As a young earth guy much of this seems like fruitless speculation.  6000
years seems like enough.

Wayne+

-----Original Message-----
From: chasrscott@... [mailto:chasrscott@...] 
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:11 AM
To: faithandlife@...
Subject: [FaithandLife] A HUMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA 50000 YEARS AGO?



A HUMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA 50000 YEARS AGO?

washingtonpost.com 

Team Says Humans Lived In North America Earlier 
By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, November 18, 2004; Page A14 
Archaeologists said yesterday they had found evidence that humans lived in
North America at least 50,000 years ago, far earlier than has been thought.

The report was immediately met with skepticism by other scientists because
the evidence had not gone through the usual process of review by independent
researchers, which is especially crucial for something that would so
dramatically rewrite human history. If humans migrated to the Western
Hemisphere that early, it would force scientists to fundamentally rethink
the early migration patterns of the species and the role of Homo sapiens so
far back in this hemisphere.
But the researcher who led the team that made the discovery said he was
confident the findings would hold up under scrutiny.

"It's really shocking -- we know that. Most archaeologists probably will
reject this. We know we have our work cut out for us, to say the least,"
said Albert C. Goodyear, an archaeologist at the University of South
Carolina. "But I believe it, so I have to call it as a I see it."
The findings are pieces of charcoal and shards of stone Goodyear and his
colleagues unearthed at the Topper archaeological site along the Savannah
River in Allendale County, S.C.

Modern humans are believed to have evolved in Africa between 60,000 and
80,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence modern Homo sapiens
migrated to Australia and central Asia about 50,000 years ago, and to Europe
perhaps 10,000 years later.

But modern humans are believed to have migrated to the Western Hemisphere
much later. For decades, the earliest signs of modern humans in the Western
Hemisphere were believed to date back about only 13,000 years to a primitive
culture known as Clovis, whose distinctive fluted projectile points have
been found across the United States. Archaeologists have, however, begun to
challenge the idea that the Clovis were the earliest human inhabitants in
the area, citing findings that might push back that date back to about
20,000 years ago.
No one has previously said he has found any evidence that would push the
date back 50,000 years.
In the new findings, Goodyear said his team dug down deeper than ever before
at the Topper site and found tiny shards of flint that Goodyear believes are
clearly the remains of ancient toolmaking. Then, the researchers found
pieces of charcoal nearby in what could have been an ancient hearth, and
sent the samples to the University of California at Irvine for radiocarbon
dating, which is considered the gold standard for determining the age of
archaeological artifacts.
The results, released yesterday, concluded the charcoal is at least 50,000
years old.

The researchers plan to submit the findings to a scientific journal for
publication but decided to release the results before that because of
intense media interest, Goodyear said.

Other scientists said they respected Goodyear's work but found it difficult
to evaluate the findings without seeing details.
Although the date of the charcoal may be accurate, the pieces of stone found
with it could easily have been created naturally instead of by ancient
humans, Michael B. Collins of the University of Texas at Austin said.

"Nothing that I've seen is convincingly an artifact," Collins said. "I don't
think the broken stones down there were broken by humans. I just don't see
anything that makes me sit up and say, 'Wait a minute. Now he's got
something.' "

David G. Anderson, an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee in
Knoxville quoted the well-known scientific dictum that "extraordinary claims
require extraordinary standards of evidence."

"Evidence of a human presence upwards of 40,000 years old in the New World
has been proposed by many previous investigators, and none of these early
claims survived careful professional examination," Anderson said. 

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