The Cerutti Site

[uniface]

and a nice overview history of the collective mental illness that still paralyses archaeology in north America (and, as emotion replaces reason, everything else). It's a good way to get up to speed on the issue if you're not familiar with it.

ALTHOUGH HE HIMSELF IS NOT an archaeologist, Tom Deméré, curator of paleontology at the San Diego Natural History Museum in California, does have occasion to work with archaeologists. I was therefore not surprised when his response to my request to interview him and have him show me certain stones and bones in the museum’s archives was declined. My initial approach was on September 18, 2017, and the polite refusal came on September 20, not from Dr. Deméré himself but from Rebecca Handelsman, the museum’s communications director. “While we’re unable to accommodate your request for a meeting,” she wrote . . .

Deméré had been closely involved from the outset with the excavation of a controversial site near San Diego and had published a paper in 2017 claiming that humans had been present there as early as 130,000 years ago. The paper was a prominent one, since it appeared in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, and almost immediately aroused the fury of archaeologists committed to a much later date for the peopling of the Americas.

. . . Indeed by 2012 the bullying behavior of the Clovis First lobby had grown so unpleasant that it attracted the attention of the editor of Nature, who opined: “The debate over the first Americans has been one of the most acrimonious—and unfruitful—in all of science. … One researcher, new to the field after years of working on other contentious topics, told Nature that he had never before witnessed the level of aggression that swirled around the issue of who reached America first.”

. . . Haynes and Adovasio had crossed swords before—over Meadowcroft, a site in Pennsylvania that Adovasio had excavated in the 1970s that revealed eleven well-defined stratigraphic units with evidence of human occupation “spanning at least 16,000 years and perhaps 19,000 years.” Inevitably, because it threatened Clovis First, this attracted the hostility of Haynes, who, in the years that followed, sought to quibble away almost every aspect of Adovasio’s evidence: “In scientific paper after scientific paper, Haynes … asked for yet another date, yet another study, raising yet other picayune and fanciful questions about Meadowcroft, most of which had been answered long before he asked them—not just in the original excavation procedures but in report after report.”

. . . Likewise, in the 1990s, Canadian archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars excavated Bluefish Caves in the Yukon and found evidence of human activity there dating back more than 24,000 years—older than Meadowcroft and much older than Clovis. The price he paid was high. His competence and his sanity were questioned and when he attempted to present his findings at conferences he was ignored or insulted.

As a result of such attitudes, funding drained away and Cinq-Mars had to stop his work, only to be proved correct, many years later, by a new scientific study of the evidence from the caves published in January 2017.

Only 4 months later, on April 27, 2017, Tom Deméré’s paper announcing the discovery of “a 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA,” appeared in Nature . . .

https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/part-2-america-before-key-to-earths.html

 

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[southfork]

It seems after reading this its about who can write the most convincing paper . Then get all their cronies to go along with their findings or B S . What's been covered up and paved over in California ? Here's another long paper trail with limited results or finds but there's been thousands of complete artifacts found nearby that they don't even mention . https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23566

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

For what’s its worth, I’ve read history passed down from NA historian to historian states that there were people already here when the nomadic tribes migrated south. They were WHITE according to their stories.

Folklore or history...or a mix of truth...who knows.

 

[Charl]

 

[Jeff H]

That was very interesting Charl. I enjoyed watching that. As had been said before that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. For a lot of folks, that means the presence of obviously identifiable worked stones is required.

 

[Fred250]

The link mentioned in the vid with 3D renderings of some bone and rock fragments

https://umorf.ummp.lsa.umich.edu/wp/cerutti/

 

[uniface]

extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

Objection, Your Honor.

The word "extraordinary" references current beliefs, which experience shows are often mistaken.

The same objection was probably raised against the notion that stones could fall from the sky, because everyone "knew" that there couldn't be any up there. If there had been any, they would have fallen already. One can only imagine the ferocity with which anyone lucky enough to witness one was "debunked" by the defenders of the mental picture of the universe that everyone "knew" was "true."

Fortunately, this was before the current day, when would-be last word pronouncers insist that only controlled, double-blind experiments performed by many people in many places are the touchstone of "reality" testing. If they had been around then, and prevailed, we still wouldn't acknowledge that meteorites exist.

For a lot of folks, that means the presence of obviously identifiable worked stones is required.

Note here, if you will, that the same pattern shows itself here : the insistence that reality must submit to rules concocted by people blissfully unaware that their schematic diagram is grossly defective. In this case, that worked stone must have been used by people who found -- as already demonstrated -- that bone and ivory were easier to work and just as effective.

Not to mention that the very worked stone they try to insist must be present (heavy cobble disarticulators/choppers) are dismissed out of hand as not "tools" at all.

People are idiots.

