I posted this in the better group but thought I'd
share it here:

https://youtu.be/K1uHmLVg-7k

It /Seems/ long but it's not. The talk is under 30
minutes and he's such a great story teller that it'll
seem much shorter.

THAT is the one "argument" people are going to
make against him: He is a good story teller. I
mean, any story a good story teller tells you is
going to sound good. Are the facts convincing you
or his personality, his delivery?

Now I say this because if you do the Google you'll
see that a lot of the things he's saying aren't
universally accepted. Take the stroll down Google
Lane in search of "The oldest well," for example.
This guy in the video is talking about a Clovis era
well, THOUSANDS of years older than what is
generally attributed as the "Oldest" well...

(It's in the Q&A, following the talk)

A couple of other points he makes are truly fascinating.
One is that there are but 17 Mammoth kill sites known,
and even then I have to wonder if "Kill Sites" is correct.

We know they butchered the animals, but did they kill
them?

I dunno, maybe I'm wrong but if you find evidence of
butchering a Mammoth, even a baby, anywhere where
people inhabited, doesn't that sound strange? Mammoths
wandering over to human habitats?

We don't really know their personality, how aggressive
they were, so it's all guess work. But I would guess that
the Mammoths would either attack or avoid humans,
not visit them...

The are really truly interesting point he makes is something
I have been talking about for years: The continental shelf.

Oh; and "The light over here is better."

If you want to excavate where seafaring people would have
lived on the east coast during the glacial period, be prepared
to walk about the length of the state of Connecticut (and
then some) into the ocean. And that's why the search for
America's oldest people concentrates on the west coast:

The continental shelf is much smaller.

What he doesn't talk about is bias, and how people who
assume an Asian-Only origins wouldn't even want to look
on the east coast..

But it's a great video. Watch it.

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/695841401741688832

This is not on the thread where we are quits, and there is a paleontological
dimension to it, so I'm responding.

On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 3:21:47 PM UTC-4, JTEM wrote:
> I posted this in the better group but thought I'd
> share it here:
>
> https://youtu.be/K1uHmLVg-7k
>
> It /Seems/ long but it's not. The talk is under 30
> minutes and he's such a great story teller that it'll
> seem much shorter.

I hope you are right. I dislike listening to almost all talks more than
5 minutes long unless there is no transcript available.
I could breeze through a transcript for a 30 minute talk in 5 minutes.

> THAT is the one "argument" people are going to
> make against him: He is a good story teller. I
> mean, any story a good story teller tells you is
> going to sound good. Are the facts convincing you
> or his personality, his delivery?

Excellent turns of phrase are worth lingering over.
Shakespeare was especially good at them.

>
> Now I say this because if you do the Google you'll
> see that a lot of the things he's saying aren't
> universally accepted. Take the stroll down Google
> Lane in search of "The oldest well," for example.
> This guy in the video is talking about a Clovis era
> well, THOUSANDS of years older than what is
> generally attributed as the "Oldest" well...
>
> (It's in the Q&A, following the talk)
>
> A couple of other points he makes are truly fascinating.
> One is that there are but 17 Mammoth kill sites known,
> and even then I have to wonder if "Kill Sites" is correct.
>
> We know they butchered the animals, but did they kill
> them?

My guess is they did, for reasons given below.

> I dunno, maybe I'm wrong but if you find evidence of
> butchering a Mammoth, even a baby, anywhere where
> people inhabited, doesn't that sound strange? Mammoths
> wandering over to human habitats?

Unlike the African and Indian elephants, new world proboscideans
did not coevolve with humans. Thus humans were able to perfect
sharp stone tools with which to make easy kills possible without
the mammoths and mastodons knowing they had anything to fear.

And even if the tools were inadequate to that task, they were
well adapted to butchering, unlike the primitive tools of
Homo habilis.

> We don't really know their personality, how aggressive
> they were, so it's all guess work. But I would guess that
> the Mammoths would either attack or avoid humans,
> not visit them...
>
> The are really truly interesting point he makes is something
> I have been talking about for years: The continental shelf.
>
> Oh; and "The light over here is better."
>
> If you want to excavate where seafaring people would have
> lived on the east coast during the glacial period, be prepared
> to walk about the length of the state of Connecticut (and
> then some) into the ocean. And that's why the search for
> America's oldest people concentrates on the west coast:
>
> The continental shelf is much smaller.

Not in the Bering Sea. And that is where I read most about
underwater searches. How much has there been on the west coast
of the continental USA?

> What he doesn't talk about is bias, and how people who
> assume an Asian-Only origins wouldn't even want to look
> on the east coast..

There's also the pesky matter of there being no
land bridge from the east coast like the one that crossed
the Bering Strait.

By the way, have you heard of *any* good finds off the east coast in
the Clovis or pre-Clovis times?

> But it's a great video. Watch it.

Maybe next month. It's already been a busy week, and is apt to get busier.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

> Unlike the African and Indian elephants, new world proboscideans
> did not coevolve with humans. Thus humans were able to perfect
> sharp stone tools with which to make easy kills possible without
> the mammoths and mastodons knowing they had anything to fear.
>
> And even if the tools were inadequate to that task, they were
> well adapted to butchering, unlike the primitive tools of
> Homo habilis.

You say "Even if the tools were inadequate," which returns us to the
issue of whether or not the small number of kill sites are in fact a
small number of butchering sites.

> > If you want to excavate where seafaring people would have
> > lived on the east coast during the glacial period, be prepared
> > to walk about the length of the state of Connecticut (and
> > then some) into the ocean. And that's why the search for
> > America's oldest people concentrates on the west coast:
> >
> > The continental shelf is much smaller.

> Not in the Bering Sea. And that is where I read most about
> underwater searches. How much has there been on the west coast
> of the continental USA?

Well "Coastal Dispersal" is the norm everywhere, including the
Americas. Quite frankly we had arrivals by boat long before there
was any so called land bridge. And humans were probably capable
of making the crossing from Europe/west Africa as far back as
100,000 years ago. That's the oldest evidence for water crossings
in the Mediterranean.

> There's also the pesky matter of there being no
> land bridge from the east coast like the one that crossed
> the Bering Strait.

They were already here, long before any land bridge.

> By the way, have you heard of *any* good finds off the east coast in
> the Clovis or pre-Clovis times?

Yes. And the video discusses them.

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/696470049689649152