00:01.39 archpodnet Welcome back to the rock art podcast episode one eleven I'm Chris Webster interviewing Well night are viewing discussing the peopleing of the Americas with ah Dr Alan Garfinkel and we're coming up to the end of the show here. So let's round out this discussion and one of the things you were saying just. You know in the last segment there when you were talking about the dates on the the obsidian hydration on some of those things dating back. You know 16 70000 but you said not very many and I'm like okay but if we have like even 1 thing that is concrete evidence that is indisputable that is yes this is here. 00:30.81 alan Get. 00:36.27 archpodnet I Mean doesn't that an open and shut case like what is it going to take all the naysayers to say yes things now here's the new date. This is it This is we We definitely have evidence going back this far. You know when can we when can we close the lid on that and say yep, this is that this is it. 00:50.44 alan I I think as we get growing evidence and as we get the various orders of evidence from different data sets and different sites. It's becoming a compelling and substantive story and so. 01:04.38 archpodnet E. 01:06.46 alan It's one that is is difficult. It's difficult for us to rewrite history. But it's being rewritten as we speak because you know we've spent how many years telling the story one way and this totally turns the ah the discussion on its head both from its. From its dating its placement the the fashion that it was that people came in that everything about it is different I would say don't you agree I mean it's it's different it's it's yeah but okay, go ahead, please. 01:34.54 archpodnet Um I I do I do and but that's that's the thing though. It's like you know you use these tried and true dating methods not using like. Wacky off the-wall dating methods to date some of this older stuff right? We're using tried and true dating methods that have been used across the world and that people believe and trust when it comes to things like Europe and you say oh this dates to twenty five thousand years ago and they're like yep that seems legit I buy it because Europe has a pretty solid history going back. 01:49.45 alan Right is. 01:58.49 alan Yeah. 02:05.12 archpodnet You know hundreds of thousands of years of of homo sapiens. Yeah right. 02:07.28 alan Yeah, europe has to Europe right? Europe europe has a long chronology. We've had the short chronology and so ah I would say it. It makes sense for us to have quite a ample degree of skepticism to try to buy in. And understand what we're looking at here. But yes I think that I think that with growing evidence consistently in different geographical areas and different sources and different methods of dating if they all point to the same thing. That's what's happening for instance. 02:24.26 archpodnet Yeah. 02:43.60 alan You've got those footprints there in New Mexico on the on the ah on the sands of you know that preserved ah situation there in that national monument. 02:43.42 archpodnet Um, Brett. 02:56.34 archpodnet Yeah. 02:59.31 alan And they've dated them several ways I've read a couple of scientific articles so far on that and and another one they feel very strongly that the evidence is there in excess of Twenty Thousand years ago that there were people occupying New Mexico 03:13.57 archpodnet Mom. 03:17.53 alan And that's where those are from and they've used ah radiocarbon dates. They've gottiy. They've got everything else but again, what is it extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence and so that's what we're looking at and yes. 03:21.80 archpodnet Um. 03:36.74 alan I'm I'm so I'm still you know I still am am waiting to see what other people really ah take from that piece of evidence. It seems rather compelling. Um if what they say is true. 03:48.50 archpodnet Yeah. 03:53.74 alan And how they've dated it and how they claim to have you know, irrefutable evidence and dates that would support that particular age Brett I mean that that jumps from what we thought was literally maybe thirteen thousand to twenty one thousand years ago like in an instant and so so someone says well where's the stuff and in between right, where's the where's the where's the arc where's the archeology that we should see between 13 and 21000. Where's the where's the people. 04:13.60 archpodnet Ah. 04:16.64 archpodnet Right. 04:25.20 archpodnet Yeah, well I'll tell you what there might be an argument for that too because I've definitely interviewed some people on past shows that have to discuss the fact that a lot of times we don't dig deep enough. You know what I mean because a lot of our evidence doesn't come from. 04:37.70 alan Now. 04:41.80 archpodnet Um, I mean some of it comes from academic digs. You know like some of the stuff up in Oregon they're digging into these caves and you know caves are very well-pre preserved environments and you can come back year after year after year and just keep digging down in the cave right? and just ah, just gets a it's a resource that just keeps on giving but you talk about. Cultural resource management projects and shovel testing and I'll tell you what most of ours don't go down any deeper than you can reach with a shovel and and if it has to go down farther than that sometimes will augur but the standard rule unless you know something different about this tratigraphy the soils. The geochronology of the area. 05:03.12 alan Right? so. 05:14.26 archpodnet Which a lot of times you don't but if you know something different than fine. But if you don't you usually go down to 2 sterile levels or the depth of the shovel or the water table but that doesn't always mean that that water table always really got me working in the southeast we'd always stop if we hit water and I'm like all right? Well the water table is different ten thousand years ago it wasn't here. So. 05:31.29 alan Sure, Yeah, exactly. 05:33.99 archpodnet You know by stopping there. We're we're ignoring a huge body of evidence. You know what? I mean. 05:41.40 alan So for instance in the area that I'm working in an Oregon in ah Southwestern Oregon near the town of Roseburg there's a site that was excavated and they yeah. 05:45.90 archpodnet Yeah. 05:54.81 archpodnet Ah. 05:59.24 alan They excavated I don't know maybe ah fifty a hundred centimeters and then they stopped but then they they had an inkling that they may have been on top of um, a mazama you know expression they had to go two meters deeper 06:15.83 archpodnet Um. 06:19.16 alan Than that to hit the cultural cultural component below the Mazama Ash can you imagine two meters that's six feet right yeah so the only reason the only reason they were able to get this is they had a column. 