(Press-News.org) COLLEGE STATION, March 24, 2011— New discoveries at a Central Texas archaeological site by a Texas A&M University-led research team prove that people lived in the region far earlier – as much as 2,500 years earlier – than previously believed, rewriting what anthropologists know about when the first inhabitants arrived in North America. That pushes the arrival date back to about 15,500 years ago.
Michael Waters, director of Texas A&M's Center for the Study of First Americans, along with researchers from Baylor University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, the University of Minnesota, and Texas State University, have found the oldest archaeological evidence for human occupation in Texas and North America at the Debra L. Friedkin site, located about 40 miles northwest of Austin. Their work is published in the current issue of Science magazine.
Waters says that buried in deposits next to a small spring-fed stream is a record of human occupation spanning the last 15,500 years. Near the surface is the record of the Late Prehistoric and Archaic occupants of the region. Buried deeper in the soil are layers with Folsom and Clovis occupations going back 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.
"But the kicker was the discovery of nearly 16,000 artifacts below the Clovis horizon that dated to 15,500 years ago," Waters notes.
"Most of these are chipping debris from the making and resharpening of tools, but over 50 are tools. There are bifacial artifacts that tell us they were making projectile points and knives at the site," Waters says. There are expediently made tools and blades that were used for cutting and scraping."
Multiple studies have shown that the site is undisturbed and that the artifacts are in place and over 60 "luminescence dates" show that early people arrived at the site by 15,500 years ago, Waters explains. Luminescence dating technique is a method used to date the sediment surrounding the artifacts. It dates the last time the sediment was exposed to sunlight.
For more than 80 years, it has been argued that the Clovis people were the first to enter the Americas, Waters says. He goes on to say that over the last few decades, there have been several credible sites which date older than Clovis found in North America -- specifically in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Oregon.
"However, this evidence is not very robust," Waters observes.
"What is special about the Debra L. Friedkin site is that it has the largest number of artifacts dating to the pre-Clovis time period, that these artifacts show an array of different technologies, and that these artifacts date to a very early time.
"This discovery challenges us to re-think the early colonization of the Americas. There's no doubt these tools and weapons are human-made and they date to about 15,500 years ago, making them the oldest artifacts found both in Texas and North America."
Waters has been working at the site since 2006, and analysis of the artifacts collected from the site is ongoing. Waters says, "These studies will help us figure out where these people came from, how they adapted to the new environments they encountered, and understand the origins of later groups like Clovis."
INFORMATION:
Funding for the project was provided by the North Star Archaeological Research Program and the Chair in First American Studies.
For more about the Center for the Study of the First Americans, go to http://csfa.tamu.edu/
Contact: Michael Waters at (979) 845-5246 or mwaters@tamu.edu, Blair Williamson, College of Liberal Arts, at (979) 458-1347 or bwilliamson@libarts.tamu.edu or Keith Randall, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamu.edu
END
FitnessCouponClub.com has launched a service that helps to bring fitness professionals and companies together with fitness conscious consumers. By offering a group buying opportunity on the website, fitness companies can offer their services to fitness enthusiasts and fanatics who are looking for a deal on fitness classes, personal training and other fitness services or products. They even offer the opportunity to market worldwide if the service or product meets certain standards.
Following group buying trends, many companies have increased their clientele by offering ...
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---When local residents are allowed to make rules about managing nearby forests, the forests are more likely to provide greater economic benefits to households and contain more biodiversity, two University of Michigan researchers and a colleague conclude from an analysis of forest practices in tropical developing countries of East Africa and South Asia.
Lauren Persha and Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan and Ashwini Chhatre of the University of Illinois used evidence from more than 80 forest sites in six tropical countries to test how local participation ...
Stroke patients who received electrical brain stimulation coupled with swallowing exercises showed greater improvement in swallowing ability than patients who did not receive this stimulation, according to a pilot study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Difficulty swallowing, known as dysphagia, is a common and serious stroke complication. It can lead to aspiration, when food or foreign matter accidentally enters the lungs causing pneumonia. Aspiration and aspiration pneumonia are common complications after stroke and can be deadly.
The ...
Patients who have suffered a "mini stroke" are at twice the risk of heart attack than the general population, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
These mini-strokes, called transient-ischemic attacks, or TIAs, occur when a blood clot temporarily blocks a blood vessel to the brain. Although the symptoms are similar to a stroke, a TIA is shorter ─ usually lasting only minutes or a few hours ─ and does not cause long-term disability. A TIA, also called a "warning stroke," signals a high risk of a subsequent, larger ...
In an industry characterised by the need for strong technical skills, the development of the interpersonal side of things is often forgotten. If you're aiming for your first job post qualification or rising through the managerial ranks, Michael Page Finance knows that it's your soft skills that can set you apart from the crowd.
Recruiters on the lookout
Accountancy jobs can demand a varying set of skills. A range of different employers, from small businesses to FTSE-listed multinationals rely on us to recruit their finance professionals.
With exposure to so ...
Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.
The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding.
Details of the discovery have been announced today in the journal Current Biology. The study was funded by the Royal Society and the National Natural Foundation ...
The variety on offer at the Foire de Paris means everyone is likely to find something they are interested in at the exhibition, with stands ranging from travel destinations to cooking gadgets.
It runs from April 28th to May 8th 2011 and features three sections: home, leisure and world culture.
Visitors will find plenty of inspiration for luxury holidays and property renovations at the event, with exhibitors sharing top tips on how people can spend their cash.
To add to the fun, challenges and awards will be handed out during the fair for visitors and products.
The ...
Children with Tourette syndrome could benefit from behavioural therapy to reduce their symptoms, according to a new brain imaging study.
Researchers at The University of Nottingham discovered that the brains of children with Tourette syndrome (TS) develop in a unique way — which could suggest new methods of treating the condition.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found that many children with TS experience a 'reorganisation' of the brain structure in their teens, as their brain compensates for the condition and allows them to gain control over their ...
A study published today provides a new perspective on the Great Depression of the 1930s. A widely held view is that there were remarkable improvements in life expectancy of over five years. Using data from urban populations, researchers found that it was actually associated with an increase in suicides but reduction in motor-vehicle accidents, a pattern consistent with the impacts of the current recession in Europe and the U.S. The study, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, is published in today's issue of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Senior ...
Your CV is first-class, your interview skills are impeccable and you've researched the company inside out and back-to-front, but there's one further hurdle you may need to overcome before that job is yours - the personality test.
Employers are increasingly incorporating pre-set personality tests into the interview process to quickly establish a candidate's suitability for the role and compatibility within the larger organisation.
Personality tests tend to follow a standardised format of quick-answer, true-or-false or multiple-choice questions (up to 500 in some instances). ...
