliens built the pyramids, that must make it true.
@@JBaughbmay be that Africans crossed the Atlantic more than 100 k years ago
@@ninovelez100may be, but you'd still need some radically compelling evidence to make such a claim, or few will ever take it more seriously than "an interesting idea"
Great video and fantastic job gathering and presenting your data. This really is an intriguing mystery, one that I can only hope will be solved in our lifetime.
Love all of your videos, Stefan! Infinite thanks to you from one Cascadian to another 💜 And, I know you're increasing your production values lately, but will we ever see SpoonMic™ make a reappearance?
I love that you are willing to welcome new evidence with excitement- while also scrutinizing and questioning the evidence . The mark of the truly curious to to be able to hold conflicting ideas in the same thought. Thank you.
Aaaannnnd
Don’t worry about what you look like, worry about keeping healthy and happy so we have your videos for many many decades!!! Be full of joy with your family and fans - leave the anxiety behind.
Warm wishes to you, yours, and the chat.
Looks like the giant sloth avocado thing is a myth btw
My husband was born and raised in Central Oregon. His grandfather and great grandfather have found a ridiculous amount of native American artifacts. The tools tend to look very different than the Clovis style. A little town out by Prinville Oregon called Alfalfa was full of that stuff. Of course this was all before it was illegal to pickup such things. That whole area is full of pictographs and all that type of stuff, which I've been honored to see with my own eyes. Lots obsidian and pink rock that looks like obsidian turned into all kinds of arrow heads, spear tips and so on. I've always believed that native Americans have been here longer than believed by the powers that be. I enjoy your channel. Thank you for sharing
Unfortunately much of that area was scoured down to bedrock during the breakages of Glacial lake Missoula and Lake Bonneville. Lake Bonneville (where the Bonneville salt flats are now) was broken by an earthquake which emptied it. The much larger Glacial Lake Missoula was much larger with a total volume estimated to have been larger than Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in the Great Lakes. That's a lot of water, and when the ice dam broke, all of that drained out and ran to the ocean in no more than two days. If you are familiar with the Channelled Scab lands and the coulees in the area, including the one which was dammed up by Grand Coulee Dam, then you know the area I'm talking about. There is strong evidence that it emptied and filled many times, and when it broke, it carried a lot of dirt and debris far out into the Pacific ocean. To this day, large portions of the Channelled Scab Lands are not arable, as the earth still has not filled in enough for anything with deep roots to grow there. The only places were there are trees are the areas near creeks and rivers where the it has silted in over the millennia.
You can find an old, but solid video regarding the flooding of this area here: ua-cam.com/video/t3Km-NjcEvM/v-deo.html
You can also search "Glacial Lake Missoula floods" and find additional videos on the topic. There are some videos put up by Creation "scientists". If you want solid ages for when this happened, it would be best to avoid those videos, as they say this was all created by Noah's flood and that its only 6000 years old. That simply cannot be the case for a vast number of reasons.
It isn't too surprising that the tools look different than Clovis tools. Clovis points are rare to begin with. Further, any tools older than the Lake Missoula floods would have either been destroyed, or washed far out to sea.
It would have been quite something to have been anywhere in the neighbourhood of those floods. The sound would have been loud enough to carry hundreds of miles, and it would have shook the ground for quite a distance too. One can only imagine how it must of looked for the first paleo Indians who came across it after the flooding. They would have been looking out into a canyon which was barren of any living thing... even so much as a blade of grass, I'm sure the devastation would have been stunning, and I doubt that anyone would want to try to cross it for decades after the last of the floods. The animals they were hunting would not go into there since there was no food for them to eat. It would have remained a wasteland for a very long time. Even now, vegetation is sparse. Trees grow only in low areas where dirt has collected over the centuries. Everything else growing in the area are plants which have a fairly shallow root system, such as sage, rabbit brush, greasewood, and some grasses. The pictographs and the points were made more recently than the last flood which swept through the area 15,000 years ago. Older points may be found in the areas just outside of the Scablands, both to the north and to the south, but not within the area where the flood once raged. I don't doubt that paleo Indians have been here for a very long time. They were very likely the first humans to come here. Exactly when they came, and whether they came through the ice free corridor or followed the coast is up for debate, and may be for a very long time. It's likely that they came by both routes at one time or another, maybe within a few decades of each other. Considering what has been found in South America, it is likely that they were here much earlier than the oldest times we can securely date at present. We don't currently have anything older though, so it's anybody's guess. Maybe in your lifetime we will find evidence of it. Or maybe we won't since this is a scientifically driven field, we cannot say for certain when they came. Only that they came, and that they first came a very long time ago.
