BIG BANG! = Did an Exploding Comet End Clovis?

[L. Coyote]

Might as well kick off the new group with a BIG BANG!
A question has to be, are we ready for the next one?

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Did an Exploding Comet End Clovis?
K. Kris Hirst, Wednesday May 30, 2007
http://archaeology.about.com/b/a/257974.htm

There was an interesting paper given at the American Geophysical Union meetings in Mexico last week that argued that there is evidence that a comet exploded over the Laurentide ice sheet in the central plains of Canada near the Great Lakes about 12,900 years ago. Apparently, there's no crater (Canada was covered by a glacier at the time and there may not have been an impact), but areas which have a thick carbon mat, the presence of an abundance of iridium, and glass-like carbon deposits have been found all over the North American continent.

Researchers argue that the theory explains why the Murray Springs site in Arizona has a thick carbon mat, a deposit similar in age and context to ones seen at other Paleoindian sites such as Lindenmeier (Colorado), Hell Gap (Wyoming), and Lange-Ferguson (South Dakota). The radiocarbon dates on the mat are uniformly about 10,800 +/- 200.

What the affect a near-impact of a comet might have had on the Clovis people living on the North American continent at the time could have included a wide dispersal of small bands of survivors, which certainly describes Clovis settlement patterns. Should be an interesting discussion around this issue.

* Catastrophic Comet Chilled and Killed Ice Age Beasts, Live Science - http://www.livescience.com/animals/070521_comet_climate.html
* Murray Springs, Arizona, a site description and sources - http://archaeology.about.com/cs/glossary/g/murraysprings.htm
* Clovis - http://archaeology.about.com/od/cterms/g/clovis.htm

[Tikki]

1. Why not....

I remember from my readings that Clovis and Clovis type tools were found consistently in Central America.

I believe the record of findings show that the Western Hemisphere mega-faunae last grand stand was
into Central and South America. Their move toward a more hospitable environment is probable.

An extraterrestrial event, such as heat and scattered debris could easily precipitate or advance the
end of their Northern consumptive environment.

As for the theory that radical geological tell markers have to be garish for an event to be believed....
....It's always found in the long story and lot's and lot's of details.

Could it happen again? Absolutely....It will be compelling to experience over time the geographical flow of
small and large, pervasive and occasional events caused by the trends defined by Global Warming.

As for the weather changes in our future, I read early on that the West Coast of the United States would
become the last bastion of relief from caustic weather changes that would span our Country.
Supposedly, some time ahead those to our East would flee to the Pacific Coast and we (So Cal folks) would have
people camping out in our yards. :shrug:

Thanks for the article....very interesting.

Tikki

[L. Coyote]

2. CLOVIS in Delaware: UD grad student’s discovery could help rewrite prehistory

Of course, one needs to distinguish the evidence from the purported inferences!
This will fuel speculations about trans-Atlantic migration, once again.

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UD grad student’s discovery could help rewrite prehistory
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/aug/lowery080807.html


When UD doctoral student Darrin Lowery was 6, he and his father began collecting arrowheads and spearheads that they found along the shoreline of Tilghman Island in the Chesapeake Bay. They may have turned up archeological evidence that the earliest Native Americans came from Europe, not Asia......

When UD doctoral student Darrin Lowery was 6, he and his father began collecting arrowheads and spearheads that they found along the shoreline of Tilghman Island in the Chesapeake Bay. “We found some interesting things, but we didn't know what they were,” Lowery said.

These artifacts remained interesting curiosities until the late 1970s when Lowery and his father were watching “The Search for the First American,” a television program about the first inhabitants of North America. During the broadcast, Dennis Stanford, chairperson of the National Museum of Natural History's anthropology department, showed a Clovis point, or fluted spearhead made of stone, used as a hunting tool at the end of the last ice age about 11,000 years ago and named after the first of its kind discovered in Clovis, N.M., in 1932. Clovis tools have rock spear points, are thin and bifacial and share "overshot" flaking characteristics that make wide, flat blades.

After watching the program, Lowery said he told his father he had Clovis points in his collection, but the senior Lowery was skeptical. “My father wondered why .....