Overview:

The Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference was held in Santa Fe,New Mexico last week. The conference was organized by the Center For Study of First Americans at Texas A&M University. This conference was the successor to the Clovis and Beyond Conference of 1999. The purpose of these conferences is for anthropologists, archeologists and geneticists to share the results of their research on when and where the first Americans came from. The presenters came from all over the world, Russia, Japan, Denmark, France, Brazil, Mexico, etc.. Over 1000 people attended.

One of the most interesting presentations was by Tom Dillehay of Monte Verde fame. The last few years he has been excavating Huaca Prieta, a human built mound on the north coast of Peru. Unifacial, edge trimmed pebble flake tools dating 12,300 rcybp have been found in the lowest levels.

Dillehay made some derogatory comments about Stuart Fidel's proposal that capuchin monkeys made the stone tools at Toca da Tiera Pela rockshelter in Brazil which brought chuckles from many. He also made a comment that he "hoped young archeologists now in their 30s and 40s will not have to endure the bullshit that his generation had endured to get old sites accepted". That comment drew a sustained round of applause from the audience.

Dillehay is now returning to Monte Verde 1 in Chile to resume excavating. That is where, years ago, he found a blood stained tool that dated to 33kya (though he did not mention that date). He did display slides of a couple of crude stone tools with dates of 23 - 26 kya.

(Edited - formatting - Hermione)

"The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil"

-- Sheikh Zaki Yamani



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2013 02:32PM by Hermione.