Cc Sangamonian America

7/30/2019 Cc Sangamonian America

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Migration & Diffusion, VoL 6, Issue Number 23,2005

SANGAMONIAN AMERICA

by

Prof. Cyclone Covey

Summary

The world's leading diatomist Sam Leighton Van Landingham culminatively corroboratesthe archaeological site Hueyatlaco at the Valsequillo Reservoir just south of Puebla, Mexicoas Middle Pleistocene, identifying nu merous artifact-associated diatom species that grewextinct before the last glacier. Hueyatlaco corresponds to Middle Pleistocene sites in Europeexcept possibly older because its extinct animal bones include rhynchotheres (ancestralelephants) believed to have died out before tbe Pleistocene but obviously lived longer in theNew World from South America to Califo roia. Van Landingham verifies comparableradiometric dates, geological stratum, and diatomaceous Homo erectus skullcap, as alsoHomo erectus stone tools found in western American deserts (prairies in the Pleistocene)Wyoming to Cbile).

THE 20th CENTURY left manyintimations of people in the Americasbefore continent-wide spread of Clovispoints which were Magdalenian.Prejudgment and limited imaginationblocked acknowledging continuity ofNew World cultures with Old earlier thanClovis and then inunensely earlier.The irreproachable archaeologist RuthDeEtte Simpson ("Dee") announced 1962in Mexico City having since 1955 foundLower Paleolithic art ifacts vastly(scrapers, choppers, handaxes) in desertsfrom Baja California to Wyoming to theRockies, Sonora, and Atacama Desert ofnorth-coastal Chile- all prairie in the

Pleistocene. Colleagues who neverdoubted Dee's veracity could not believeher artifacts man-made. At Tule Springsin Vegas Wash (13 miles NE of Las Vegas),in addition to chipped bone and stonetools associated with split-&-bumtextinct-animal remains on oak-&-juniperash hearths she found (1961) a scraperwith-charcoal in a side canyon thatcarbon-dated 26,050-31,000 B.C.-beyond not only Clovis but priorSolutrean-and already had reported 70+sites in Black's Forest Locality of SWWyoming bearing much earlierdiagnostic tools classifiable Pre-Chellean,Chellean, and Mousterian ["An Introductiou 10Ea rly Western American History," Southern Calif Acad.Sciences Bulletin LY /2 (1956), 65-66] .

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She excavated what proved aworkshop/living area in the MojaveDesert 412 miles NE of Yermo, Calif.whose tools were Oldowan-type, as LouisLeakey recognized 1963 from hercollection of 11,000+ which uraniumdated over 200,000 years identical toHomo erectus artifacts he and his familyhad dug from Olduvai Gorge. He locatedthe main site a few miles farther up inCalico foothills above Manix Lake whoseconfrrming excavation began 1964 [Leakey,Simpson, & Thomas Clements, "Archaeological Excavation inthe Calico Mts., CaJif: Preliminary Report," SeieneeCLXl3831 (31May 1968), 1022]. Anthropologistsof the time generally could not accept thisheresy, but everything unearthed wasconsistent with itself, Lower PaleolithicAfricaiEurope, and astounding uraniumdates.Candid George Carter excavated metates,scrapers, handaxes, and choppers of thesame style along with thousands ofhearths 1947 and summers to 1976 atTexas Street, San Diego dating on theorder of 80,000-130,000 years. TexasStreet has been landscapedunrecognizably, but Herb Marshall'sexcavation ofthe C.H. Brown site 3 mileswest, found it duplicated Texas St.stratigraphy [Carter, Pleisloeene Man al San Diego(lohns Hopkins U. 1957); eie.].