 

[Charl]

I was fortunate to hear two of the principals deliver a talk here in R.I., at a NEARA meeting, a few years back. I found their arguments compelling. I got in touch with one of the principals a couple of years ago, after the claim was published that argued the bones had been broken by heavy machinery being driven over their burial site. I observed that that would mean they were broken when already fossilized, and that if broken when still fresh, the breakage pattern might be entirely different. In fact, this turned out to be true. The pattern of breakage of fresh bone is not the same as the pattern of breakage with fossilized bone. So, I feel “the heavy equipment broke the bones in recent times” has been disproven, since the breakage pattern is what would be expected with fresh, not fossilized, bone. IMHO.

 

[Jeff H]

Not to mention that the very worked stone they try to insist must be present (heavy cobble disarticulators/choppers) are dismissed out of hand as not "tools" at all.

People are idiots.

Uniface I like to think people are ignorant rather than idiots.

 

[Therring]

De Cerutti Mastodon-site is een paleontologische en denkbare archeologische vindplaats in San Diego County, Californië. Ik heb aan deze site gewerkt om de voor een goede SEO te controleren. Dus ik zag deze site en het was een geweldige site.

 

[joshuaream]

Not often we get Dutch spam.

Don't click the link.

 

[uniface]

I like to think people are ignorant rather than idiots.

When someone wants to argue that what's in front of his face isn't really in front of his face, you're dealing with a clear intention to remain ignorant.

And if that isn't an example of being an idiot, then what is ?

 

[Tnmountains]

I think in archeology one must keep an open mind and sometimes things are not always as they seem or what we thought. Things have changed a lot in the last 30 years. It is fun to think back at some of things we were taught and what we know now. Good article Uni.

 

[Jeff H]

When someone wants to argue that what's in front of his face isn't really in front of his face, you're dealing with a clear intention to remain ignorant.

And if that isn't an example of being an idiot, then what is ?

I would agree Uniface. If a person takes pride in being ignorant....they are an idiot.

 

[uniface]

Glad we're on the same page !

 

[Charl]

The archaeology focused on American prehistory is a blood sport. That much has long been obvious. BTW, Richard Cerutti passed away in Nov., 2019.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-cerutti-mastodon-20171222-htmlstory.html

I just read the paper that claimed modern machinery driving over the site broke the bones. Not directly, but by forcing buried boulders to impact the bone. Then, I read what follows. One would think a person would actually inspect the bones, but apparently the author of the machinery argument could not have done so.

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...i-Mastodon-Site.pdf?origin=publication_detail

ABSTRACT
My examination of the broken bone fragments in the Cerutti Mastodon Site collection indicates that the hypothesis of breakage by modern heavy machinery is invalid, as a thick precipitate of soil carbonate on the broken surfaces proves that the breakage was indeed very ancient. The site remains an anomaly in present modeling of the initial peopling of the Americas.

While in San Diego to attend the annual conference of the Society for California Archaeology in early March 2018, I had the opportunity to review a special exhibit on the Cerutti Mastodon Site at the San Diego Museum of Natural History together with resident paleontologists Richard Cerutti and Tom Deméré. The exhibit is fea- tured on the Museum’s website at www.sdnhm.org, with a video of the excavations in progress, and a detailed FAQ section reviewing the pros and cons in consider- ation of the evidence for human activity at the site.


Other than authors of the report in Nature (Holen et al. 2017), I may be the only professional archaeologist to have visited the Museum and actually looked at the site material; I understand that as yet none of the site’s critics have done so. They would see at once that the soil carbonate precipitate encrusting the broken surfaces of the bones renders the attribution of breakage to over- riding modern heavy machinery invalid in this case.

This particular feature of the broken mastodon bones, although clearly described in Holen et al. (2017) and mentioned again in Holen et al. (2018a, 2018b), has not been addressed by the critics who refer only to other broken proboscidean bone sites in different sedi- mentary contexts and historic circumstances (Braje et al. 2017; Haynes 2017; Ferraro et al. 2018). The hypothesis of breakage of the bones by modern machin- ery is demonstrably unfounded – the breakage is indeed very old – and the discussion should move on to focus upon pertinent questions relating to this site, concerning explanations for the observed disposition of the bone fragments and associated lithics, the stratigraphic con- text of the site, and the dating.


It is of course the dating of this site at ca. 130,000 years ago that has shocked everyone, even those archaeologists (myself included) who recognize evidence and arguments
for a pre-LGM initial entry, considering the radiometric dates back to ca. 30,000 years ago at sites in far distant northeast Brazil (e.g., Boëda et al. 2016), the Argentine Pampas (Toledo 2017), and Monte Verde I in south-cen- tral Chile (Dillehay and Collins 1988). It is no wonder that critics of the Cerutti Mastodon Site have been so numer- ous and so negative. Further research on the pertinent issues raised is essential, and I was happy to hear that additional excavations at the site are planned for later this year.