@@ChompchompyerdedThank you very much for this ultra-informative comment. I grew up in Montana and heard about glacial lake Missoula a few times. I've only recently realized that the draining and flooding incidents occurred at times where it would have swept away evidence of human occupation along the pathway. I look forward to revisiting your comment, and the video link you shared, to keep learning more.
@@Chompchompyerded Neither the missoula or bonneville floods went as far south as Alfalfa Oregon or the site of the rimrock draw. these were mainly in the scablands of Washington. Alfalfa is 100 miles south of the columbia and Rimrock draw is 150 miles south the area around rimrock draw was a huge lake and was likely very green the lake dried up and left a desert. Alfalfa is roughly 3200' elevation and rimrock draw is 4500'. the columbia river gorge rim due north of these areas is 1200' with the river itself being around 200'. the floods just physically couldnt have got to these areas given that the floods started north and east of the Columbia.
Definitely another great segment. I would love to see you have a regular show on paleontology that would take you all over the globe to interview scientists and show us these fascinating sites and artifacts. I’m not criticizing your UA-cam channel, it’s a great resource and thoroughly entertaining and informative. I would just love more of you, that’s all! Take care !
I'm from Oregon , corvallis(rainy 70% of the year) but in the higher desert and in particular Eastern Oregon is very very common to come across tools like this that are not made of obsidian they're actually made of also Jasper,agate, cert, etc and I personally have several I wish I could post photos on here. Absolutely native made tools
I wonder if the older sites are predominantly under water, being that the coast was in some cases, a hundred miles from present day.
Always a treat to find a new video of yours, Stefan!
Mr Milo, sir your videos are a breath of fresh air from another time!! Kudos, keep at it!
Hey Stefan, just wanted to tell you a bit about agate and microcrystalline quartz.
So to start microcrystalline quartz, of various types, are probably the most common tool making rocks. Usually called flint by archeologists, or chert by rock collectors. The grains of the quartz crystals are tiny, which leads to very smooth, sharp, conchoidal fractures.
Agate is just a particularly pretty form of microcrystalline, defined by the presence of banding, often with transparent or translucent areas in it.
A nice solid chunk of agate big enough to make that scraper out of would be a fun rock to find.
*Early algorithm stoke*
And toke!
@@Vukoslavia1this guy gets it
Algorithm feeding comment.
@@Vukoslavia1and stroke 👀
All hail the algorithm
South American site: item A is a perfect flake that did not need any extra work to do its job as a mini-knife. You can see where it was struck to remove it from the core -- at that small flatt-ish area at the bottom. The bulb of percussion (the raised curved fan shape) is the ripple effect from the point where the rock was struck with another rock all the way to the edge, which will be razor sharp. Item C is very similar to the agate tool from Oregon: same shape and configuration, edges "retouched" (the fine trimming after the basic tool is struck off from a larger piece and roughly shaped) in little chips all around the wider back of the tool to make a scraper. Item E is harder to see, but it looks to be retouched along the thinner edge. All 3 look good for man-made. Item B looks retouched, and may be a burin (a sort of hole punch) but the photo is poor. Item D has the same problem: it may be mildly retouched but from this photo is not completely convincing.
Great, as usual. Wonderful illustration of paleolithic histories. Regarding the scraper found in Oregon, agate is found all over Oregon. With our volcanic/metamorphic geology, we have an abundance of this type of rock. That scraper is unquestioningly human-made, though. Wow, what a find...
Interesting that the scraper was made out of agate. That type of rock is pretty much exclusively found on or near the coast. So it was indeed carried hundreds of miles inland. Also its a more rare color of agate called a fire agate (because its orange instead of the more common white/opaque color). Cool stuff.
The coastal thing isn't true. Agate is composed of the most common mineral on the planet (quartz/silica), and is all over the place. Where I live, completely landlocked in central US, where all the bedrock is sandstone and granite, we still have huge gravel beds full of microcrystalline quartz stones (flint, jasper, agate...)
Agate is definitely easy to find on gravel beaches, but that's far from the only place it's found. Heck, I've got some seam agate from the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas.
Agate's a metamorphic semi-precious gemstones usually washed out from any previously volcanic area, which means it can turn up pretty much anywhere. Its also very varied in colour even within a local area, every colour of the rainbow. Defining what exactly Agate is by chemical composition is, well ... just as variable, as different parts of the world call it by different general names.