06:29.00 archpodnet That's insane. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. 06:37.36 alan That was on the end end of a ridge and they could see it and so they were able to sort of get get below that and yes there was ah a prima Zama expression that was there same thing happened in the central valley. They had a circumstance where they went down I don't know ten feet 06:41.83 archpodnet Ah, ah. 06:57.13 alan And then they hit the ah cultural expression and it was ah you know sort of a western pluvial tradition material right there and they ah dated it to 7 eight thousand years ago so if you had to go. 06:57.65 archpodnet Ah. 07:14.59 alan Ten feet to get to 7 eight thousand years ago can you imagine how deep you'd have to go. 07:17.11 archpodnet Yeah, well and and this is what I'm talking about too right? like you get some of these areas now out here in the great basin. You might go down two feet and hit bedrock right? There's not a whole lot below the bedrock if it's below the bedrock you're done right? but. 07:28.96 alan Right. 07:33.44 archpodnet But in some of these areas like I'll never forget working out in the Carolinas and again out on the coastal plain. You know we're digging down to you know a meter at best maybe a meter and a half if you can lay on your stomach and really reach your shovel down there. But then my wife worked on a project where they were ah they had. They and I don't know how they knew this right? Um, but by the time she got on it. They were auguring down um in these in these in this one area because there was there was something going in there I think it was a reservoir project or something like that but something was going in there. They were augering down and finding paleo deposits like like 8 to 10000 year deposits at 3 to four meters 08:09.91 alan While well man now. 08:10.31 archpodnet Below the surface 3 to four meters yeah and I'm like okay so you've got this evidence here of definite things 3 3 to four meters down yeah and yet we're stopping at a meter out here on the coast and you know part of the reason out in that area is because the hurricanes and weather really shapes the landscape and you can have a hurricane drop of you know. Two feet of sand on one area in a season. You know what? I mean so the the landscape really adjusts quickly. So that's why you get buried deposits that could be incredibly deep in some areas depending on depending on the year you know so it's crazy and yet we speak with authority when we say that's it. 08:32.58 alan Shh Wow wow. 08:41.54 alan Yeah, and this and the same yeah right? So you're talking about the environment. We talk about cataclysms like Mount Mazama and the Ash Ash that fell seventy seven hundred years ago 08:55.26 archpodnet Ah. 08:58.99 alan If you if you look in the central valley of California you're looking at tremendous amounts of alluvium over the many years accumulating and to get to anywhere near. Let's say paleo indian you'd have to go down twelve fifteen feet to get to that deposit. So you're exactly right? So for for a lot of us we have never we have never really gotten to that level or we don't know where to find the exposure of the pale. You know you're looking you. You want to see relic landforms where that was preserved. 09:18.83 archpodnet Um, yeah. 09:35.74 alan So that you can find that kind of material. Yeah, that's exactly right. 09:36.28 archpodnet You know in the past I've called this regulatory bias right? I don't know if that's a real term anybody uses but you know when you're doing shovel testing or something like that. You only have to really look down as far as the disturbance is going to happen. You know that's that's really the regulation. They're not asking you to find everything down to the the lowest level which is scientifically what we would want to do but you're only being paid to go down as far as the ground will be disturbed right? So if they're putting in a ah parking lot. You only have to go down four or five feet before you're you're going to hit soils. They're just simply not going to disturb. So. 10:02.54 alan Right? right. 10:10.74 archpodnet It's not that we're saying not saying there's something down there. We're just not being paid to find it. We're not given the opportunity. Yeah yeah, so it's crazy. Yeah. 10:18.61 alan Right? And it is regulatory. Bias I like that. Yeah, it's a good way of looking at it. So I guess the newest models have ah have avoided regulatory bias and now we're beginning to see a whole new set of ah. Expressions both of a different archeological tradition chronologically and typologically that is pre-clovis and may go between let's say 14 and maybe even twenty one thousand years ago now that 14 to 14 to 21. 10:42.60 archpodnet Um. 10:51.59 archpodnet Um. 10:55.46 alan Matches the genetic evidence the genetic evidence that they've been able to look at the genetic sort of timeline that they've developed looking at the at the peoples that they've examined the indigenous peoples and then examining their relationship. 11:03.48 archpodnet Right. 11:14.40 alan And the time depth. So that's where they are and I think that's a good place to stop to stop where you could. You could add your closing note doctor. 11:14.93 archpodnet Well. 11:21.50 archpodnet I will add to that because there's 1 other thing besides genetic evidence that starts giving that time death and that's the linguistic evidence right? when they start looking at the sheer number of languages that native americans have just in North America alone in order to. Gain that sort of variation linguists can can take that back. Um I mean you know thousands and thousands of years in what we knew of language evolution to say well you know it kind of it would had to have gone back x number of years and that time is getting pushed further and further back the more we study those languages and start realizing where the similarities and differences are so. Like you said lots of evidence coming together pointing to a deeper history than we ever assumed all right? Well, that's it for today then? yeah. 12:02.25 alan I like it. So with that I guess we'll we'll say it did so it. Yeah, that's it see in the flip flop gang Hope you enjoyed this episode.