A skull that Malcolm J. Rogers excavated1929 from a cliff on the north side of SanDieguito mouth near DeI Mar racetrackwhich Jeffrey Bada 1974 dated 48,000years by pro tein racemization, and onethat washed out of Lake Utah sedimentsin the 1930s which Paleontologist GeorgeHansen measured, were both Neanderthai[Carter, Laler than You Think (Texas A&M U. 1980), 56-58,293-94]. Alan L. Bryan reported a moreprimitive skull discovered in Brazil [ed.,Early Man in Americaji-om a Cireum-Paeifie Perspeelive,

Occasional Papers # I (U. Alberta Dept. AnthropoJogy 1978);cited in ibid. 291].ANCIENT BOULDER-PILED carrnburials strew the Southern & SECalifornia desert. James L. Bischoff ofthe U.S. Gelogical Survey with 2 othergeologists, W. Morlin Childers & Roy J.Schlemon, determined from depth andsoil pluviality, etc. that a Yuha- Desertcairn burial near the Mexican border westof EI Centro fell in the last glaciaVpluvialc.16,150-20,050 B.e. (Iargely Solutrean)["Comments on the P!esitocene Age Assignment of a HumanBurial from the Yuha Desert, Calif..: A Rebuttal," AmerieanAntiquily XLlII/4 (Ocl. 1978),747).CONTINENT -ROAMING Clovisspearmen concentrated more alongeastern and Ohio & Tennessee Valleyrivers than in New Mexico where frrstidentified, thus likelier reached Americavia the Atlantic than the Bering landbridge, especially considering Siberianabsence of Franco-Spanish-type flutedflakes. Siberia also had no prior Sandiapoints identical to those of SolutreanEurope at the height ofthe last glacier.Frank Cummings Hibben of U. NewMexico Museum first identified Sandiapoints in the bedrock stratum of SandiaCave northeast of Albuquerque 1936-37associated with extinct mammoth,mastodon, excelsius horse, antiquusbison, and camel [Hibben, "Association of Man withPleistocene Mammals in the Sandia Mts., N.M.," AmericanAnliquity 11/4 (April 1937) 120-63; & Evidenees oI EarlyOeeupalion in Sandia Cave, NM , and Olher Siles in IheSandia-Manzano Region, Smilhsonian Miseellaneol/sColleelions XC1X123 (1941). In conventionalpresupposition, Hibben could notconceive transatlantic transmission butcame to recognize "alarmingly wide"distribution-to SE New Mexico andadjacent West Texas counties, centralOklahoma, West & South Missouri,South Iowa, and extreme East Co lo rado,

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Migra tion & Dij fuJion, V oL6, lJJueNumber 23, 2005

\ le\\ of lilh!'}M!OCO from the r t h \ \ ~ ' \ 1 u u r i n ~ cXt"ilvtH ion in 1 9 1 ~ . A lrt: ul.!h hn'!o. CUL l tuoulffi;J con'ronojup. l e d ~ c ul \ l jkan i t: ., lI (L;Cnlc1 ill'l'lmalh ca llerl lllc Hm:Y:.llhJCll


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Migration & DiffitJion, VoL 6, IJJue Number 23, 2005

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(Enh'1'llving conlinued around Qn other slde.) Armmla.I02

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the Pedcmal pO IOt eXTr.lcteJfrom lhe mammoth ramus ,Ifronl. bad . "de " . 31

low-pnwer microscopic detail , 107

.\ttcT t nllgi".t dp !.ahnr J-1rmu11In IIU(Tf()\' 1ft) Anim.nJ!J {-'almt)'; Vff/Jt':I111 illo. {',wh/n. A ( ~ r i N J (PUCh1::LPuch la:f'ubl,oa,oncs Je l ("on


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Migration & Diffosion, Vol. 6, ]sJUe N umber 23, 2005

ncestral walrus bearing an embeddedSolutrean point was dredged not from thearctic Pacific but near Chesapeake Bay[Jim Leslie, "The Peopling of the Americas," Midwe SlernEpigraphic Newsletter XXlI/ l (8 April 2005), 6) .