My dad was a rockhound in eastern Oregon (among other areas but he grew up in The Dalles and I've been camping with him when he was exploring somewhere in the region) and there's lots of agate in eastern Oregon, places where thick bands of agate many inches thick have folded up to the surface.
They could (semi-obviously) be speaking of Oregon, and that there "That type of rock is pretty much exclusively found on or near the coast". Maybe in the center of the continent, agate is "all over". @@Curdledgorilla
Agates are found on the coast, in river gravels and in situ, pretty much world wide. They form from silica which is the most common mineral in the earth's crust, so thy are common worldwide. The Great Basin in eastern Washington, Oregon, western Idaho and northern NEvada is simply littered with agates and jaspers, in situ, not just in the river gravels. The agate and jasper formed when silica precipitated out of volcanic ash layers and hardened in vugs in the basalt and lava layers beneath the ash. The Great Basin agates and jaspers are well known and popular among lapidaries, who cut and polish them to make jewelry: Bruneau canyon jasper, Owyhee jasper, Gary Green Jasper, Biggs Jasper, Mt Airy agate and Ellensburg blue agate are some of the most well known.
Agates are commonly found in river and beach deposits mostly because they are easiest to find in that situation. Finding them in situ is difficult in places where the land is covered in vegetation. But in the great basin, there is little vegetation, so agates and jaspers can be found easily in their host rock formations. Digging them out of hard rock is not so easy, though!
Your videos are always so fascinating. Keep up the great work.
The Missoula Floods were a big part In the Columbia and willamette valleys. Massive floods and waves and ripples in the geological record of those
I remember being really confused during high school history when we were told that the first Americans crossed the land bridge and settled in New Mexico. Like, how did they get from ALASKA to NEW MEXICO? It's not like they went straight from A to B, there had to have been older settlements in the way, and as the population grew, it would have spread out, not just continue as a single group to this far off location.
Yeah. That just always bothered me. I'm glad new findings are coming out about this.
I also wonder about that. Today, we have people who see a sheer cliff and insist on climbing it. Those people existed at the beginning of time. Imagine the few who came and went before the groups. Those who came back with stories.
What could you possibly mean? 🤔 New Mexico and Alaska are basically next-door neighbors.
clovis first is ded
The idea of humans traveling so far is only a problem for modern day lazy humans who can't even walk to the corner store. Hunter gathering people HAD to travel constantly to where the food was because they would eventually eat their current area out of food. They had a wide range of travel normally........until populations rose enough that conflict with other groups would arise. Before that the Americas were a literal buffet for the first people to come here. Especially along the coasts where travel was the easiest. Alaska to new mexico is only a little over 4000 kilometers. If each generation increased their range from where they were born 100 kilometers it would only take them 400 years to make that journey without even trying. Look how fast humanity spread out of Africa. It's easily doable. If they had simple canoes it's even crazier how far they could travel. Fur trade voyageurs use to average 75 kilometers a day in their hand paddled canoes. on the great lakes. Less in smaller rivers etc but that's pretty darn far in a day. Judging things through modern eyes is always a huge mistake.
@@guacre2675 Ugh! Americans and geography!!!
Thanks for dressing up! Great video, very well done
N America was completely devastated at end of ice age and possibly a few times after. I live in SE USA. Our ground has a very thin layer of top soil followed by a 2 to 3 foot layer of pure red clay. Beneath the red clay there is a 1 inch thick layer of rock hard, compressed ash. Below the ash is a sandy yellow soil that goes to bedrock, as far as I can tell (only got 10 feet down in a few places). Obvious to me there was a massive fire then a flood of some kind that left the layer of red clay above it.
excellent content, an explanation of less findings in Brazil is the low investment in research compared to the USA
Less regulations, oversight.
Less roads.
More untouchable places.
Good show, Stefan. I have found a lot of agate, as well as Jasper and obsidian tools in the path of the Missoula floods. So, not very far from Burns.
Can the absence of artifacts on the North American continent be tied to the Younger Dryas floods somewhere around 12,000 years ago? With the spectacular floods that carved out the Columbia River basin, it would make sense that artifacts were washed away by the torrents sweeping over the land. If they were forceful enough to carve out cliffs and valleys, small artifacts would not have stood a chance.
Also, sea level rise that caused the breakup of Beringia into the Berring Straight likely also flooded coastline communities and human artifacts that are probably under the ocean's waves.
Can’t wait for more discoveries!
Oregonian here! So stoked to see my home state in your videos. I was born here and its beauty had never once got old.
