Science Daily: Stone Tools, Rare Animal Bones: Clues To Caribbean's Earliest Inhabitants Discovered.
ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — A prehistoric water-filled cave in the Dominican Republic has become a "treasure trove" with the announcement by Indiana University archaeologists of the discovery of stone tools, a small primate skull in remarkable condition, and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of sloths.
The discoveries extend by thousands of years the scope of investigations led Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs at IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and his interdisciplinary team of collaborators. The researchers' focus has been on the era a mere 500 years ago when the Old World and New World first met after Christopher Columbus stepped ashore in the Caribbean -- and on scintillating pirate lore. This rare find is expected to give insights into the earliest inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the animals they encountered.
"To be honest, I couldn't believe my eyes as I viewed each of these astonishing discoveries underwater," Beeker said. "The virtually intact extinct faunal skeletons really amazed me, but what may prove to be a fire pit from the first human occupation of the island just seems too good to be true. But now that the lithics (stone tools) are authenticated, I can't wait to direct another underwater expedition into what may prove to become one of the most important prehistoric sites in all the Caribbean."
Beeker and researchers Jessica Keller and Harley McDonald found the tools and bones in fresh water 28- to 34-feet deep in a cave called Padre Nuestro. Nearby, and also underwater in the same cave, were found more recent Taino artifacts. The Taino were the first Native American peoples to encounter Europeans. Beeker and his colleagues have been diving in this particular cave, which sits beneath a limestone bluff and is only accessible after submerging into a small pool, since 1996 as they studied its use as a Taino water-gathering site.
Geoffrey Conrad, director of the Mathers Museum of World Culture at IU Bloomington and professor of anthropology, said the tools are estimated to be 4,000 to 6,500 years old. The bones might range in age from 4,000 and 10,000 years old. While sloth bones are not uncommon, he knows of only a handful of other primate skulls found in the Caribbean.
"I know of no place that has sloths, primates and humanly made stone tools together in a nice, tight association around the same time," said Conrad, also associate vice provost for research at IU Bloomington. "Right now it looks like a potential treasure trove of data to help us sort out the relationship in time between humans and extinct animals in the Greater Antilles. This site definitely is worthy of a large-scale investigation."
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6 comments:
I like how you spin that. "Atlantean" sloths. Not North American... This is a reference to your Antarctica was once on the equator delusion, right?
When you title stuff like that, do you think the original authors would agree? You can't even imagine that they would enjoy their work being cited as "evidence" of your bizarre notions.
I've encountered this tactic before, though it was, I admit, far more blatant.
BTW Champions Online: I'm in the Beta. Look for me as "Bob Violence", if you happen to get in as well or once it launches.
They have a zone called Lemuria... which you may be able to reality check for them. They have sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads in that zone.
Jeffery Keown,
"This is a reference to your Antarctica was once on the equator delusion, right?"
Antarctica was never on the equator.
"When you title stuff like that, do you think the original authors would agree? You can't even imagine that they would enjoy their work being cited as 'evidence' of your bizarre notions."
You've never read Plato or the Timaeus so I find this comment highly ironic.
"For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia." -- Sonchis of Sais, priest, ~594 B.C.
And you allow no thought of the possibility that Timeaus is fiction to cross your mind?
Jeffery,
"And you allow no thought of the possibility that Timeaus is fiction to cross your mind?"
It crossed my mind when I was in college and brainwashed like you. Then I actually reread it and paid attention and now I believe only a teenager with no reading comprehension (like I was) or an absolute moron thinks the Timaeus is a myth.
If you'd ever read the Timaeus or Plato you would know that that puerile question is refuted in the text itself.
"Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals." -- Sonchis of Sais, priest, ~594 B.C.
Furthermore,
Crantor, Poseidonius, and Proclus all had the same question. They concluded that only an ignoramous with no historical or archaeological knowledge of Egypt and world history would claim that Atlantis is a myth.
"Crantor came to Sais and saw there in the temple of Neith the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis." -- Otto Muck, philosopher, 1978
"Crantor ... even, it seems, went to the length of sending a special enquiry to Egypt to verify the sources of the story, and the priests replied that the records of it were still extant 'on pillars.'" -- J.V. Luce, archaeologist, 1969
"The priests of Sais, for example, told Solon, about 550 BC, that since Egypt was not subject to massive floods they had preserved, not only their own records, but those of other people; that the towns of Athens and Sais had been built by Minerva [Venus]; the former nine thousand years ago, the second only eight thousand; and to these dates they added the well known fable of the people of the island of Atlas...." -- Georges Cuvier, naturalist, 1825
"As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. ... He [Crantor] adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars are written on pillars which are still preserved." -- Proklos, philosopher, 5th century
"On the other hand, he [Poseidonius] correctly sets down in his work [Histories] the fact that the earth sometimes rises and undergoes settling processes, and undergoes changes that result from earthquakes and the other similar agencies, all of which I too have enumerated above. And on this point he does well to cite the statement of Plato that it is possible that the story about the island of Atlantis is not a fiction. Concerning Atlantis Plato relates that Solon, after having made inquiry of the Egyptian priests, reported that Atlantis did once exist, but disappeared — an island no smaller in size than a continent [Antarctica]; and Poseidonius thinks that it is better to put the matter in that way than to say of Atlantis: 'Its inventor caused it to disappear, just as did the Poet the wall of the Achaeans.' And Poseidonius also conjectures that migration of the Cimbrians and their kinsfolk from their native country occurred as the result of an inundation of the sea that came on all of a sudden. And he suspects that the length of the inhabited world, being about seventy thousand stadia, is half of the entire circle on which it has been taken, so that, says he, if you sail from the west in a straight course you will reach India within the seventy thousand stadia. " -- Strabo, geographer, 7
Sloths in the Atlantic Ocean (Carribean) making stone tools 10,000 years ago?
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