In the ratcheting ofconsciousness/ingenuity from crowdedretreat of iced North Europe's populationto South France and Iberian coasts musthave impe11ed glacier-edge coasting inwicker-frame skin-boats to America,striking New Jersey. Inland on CrossCreek which flows west 71h miles into theOhio River, 29 miles SW of the site ofPittsburgh, 51.57 miles below theWisconsin Glacier edge, MeadowcroftRockshelter awaited. MercyhurstProfessor James M. Adovasio withdistinguished team have excavated since1975. Fire pits, fITe floors, ash &charcoal lenses, refuse storage pits,concentrations of stone & bonemanufacturing (unfluted points, knives,scrapers, bones from meals, and edible plantremains, hackberry seeds above all) attestintermittent human habitat ion begirmingin the next-to-lowest Stratum H. Cutbark basketry from lower Ha carbondated 17 ,650 2400 B.C. by Smithsoniandiagnosis; which could fall too late, sinceDicarb Radioisotope, Gainesvi11e, Floridaby a different process computed 19,430800 & 19,120 47 5 on charcoal samplesirnmediately beneath the basket. The bestplace to tackle this site's extensiveliterature would be Adavosio, Jack Donahue,Kathleen A. Cushman , Ronald C. Carlisle, R.Stuckenrath, ID . Gunn, & William C. Johnson,"Evidence for Meadowcroft Rocksheiter," chap.13, Early Man in the New World, ed. Richard S.Shutler, Jr. (Sage 1989), 163-89.AMERICAN SITES OLDER THANCLOVIS include lake-country-bog MonteVerde west of Puerto de Montt, extreme

south-central Chile, where 1988 TomDi11ehay reported charcoal 42,000 yearsold associated with butchered mastodonbones and 11 stone tools. Observingantln'opologists at last 1997 accepted his11,500-B.C. carbon date for a lalermastodon-butchering encampmentnearby, most convinced by a chi ld' sfootprint, but could not countenanceempirical evidence for the older camp.Late as 1997 they were just begirming torealize that New World pioneers couldnot have come exclusively across theBering Strait or so come fIrst , but couldnot yet entertain Atlantic ingress at all.By spring. 1986 the great Sao PaoloMuseum archaeologist Niede Guidonreached a level at Pedra Furada whosehearth charcoal carbon-dated 30,2 10 B.C.[Guidon & G. Delibries, Nalure (10 June 1986), 767-71 }which scientists reluctantly accepted. Butshe kept descending in a consistentsequence to 48,050 B.C at bedrock-tooearly for their premises. She had begunexcavating Pedra Furada (Pe rforated Rock) asher Site #1 1978, among 275 rockshelterslining Rio Piauf in NE Brazil, remarkablyduplicating France's Black Perigord withsame type hearths and stone tools, evenpolychrome murals in Aurignacian-toAzilian styles, most corresponding toSpanish Levantine Meso lithic 10,0004,000 B.C. (which Guidon named SerraTalhada). Evolving in apparent tandemwith SW Europe suggests two-way trafficand a branch of the Gulf Stream, in anyevent, seems a more plausible passage toNE Brazil than hiking from AlaskaPeninsula. Suppose such hikers got as faras Panama. Even today you carmot hikefrom Panama to Piaui Province.Habitation on the Piaui incurred ami11ermium interruption but revived t111

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Migration & DiffilJion, Vo/. 6, IJJue Number 23,2005

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Migration & Dtffosion, V oL 6, Issue Number 23, 2005

PLATE9 Extinct (figure 1-23) and extant (figure 24) diatoms from samples listed in table 3. Magnifications: short black bar = 10pm, applies to 1-2 and 7-24, xlOOO; lang black bare: IOJ.UIl, applies to 3-6, xl500. . I (from VanLandingham 1990) and 23, 66M285; 2, 13, and 18, 66M288;3-6, 66M239; 20 and 24, VL212O; 7, 66MI91; 8, VL2158;

9, II and 22, VL2121; 1O,66M287; 12, 14, 17, .and 19, 66M286; 15 and 16, VL2173; and, 21, 66M228.1-2 Stephanodiscwexcentricus;

3 Achnanlhes laJerostrata v. capitalll, mphe valve;4 A. laJerostraJa v. capitata, mpbeless valve;5 A. nikiskii Stone, raphe valve;6 A. nihslcii, mpbeless valve;7 Cocconeis gravei;8 Cymbella sturii;9 C. cymbiformis v. dorsepunctaJa Rehllkov;i;