Always fascinating, always entertaining, thank you!
Oregon has a beach named "Agate Beach". After big storms you can see agate rocks scattered around on the beach. Maybe the agate scraper was traded from coastal dwellers long ago.
I have found local agate in the mountains near the Rimrock draw site, and the lakebed gravels nearby have lots of small pebbles of agate that probably came geologically from those mountain sources IMHO.
Always happy to see a new post from Milo.
I didn't look too much into it, but we do have sites that in the very least claim to be pretty old in south America, much older than we normally see in North america
I have noticed that!
@@ImperfectVoid8479 By boat how? From where? The coastal migration theory is basically mainstream now, but is essentially crossing the Bering Strait.
An open ocean crossing of thousands of miles would be unprecedented for that time period.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 maybe not, as there was a dna test done that found that some indigenous south Americans are actually not descendants from north Americans or Europeans but instead they are connected to the indigenous people of Australia, so somehow the same ancient people managed to reach 2 of the hardest places to travel to.
Yes, or any time period, so kudos to the Polynesians! @@jeffmacdonald9863
@@jeffmacdonald9863 From Europe and Africa. Crazy idea. Even if coasts were closer at the whatever time they claim it happened, they couldn't have been that much closer! But some idiots will say anything, and other idiots will believe anything. People will believe anything they hear/see on UA-cam, even if it's aliens.
The Brazil objects could have been made more recently. The bones may be old but may have been found and used much later. I have a cello bow with a mastodon frog that was made only twenty years ago from ancient materials.
They have been dated to that old age because they were found in a layer of that age. The dating isn't just based on the objects themselves, but on the layer they were found in.
That makes sense.
@@frankvandorp9732
HEY Stefan, thank you for this. I do appreciate hearing about these discoveries now that the old people have died. Hopefully your generation will continue to be open to listening to young people when they make discoveries.
The episode is great, and yes the conversation on this subject is interesting. Perhaps you could do one on the Topper site, btw I wonder if the south American site was a place where ornaments were made. I also find it odd that the majority of Clovis sites are in the east rather than the north west.
That's what I was wondering.
I usually skip sponsor ads made by my favorite UA-camrs, but listening to Stefan is always fun.
Another interesting side note is Kings valley oregon, where I am near in Corvallis, they have found several giant sloth bones. I believe they call it the "Harlen sloth" as a nickname after the near by Harlen Oregon which is close to what I assumed a holler is in the Appalachian community. My grandparents grew up there so I'm very familiar with the area and history. Very rural area with no cell service in our coastal mountain range below the highest peak, Mary's peak. They have apparently found these bones in our natural springs which we have scattered all over this area in the Willamette valley. Also Mammoth bones and Oregon State University has done lots of studies on these obviously being the nearest University. I mean they just dug up one here in Corvallis on 9th Street putting in a restaurant not too long ago and they dug up one right in the center of the osu reser stadium!? So wherever we dig a Little deeper we find them here. Would be interesting to see the university findings. Apparently we don't find dinosaur bones here because this area was under water and a part of the ocean floor when dinosaurs were here.
We have lost quite a bit of coastal lands on the west side or North America in the last 15000 years... that I think whole ancient coastal communities locations have fallen into the ocean and been ground to sand by the waves.
Can it be that the people mostly lived on the coast (which was probably much further into the ocean as it is today) and only then started moving inland once the sealevels started rising? Similar patterns as Doggerland and the Black Sea. Would be nice to see what is below the ocean there on the west coast aswell.
Most first people at the Oregon coast, probably were most comfortable sourcing food from the marine environment, but I'll bet that the younger members of that band wanted desperately to explore eastward ASAP, if just to get away from adult supervision. And, they were probably driven to do this by hormone power to look anxiously for potential mates, but did not know that there were no potential mates, as they WERE the first people in the new world.
Too many comments to go through to see if anyone else mentioned this, but your opinion at about 15:50 that archaeologists would have found artifacts earlier than Clovis were it there, perhaps doesn't take into account that archaeologists may have stopped digging at about 13,000 years ago because it was "known" that Clovis was first. At least that's what my archaeology classes taught me, that extra effort to dig lower was often not taken because of the assumption they probably wouldn't find anything. Limited funds and all that. Great video!
It was “known” for way too long that because Clovis was the oldest layer, there wasn’t any reason to dig deeper, thus I suspect there are a LOT of pre Clovis tools a layer or two down from many of these sites.
There have actually been a lot of digs at this point in layers well below clovis.
