Beyond bones & stones
Two new papers published in Nature, document the findings from the Chiquihuite Cave site in central Mexico. Artifacts from the site ere first discovered in 2010, but there were difficulties traveling to and from the site. For that reason, archaeologists lived for 80 days between '16 and '17. They excavated over 1,900 stone tools. The... Continue Reading →
We've had some ideas that prehistoric Polynesian expansions made contact with Native Americans before European contact. For example, the sweet potato, a staple of Polynesian diets for hundreds of years, made its way to Andean culture where it was domesticated. And we've identified that some current Rapa Nui people have Native American DNA dating back... Continue Reading →
Russian archaeologists in 1976 excavating the Ust’-Kyakhta-3 site on the banks of the Selenga River A. P. Okladnikov During the 1970's, a site called Ust-Kyakhta found between the Mongolian borders and the southern banks of the Lake Baikal, was excavated. The Russian team unearthed many stone and bone tools as well as ceramics, and reindeer... Continue Reading →
No one knows exactly the population of Native Americans when contact with Europeans occured. There are some estimates claiming there were 18 million in North America and upwards to 40 million in the combined continents. It’s estimated that the population in the Americas dropped by almost 90% within a few hundred years after the arrival of... Continue Reading →
Off the shore of Calvert Island in B.C., Duncan McLaren of the University of Victoria & Hakai Institute and team discovered 29 footprints about 60 ccm below the surface of the sand. They initially found the place in '14 and excavated it between '15 and '16. They published their findings several days ago in PLoS One.... Continue Reading →
At a site known today as the Upward Sun River, near the Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska, Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks unearthed the cremated remains of a 3-year-old child in 2010. About a meter deep, and three years later, two infants were found buried in a circular pit filled with grave goods... Continue Reading →
It is pretty well agreed that Homo sapiens spread out of Africa about 100,000 years ago and traveled across Asia about 60,000 years ago. 10,000 years later, they made it into Europe and Australia. They ultimately migrated down finally Pacific coast of both North and South America, and probably interior continental locations by 13,500 to 15,000 years... Continue Reading →
Excavations on Triquet Island, about 500 kilometres northwest of Victoria, Canada, have yield extremely rare artifacts, like an atlatl, compound fish hooks and a hand drill used for lighting fires, that are dated to be 13,613 to 14,086 years old. Alisha Gauvreau, a PhD student at the University of Victoria, as I understand, lead the... Continue Reading →
My first understanding of Cahokia and pre-Columbian cities of the Americas came from the book 1491. Between 1050 and 1200 A.D., Cahokia was North America's largest and most prominent cultural center north of Mexico. It wielded economic power and religious influence from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. A new paper published in... Continue Reading →
Two large Maya sites in the Yucatana have been (re) discovered by Ivan Šprajc from the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The sites in the northern part of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve which is are in the southeast part of Campeche, close to the towns of Xpujil and Zoh Laguna.... Continue Reading →