10 C. hagerrntJMIISisLobman;II C. neupalU!rii Pantocsek.; 12 C. fonticokl f. ossilis Manguin; 13 Fragilaria leptostal.lron v. obesa Lobman;

desiccation-forced abandonrnent c.4,OOOB.C. Forested mountain and verdantprairie turned total desert by c. 1050.FANTAS ICALLY EARL Y as suchsites flourished, they had remotely earlierpredecessors-before the last glacierduring the Sandamonian interstadial(between glaciers) c. 80,000-220,000 B.C.The crucial site is Hueyatlaco (Hwaya-tlaco) on the north shore of ValsequilloReservoir just SSE of Puebla, Mexico.In extinct fauna, projectile points,controlIed [rre, unifaciallbifacial stoneimplements, and skulls, Hueyatlacoresembled Homo erectus/neanderthaloidMiddle Pleistocene Verteszlls(Hungary), Bilzingsleben (G ermany),Swanscombe (Eng land), and L' Arago

14 Navicuw elginensis v. campylonema McLaugblin;15 Neidium distinctepunctatwn v. major Sreenivasa;16 Navicuia intermixta v. parva Stone;17 N. karelica v. minor Clevc>Euler;18 N. oberohen.sis Hustedt;19 Nitzschia angwtata v. minuta Krasske;:xl Pinnularia acrosphturia v. balhana Henbaud;21 P. brebissonii v. intermedfu M. Pemgallo;Z1. Navicukl bronislQ(Ul;23 Tetracyclus ellipticus v. lancea f. subrostrara,Hustedt, interealary band;1A Fragilariajloridiana Hanna

(French Pyrenees), none of which knewrhynchotheres (Rhnchotherium) as SandiaCave did not but Hueyatlaco familiarly,depicted in engraving there and bo nesfound at several Rio Valsequillolocalities, identification conclus ive frommolars (chief diagnostic of Proboscidae).Indigenous to Oligocene North A ~this ancestor of true elephantsdistinctively grew double tusks from bothjaws; pig-toothed and longer-bodied thanlater elephants, presumably extinct beforethe Pleistocene. Had specimens swumfrom Morocco to Central America? Theirdistribution point in the New Worldappears to have been early-Iate MioceneHonduras, where dated 1984 8.8 mi llionyears aga [S.D. Webb & s.c. Perrigo , "Late CenozoicVertebrates fro m Hon duras & EI Salvador," Journal ofVertebrale Paleontology IV 1998), 237-54]. Theyspread into South America and northward

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Migration & Diffusion, VoL 6, Isslle N umb er 23, 2005

to Florida, Gulf coast, Deer Park on theSanta Fe River (New Mexico), GrahamRes rvoir (Arizona), Califomia to thecoast, and Great Plains.Puebla Naturalist Juan Armenta Comachodiscovered a rain-Iandslide-exposedmarnmoth femur embedded inValsequillo Gravels of a mountain bankin Aiseseca Arroyo c.2 rniles SE ofPuebla June 1933. In the next 30 yearshe located partial skeletons of 93marnmoths and 26 mastodons, plus bonesof extinct camel, bison, horse, 4-homantelope, peccary, sloth, megatheres (verylong slothlike mammals normally ranging inSouth Arnerica), glyptogon (giantarmadiJlo) , short-faced bear, dire wolf,saber-tooth cat, other felines, canids,tirsids (beaTs), various deer-like andweasel-like animals, rodents, et al. , manyof their bones sharpened as tools orbroken for marrow, 6 engraved.Of these 6, the prize ftrst, which Armentafound 2 May 1959 in Valsequillo Grave lsofthe lower-rniddle Tetela Peninsula wasa 2.4"-thick,. 6" high, 7.6" base mastodonpelvic bone engraved while the bone wasstill fresh with crisscross lines as inMagdalenian style which Armentamicroscopically traced, showing a serpenthead, hunt ing scenery, and large sabertooth cat leaping upon or over a multiplydrawn rhynchothere.

