The earliest, "well"-documented culture of Paleo-Indians are Clovis. The Clovis culture dates to around 13,500 years ago. The weird thing is that Clovis culture sites are found all throughout the Americas. This suggests that Paleo-Indians were in the Western Hemisphere much earlier than 13,500 years ago. However, the establishment nature of archaeology has caused any site that suggests pre-Clovis Americans to be very controversial.
A new discovery in Minnesota will add fuel to the fire that is the debate. The site has stone tools which may be up to 15,000 years old.
Catholicgauze finds this easily believable. Pre-clovis sites have been found. In fact, the Monte Verde site in southern Chile has solid evidence of people (including footprints) in the New World 1,000 years before the Clovis, New Mexico site. Here are questions to ponder: 1) If people were in Chile 14,500 years ago how long had people been in the New World? 2) Could the Chile site be evidence of alternative arrivals? More on this tomorrow...
Catholicgauze loves archaeology but hates the establishment nature of Archaeology. Dating problems is a great example of my hatred. Things are dated via radiocarbon dating. However, archaeologist tend to state things are "X years old" but fail to mention this is measured in radio-carbon years and not regular, "calendar" years as everyone understands "years" to mean. Catholicgauze uses the standard, lay definition of "year."
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