Yes. And blowing up prior beliefs with new evidence is how you earn your spurs in archaeology.
To get a doctorate you need to add to the sum total of knowledge in your field and, contrary to popular opinion, it’s far easier to get new knowledge from new discoveries than to milk new knowledge from old knowledge. If Ergaster or Rhodesiensis (or their descendants) crossed over on an earlier land bridge (or by following an island chain across water, which is my best guess at the original mode of migration) then it’s certainly possible that they arrived in North America far, far earlier than the current hypothesis suggests. It’s a good idea; the hard part is proving it.
And remember, proving it requires two things: it has to explain known facts (new evidence *and* past evidence both) better-usually more simply, but definitely more comprehensively-than the older hypothesis, and it is has to testable (if this is true, then X).
If you don’t have both of those traits in your idea, it’s not a hypothesis, it’s a darned good story idea. It’s cool, but it’s not science.
As Stefan says in the video, a lot of finds are accidental - found during construction or other digs.
Paleontologists also do a lot of digging for animal fossils, much deeper than Clovis. They certainly wouldn't ignore human evidence if it showed up.
Yup, the D-8 Cat is sometimes an archeologist's, and paleontologist's best friend!! LOL ;D@@jeffmacdonald9863
I visited a quarry in Georgia not to far from Atlanta and found lots of fossils insects , tree logs, ferns but no arrow heads. But the guy that worked there assured me they were all over the area. I did show him the fossils and he was amazed and said he never seen them. I couldn’t see the arrow heads for the fossils and he couldn’t see the fossils for the arrow heads. 😂
The floods were super intense! (didn't actually form the gorge, which is about 50 million years old...). But it's def cool that you're linking the human experience with the Ice Age floods. Love all the context in your videos.
The "a few people showed up here and there before Clovis, but didn't take hold" scenario is weak when applied to central Brazil. Such outposts would tend to be on the coasts, reached by boat.
Idk, hominins did make it to Asia 1.8 mil years ago.. we are to assume they just stopped traversing the world? It is certainly plausible another group showed up and didn't take hold long long long ago.
Could they be reached by river though? I know at least when the area was colonized by Portugal and ppl from São Paulo they came from the rivers
@@Idellphany Yes, I find it likely they just weren't as populous.
@@pedrosampaio7349 I believe the video was about plains in southern Brazil, though? I'm in the middle of something and don't quite remember...
@@KAZVorpal the site in question was in the state Mato Grosso, near the local capital city, Cuiabá, which was founded during the period of colonization (1700's when slavers and colonists from São Paulo came for gold and Indian slaves) I described in my comment
It is also a matter of how deep you go and whether you document and date the find or not. The Clovis first lobby was particularly nefarious about stopping funding for further digs or green lighting construction projects involving pre Clovis finds. On top of that there was also academic pressure on peer reviewers to find arguments against pre Clovis origins. All that worked together in creating a highly misleading body of evidence.
Sure, but most sites aren’t found by archaeologists. I don’t personally think you could conceal thousands upon thousands of examples of a material culture across two continents. As for digging down far enough, it depends on the location right? Some areas Clovis sites are on the surface, some areas they’re deeply buried.
I’m not saying that Clovis was first, but are they close to the first? Maybe. Are they first in some areas of the continent? Maybe.
Clovis and later finds are usually closer to the surface and generally what is found by casual inspection. When one digs deep right away as for road construction pre Clovis finds are often deliberately ignored or one gets something like the Cerrutti mastodon site in San Diego.
@@zeideerskine3462 You have listened to too may of Graham Hancock's fans, and/or to too many crazy right wing fanatics who hate all science and scientists, and believe every crazy conspiracy theory out there. Stefan doesn't dare say that to his audience, including you, but it's obvious that's what he's thinking.
I live in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. I found a scraper? We had a trench dug across our driveway that was about 4 ft deep. After we laid the electrical lines, the trench was filled. A bit later walking to the gate, I noticed what looked like a large arrowhead. When I brushed away the dirt, it was way bigger. It fit in my palm.
hey stefan, can you make a video about monte verde? It's a site in southern chile that is 14500 years old and was a key site in the shift from the clovis first and beringia only theory of the peopling of the americas. if you need footage I live very near and would be happy to film some for you :)
The people living in those caves 14000 years ago may have found those bones that were already 13000 years old and modified the existing flea holes to make necklaces.
Found a Clovis base on a golf course I was working at. In the next 6 months I found point after point. It was pretty awesome
Clovis were avid golfers.