Notes on contributor
Ruth Gruhn received her PhD from Harvard University in 1961. After postdoctoral study in environmental archaeology at the University of London UK, in 1963, she was appointed to the academic staff at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, where she is presently Professor Emerita. Her research speciality focuses upon the initial settlement of the Americas; and she and her late husband Alan Bryan have exca- vated early archaeological sites in western Canada, the western United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Brazil.

 

[Charl]

An update on the Cerutti Mastadon site:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/stones-mastodon-bones-debate-america-first-settlers

The new paper:

https://sci-hub.do/downloads/2020-11-29/de/bordes2020.pdf

 

[Fred250]

In ten years 130,000 years will be a conservative estimate, already is IMO.

 

[uniface]

Academics:

"Psychology Today"
July 1975
Interview with Idries Shah by Elizabeth Hall

Shah: They're not called washerwomen, but if we test them, they react like washerwomen. For example, if you are selling books and you send a professor of philosophy something written in philosophical language, he will throw it away. But if you send him a spiel written for a washerwoman, he will buy the book. At heart he is a washerwoman. Intellectuals don't understand this, but business people do because their profits depend upon it. You can learn much more about human nature on Madison Avenue than you will from experts on human nature, because Madison Avenue stands or falls by the sales. Professors in their ivory towers can say anything because there's no penalty attached. Go to where there is a penalty attached and there you will find wisdom.


Hall: That's a tough statement. You sound as if you are down on all academics.


Shah: Well, in the past few years I have given quite a few seminars and lectures at universities, and I have become terrified by the low level of ability. It is as if people just aren't trying. They don't read the books in their fields, don't know the workings of them, use inadequate approaches to a subject, ask ridiculous questions that a moment's thought would have enabled them to answer. If these are the cream, what is the milk like?


Hall: Are you talking about undergraduates, graduate students, or professors?


Shah: The whole lot. Recently I've been appalled at the low levels of articles in learned journals and literary weeklies. The punctuation gone to hell, full of non-sequiturs, an obvious lack of background knowledge, and so on. I went to a newspaper and looked up the equivalent articles from the 1930's. A great change has taken place. Forty years ago there were two kinds of articles: very, very good and terribly bad. There seemed nothing in-between. Now everything is slapdash and mediocre. Why are so many famous persons in hallowed institutions now so mediocre?


Hall: Critics like Dwight Macdonald have said for years that as education becomes widespread and people become semiliterate, the culture at the top is inevitably pulled down. But you're not really hostile to all academics, are you?


Shah: No, some of my best friends are academics.


Hall: That is no way to get out of it.


Shah: Of course, I'm not hostile to all academics. There are some great thinkers. But I do not believe that it is necessary for us to have 80% blithering idiots in order to get 20% marvelous academics. This ratio depresses me. I think that the good people are unbelievably noble in denying that the rest of them are such hopeless idiots. Privately they agree with you, but they won't rock the boat. For the sake of humanity, somebody has got to rock the boat.

The Sufi Tradition, interview with Idries Shah

 

[Charl]

Academics:

"Psychology Today"
July 1975
Interview with Idries Shah by Elizabeth Hall





The Sufi Tradition, interview with Idries Shah

I spent a number of years studying Sufi philosophy. Long time ago.

A lifetime ago, when I was a first year grad assistant in History, I had a terrible professor, who simply did not know how to winnow lessons down to manageable clusters of information. Text book he used was several hundred pages long. He gave exam questions that basically assumed you had memorized every page of the text. It was quite impossible to study for such exams. You had to hope the questions asked were from sections of the text that you had learned like the back of your hand. So, on one such exam, taken by myself, I simply brought the text with me. He walks into the room, and sees the text open on the desk next to mine. He looks at me, and I smile back. Flustered, he walks out. I passed, no doubt because nobody knew better than him how bad a teacher he was. Does not matter how learned a professor is, if he cannot effectively pass that learning on to his students.


Another History professor, for whom I served as a grad assistant, was the best. Not because of his knowledge of history, but because he taught me how to use the discriminating faculties of my own mind. He taught me how to think. How to recognize fallacies in arguments, how to recognize poorly constructed arguments, etc. I’ll always be grateful to him for that. It has served me well, and preserved the skeptical attitude one should always bring to any far reaching claims.


The “peopling of the Americas” is perhaps the most exciting, and since the demise of the Clovis First paradigm, the most open ended area of research in American prehistoric studies. I cannot predict what the future holds in that study. But, I feel certain of one thing: though it’s highly unlikely I’ll live long enough, I expect what we will know regarding the peopling of the Americas will be full of surprises in the years, and decades ahead. We’ve only just begun, and should expect to be knocked on our collective butts now and again.