Hermione Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> IxChel Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Capuchin monkeys at 2740 masl during the Last
> > Glacial Maximum? You must be kidding. You have
> > probably confounded this report with Pierda
> Furada
> > (another contested Early American site in
> Brazil).
>
> Oh, dear - well, now you point out the
> unlikeliness, possibly I have!

Actually that was a pretty good rumor to start. I will very briefly review how the capucins were proven to have made
at least most the oldest tools at Pedra Furada (natural rockfall the rest) and then one can connect the similar traits
found at Chiquihuite Cave.
1. The dating done at Pedra Furada could not be falsified during the debates in the literature.
2. From ca 48000 years ago down to Clovis times the artifacts were made from local material found above the cave.
3. From 48000 to Clovis times the style did not change. After archaeological and biological evidence was found
throughout the Americas, only then did exotic materials sourced from other locations start and these tools were unequivocal.
4. Yet poorly made local quartzite tools continued to be made until the capuchins were finally caught on camera making
similar tools as those tools that were found at 48000 years ago. Also, just how they were doing it was also realized,
hammer and anvil...just like they do when breaking a nut.
5. Nowhere in the Old or New world have modern humans stuck with a low-grade knapping material for 30000 some odd years
without change unless they were forced to, and Brazil is arguably the finest source of variable knapping material on the
planet. It's one giant rock shop and after biological evidence turned up the people of Brazil used the good stuff while
capuchins stuck with the crud.

The similarities with CC?
1. Good dating.
2. Both PF and CC used poor lithic material in spite of the availability of better (and prettier) material in both Brazil and Mexico.
Modern humans will go a long ways for good rock, capuchins won't.
3. "Michael R. Waters, a geoarchaeologist at Texas A&M University noted the absence of genetic evidence in modern populations
to support Guidon's claim.[6]" and same for CC:
"Geneticists led by Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen searched for ancient human DNA in the cave dirt,
but with no luck. “Of course, I was disappointed,” says Ardelean." (my note: I suppose Niede Guidon was disappointed at PF too!)
4. Both Pedra Furada and Chiquihuite Cave have abnormally long sequences without change, not very human like...but very capuchin like.

> I did wonder whether Capuchin monkeys
> existed in their present form in the remote past.
>
> Evidently, they didn't.

Modern capuchins live up to 2000 meters, extinct woolly capuchins to 3000 masl. You have never heard of woolly capuchins? That's
because I just made them up...just like the authors of the Nature paper did to account for their invisible humans they have no biological
evidence for:
"Ardelean says there is a simple reason why genetic studies4 suggest that humans spread across the Americas only relatively recently: early groups
such as the one he thinks was present at Chiquihuite Cave didn’t survive to contribute to modern gene pools. “I definitely advocate for the
idea of lost groups,” he says."

"he thinks" is not evidence. Not only doesn't he have a trace of biological evidence any where in the New World to think about for his early
time line, he doesn't have a trace of human-made stone tools to think about either.

References
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.nature.com]
[www.sciencedirect.com]
Assessing the proposed pre-Last Glacial Maximum human occupation of North America at Coats-Hines-Litchy, Tennessee, and other sites
JW Tune, MR Waters, KA Schmalle, LRG DeSantis, GD Kamenov
Quaternary Science Reviews 186, 47-59