Awake!Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!

[rob <rob@eteast.com>]

sorry to steal from Tolkien again (the Horn-call of Buckland, that had
not been sounded for a hundred years, not since the white wolves came in
the Fell Winter, when the Brandywine was frozen over).

    but...

                        I need your help and I want to use you
shamelessly...

            Those Daily News articles have really bugged me and I've had
it with all the layers of Sinclair crap in Nova Scotia and I'm
definitely going to respond...but not overnight in my semi-usual
explosive way...(speaking of which: welcome back sincerely from your
too-long hike, Tim...your intense emotion for your subject conveyed in
the two simple words: "I will" throbbed through the internet...lucky
bastard - getting paid to write...)

            I'm attacking the dust-brains at the Department of Culture
and I didn't file properly (especially to survive a complete computer
crash and e-mail meltdown) information and or websites about
Pre-Columbian exploration of the Americas, including:

Australian aboriginals in Paraguay was it?     Radio carbon date?
Archeologically proved?
Oklahoma Scandanavian site:        Radio Carbon Date? Archeology?
Was there one in Ontario, or did I have the clipping on that?

        websites for these would be helpful...

I have L'anse Aux Meadows,
        the Newport Tower, The Gunn rock drawing...

            anything else...proven pre-columbian?

        I just need a few key ones to cite - it's for a newspaper
audience, remember...so it's gotta be brief...and effective...

        and I just loved Niven's note (in haste!) headed: Sean
Connery...shall I send that to The Daily News Letters to the Editor?

        and for your on-going pleasure (and mine) I just copped the
following from the Smithsonian website...I did remember how to find this
one...

                                            thanks all,
                                                        rob


Dr Dennis Stanford is the Chairman of the Anthropology Department at the
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. He is
quoted in an interview for the Smithsonian as saying:

“Clovis people are thought to be the first people into the new world
(North America) via Siberia [although Stanford goes on at length to say
that he is convinced that they developed in Tenessee and the American
Southeast –ed.].

“From looking at the artifactual evidence we now have from North America
and from Northeast Asia as well as the physical remains, it’s very clear
to me, at least that we are looking at multiple migrations through a
very long time period –  of many different peoples, of many different
ethnic origins, if you will that came in at different times. Some of
these people probably survived, some of them may have gone back home and
some of them probably did not survive. And by studying all these
skeletons, particularly the DNA and the morphological differences and
similarities, we’ll be able to – I think, eventually, figure out how
many groups and from where they came. And it’s clear that we have to
have a very broad mind about the issue and not ignore some seemingly
impossible migration theories.

“To talk about some of the migration routes that are being considered as
plausible now that we wouldn’t have even considered years ago, there’s
some thought that perhaps Clovis technology came from Europe. We would
have been hooted right out of the lecture hall if we had said that a few
years ago.”

“I would say that 99% of Paleo archeologists haven’t given maritime
tradition and Paleo-Indians much play at all. Some people are beginning
to talk about the coastal migration, but I think it’s time we talk about
it a whole bunch.

“We’re beginning to get a whole new picture. It’s clear that it’s much
more complex. But that’s what’s so exciting – because some day we’ll
know. All we have to do is keep an open mind on what we’re seeing out
there and play with some of these ideas that we might at first blush
say, “Oh, that’s ridiculous, we’d never say that...”. But I think if we
keep going we’ll be surprised at what we might find. Humans are humans
and these are modern humans just like you and me, with well-developed
brains that can reason and figure out. Ocean travel isn’t that much and
they could do it. And it’s going to be real fun to get the answer to
that one.”

    Copyright 1997, Smithsonian Institution



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