We had not thought any art antedatedAurignacian or specifically crisscrossengraving before Magdalenian. If suchexisted on pre-Aurignacian bones itwould probably have gone unnoticed, asLinear A & B tablets were be foredetected purposely. The c.12,000 LaMarche (Vienne) engravings lay stacked

un-overlookably. Hueyatlaco engravingsdo raise a question ofdating.The great geologist/tephro-chronologist(vo1canic ash specialist) Virginia SteenMcIntyre, who joined the excavation1966, discemed indefmitely older age ofa formation underlying a later beneathsediment and vo1canic ash & purnice asdeep as 30' but was as shocked aseverybody at, besides already startlinglyhigh carbon-14 dates, uranium-thoriumseries dating of a butchered camel pelvisfragment 178,050 & 243,050 40,000B.C. and butchered mastodon tooth152,050 & 278,050, run by U.S.Geological Survey geochernist BameySzabo 1973. Another USGS geochemist,Chuck Naeser, me asured associated mud&-purnice by fission-track of zirconphenocrysts from coarse elasts 1981yielding 370,050 200,000 forHueyatlaco ash and 600,000 340,000B.C. for Tetela mud-pumice [Annenta. Vesligiosde Labor Hwnana de Anima/es Es/infos de Va/sequillo(Puebla 1978) & Steen-McIntyre's 1996-97 translation; RoaldFryxell, Harold Malde, & Steen-Melntyre, "GeologieEvidenee tor Age of Deposits at Hueyatlaeo ArchaeologicalSite, Vaisequillo Mexico," Qualernmy Research XV1/l(1981),1-17; eie., eie. ].CLINCHINGL Y CORROBORATINGpreglacial dates, the world' s veteranleading diatomist, Sam LeightonVanlandingham in a remarkable series ofmonographs 1999-2004 ascertained fromdiatomite associated with artifacts in acomplex sequence of vo1canic, volcanosedimentary, lacustrine, and fluvatiledeposits, plus a skullcap, fossil diatomsfrom two major groups, Phylum Protista& Division Bacillariophyta that fellwithin the Sangamonian Interglacial. His2004 culrninating monograph specificallyidentified Navicula bronislaae & Ndorenbergi known only from theSangamonian or its equivalents, together

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with 13 diatoms extinct before the end ofSangamonian; while Cymbella cistulavar. gib bosa (e. gibbosa) fu st oeeurred inSagamonian and survived it, butEpithemia zebra var. Undulata &Navicula creguti, known only inSangamonian, reinforee an age no olderthan Sangamonian [Sangamonian Interglacial(Middle Ple istocene) Environments of Depos iti on of Art i factsal the Va lsequill o Archeological Site , Puebla, Mexico,"Transactiol1s of the 13th Regional Archeological Symposiumfor Southern New Mexico & Western Texas 9-11 April 1999(Midland Archeological Society 20000), 8l-98; twosucceeding supplemental monographs; & "Corroboration ofSangamonian age of artifacts from the Val sequillo region,Puebla, Mexico by means of diatom biostratigraphy,"Micropaleontology L/4 (2004 ), 313-42).

Diatoms are hardshelled one-eall algae ofvarious but usually elongated shapes. Forhis microscopic work V mlLandinghamutilized computer retrievaI CEFDARS(continuous extinct fossil diatom age referencesystem) and CAESARS (continuous algalecological spectral analysis reference system).The Dorenberg Skull, collected south ofPuebla 1899, destroyed in World War IIbombing whiJe disp layed in Leipzig,proved filled with fossi l Middle

Pleistoeene diatoms, whiehVanLandingham examined in a SanFraneiseo lab. A seeond skull (partialcalotte), anonymously looted from theHueyatlaeo vieinity c.1970, eame into thepossession of Prof. Charles Ostrander atMereed College, who 6 Feb. ]971 sentVirginia Steen-McIntyre a photo showingthiek-walled, heavy -browridged low,small brain ease. ( Ihe college rel inqu ishedthis fossil from storage for tribai reburial)[Stcen-Mclntyre, "Approximate Dating ofTephra" (July 2002for Aug. prescntation Mexico City), 9- l0 ; & her news reponWinter-Spring 200 I, both with photo).

AUTHENTIC SCIENTISTS of manydiseiplines eoneurred seientifieally inSangamoruan age for Hueyatlaeo, in turnlending credence to Middle Pleistoeeneor earlier age for pre-Clovis and preSolutrean relies strewn on western eoastsand deserts. But we have seen sinceCopemicus, science encroachesconvention often only graduaIly.

Co rre spondence address:Prof. Cyclone Covey

4071 Tangle Ln.Winston-Salem, Ne 27106-2931

USA

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