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Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

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Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#11

Post by User23 »

kwonkicker wrote: post #8
lkrubner wrote: post #4

My dad used to make this argument: of all the millions of footprints that humans made, after arriving in North America, what is the likelihood that we found the very first of those footprints? The point is, whatever evidence we find, it's unreasonable to think that evidence we've found is the first evidence that existed, so we have to assume the real arrival was a bit before that. When we had evidence of humans arriv…

Technically true but wrong. If your oldest Facebook post is from 2015, how likely is it that you've been using the internet before 2005?! Archeologists are very smart people in their own right, some are much smarter than we are. They do consider everything that we think they haven't. Let's give some benefit of the doubt to our fellow researchers.

> If your oldest Facebook post is from 2015, how likely is it that you've been using the internet before 2005?!

Who knows. It could be that person has been using the Internet for a very long time and is thus a late adopter of Facebook due to preferring to do things the old way. It could also be a person who started using the Internet in 2015. GP's point that we really can't conclude anything beyond a lower bound isn't falsified by your example

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#12

Post by Stevvo »

lkrubner wrote: post #4

My dad used to make this argument: of all the millions of footprints that humans made, after arriving in North America, what is the likelihood that we found the very first of those footprints? The point is, whatever evidence we find, it's unreasonable to think that evidence we've found is the first evidence that existed, so we have to assume the real arrival was a bit before that. When we had evidence of humans arriv…

Clovis first persisted for almost the entirety of that 100 years despite large and ever growing amounts evidence to the contrary.

There is no need for "error estimates to remain large". The field just needs to acknowledge the actual numbers the evidence gives, instead of ignoring things when the show up because they are older than expected and don't fit with the existing narrative.

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#13

Post by pomian »

missinfo wrote: post #5
changoplatanero wrote: post #3

No picture of the footprints?

NYT has photos here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/science/ancient-footprint...

Cool. You get to see the image and even save it, before the pay wall appears. And an image is truly worth a 1000 words.

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#14

Post by SantalBlush »

kwonkicker wrote: post #8
lkrubner wrote: post #4

My dad used to make this argument: of all the millions of footprints that humans made, after arriving in North America, what is the likelihood that we found the very first of those footprints? The point is, whatever evidence we find, it's unreasonable to think that evidence we've found is the first evidence that existed, so we have to assume the real arrival was a bit before that. When we had evidence of humans arriv…

Technically true but wrong. If your oldest Facebook post is from 2015, how likely is it that you've been using the internet before 2005?! Archeologists are very smart people in their own right, some are much smarter than we are. They do consider everything that we think they haven't. Let's give some benefit of the doubt to our fellow researchers.

>They do consider everything that we think they haven't.

This can be said of almost any observation made about a particular field of research. Outsiders aren't familiar enough with the current state of research and they often assume experts haven't considered some rather obvious things.

That's not to say that outsiders shouldn't participate in the discussion, but they should acknowledge that there is a good chance their ideas have already been considered.

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#15

Post by [deleted] »

SantalBlush wrote: post #14
kwonkicker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically true but wrong. If your oldest Facebook post is from 2015, how likely is it that you've been using the internet before 2005?! Archeologists are very smart people in their own right, some are much smarter than we are. They do consider everything that we think they haven't. Let's give some benefit of the doubt to our fellow researchers.

>They do consider everything that we think they haven't. This can be said of almost any observation made about a particular field of research. Outsiders aren't familiar enough with the current state of research and they often assume experts haven't considered some rather obvious things. That's not to say that outsiders shouldn't participate in the discussion, but they should acknowledge that there is a good chance th…

[deleted]

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#16

Post by 230149dsad232jj »

pomian wrote: post #13
missinfo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT has photos here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/science/ancient-footprint...

Cool. You get to see the image and even save it, before the pay wall appears. And an image is truly worth a 1000 words.

I guess since you are unwilling to pay for NY Times journalism, the image is worth 1000 * 0.

Which is fine, I just thought your choice of wording was amusing.

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#17

Post by haroldp »

kwonkicker wrote: post #8
lkrubner wrote: post #4

My dad used to make this argument: of all the millions of footprints that humans made, after arriving in North America, what is the likelihood that we found the very first of those footprints? The point is, whatever evidence we find, it's unreasonable to think that evidence we've found is the first evidence that existed, so we have to assume the real arrival was a bit before that. When we had evidence of humans arriv…

Technically true but wrong. If your oldest Facebook post is from 2015, how likely is it that you've been using the internet before 2005?! Archeologists are very smart people in their own right, some are much smarter than we are. They do consider everything that we think they haven't. Let's give some benefit of the doubt to our fellow researchers.

I first joined facebook in 2009, but have been on the internet since 1991.

You might counter that facebook only started in 2004, and didn't get much traction until 2006. But I was invited before that and simply didn't care to join, preferring to occupy other parts of the `net.

Likewise, Clovis artifacts all date from after the peak of the last ice age, when glaciers were melting, land routes were opening, and sea levels were rising to obliterate any coastal artifacts from any previous waves of migration.

Clovis-first has been debunked for decades. This is just another - particularly solid - nail in that theory's coffin. It is worth asking why it has persisted so doggedly. I don't think it is because archeologists aren't very smart people.

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#18

Post by pvaldes »

230149dsad232jj wrote: post #16
pomian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. You get to see the image and even save it, before the pay wall appears. And an image is truly worth a 1000 words.

I guess since you are unwilling to pay for NY Times journalism, the image is worth 1000 * 0. Which is fine, I just thought your choice of wording was amusing.

(I wonder how much had paid NY Times to the scientists that discovered the footprints. If you want support science shouldn't you see the photos and read it in the scientific journal instead?)

Re: Fossil footprints reveal humans in North America earlier than previously thought

#20

Post by irrational »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #9
lkrubner wrote: post #4

My dad used to make this argument: of all the millions of footprints that humans made, after arriving in North America, what is the likelihood that we found the very first of those footprints? The point is, whatever evidence we find, it's unreasonable to think that evidence we've found is the first evidence that existed, so we have to assume the real arrival was a bit before that. When we had evidence of humans arriv…

This is actually how archeologists estimate their ranges for human habitation in an area, just with math instead of guesses. This paper isn't about that (try timing papers like [1] instead), it's about the actual radioisotope boundary dates for an actual site. Part of the problem these LGM dates keep running into is that it's not obvious how people got here in the first place. After about 48kya, the ice free corridor…

I assume they built boats. It isn't exactly surprising after 20k years that we can't find any proof of these boats, but how else would then have come across? Fly?
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