Dennis Stanford

[Minimalist]

Chairman of the Anthropology Dept. at the Smithsonian discussing Clovis and Solutrean finds.

46 minutes long....but worth the investment of time.

[Cato]

For those that look at the 45 minute length and cringe, make time. My wife is out of town for the weekend so I had the ability to 'dork-out' as she calls it, without consideration given to more practical domestic matters.

I had to look-up a couple of things while watching. I'll share them for ready reference. If I have proven myself an idiot for not already knowing, so be it:
Clovis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture
Solutrean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean
LGM (I knew what this meant, but learned a great deal by looking it up):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum

Captivating. In fact, when Stanford asked for time during the presentation I looked up and 33 minutes had melted away.

There is actually a very sad moment in the video. Stanford rhetorically asks where all the artifacts have gone as he shows a large bin of bone fragments dug up in the North Sea. There is also a very bright side. I will not spoil it, but will state that Stanford leaves the audience with an obvious cliffhanger. Yes, I say cliffhanger. Perhaps not as much fun, as the ultimately resolved adventures of Indiana Jones, but much more worthy of consideration.

[Minimalist]

I was taken by Stanford's discussion of ancient seamanship. Of course he is right. These people were not out there in kayaks. They had to know how to sail under wind power and how to tack.

Also the opening of Siberia and the determination that ancient Asians used microblade technology which was nothing like the bifacial points of the Solutreans and later Clovis peoples.

[Cato]

I was taken by Stanford's discussion of ancient seamanship. Of course he is right. These people were not out there in kayaks. They had to know how to sail under wind power and how to tack.

Also the opening of Siberia and the determination that ancient Asians used microblade technology which was nothing like the bifacial points of the Solutreans and later Clovis peoples.

Yes, seamanship. I spent a good portion of my adult life on submarines, where no tack (nor tact) was required. Strange that I ended up there because I loved (still love) sailing when I was young. I remember the connection Stanford made. He kept invoking tack as if everyone knew what that meant, yet didn't explain the concept for those who have never had the privilege or need to sail against the wind (Bob Seger be damned). Labrador to Vermont; we can drive it now, but I thought the map he showed was telling in that all of modern day Quebec was under water...they had to sail.

Stanford's conclusion was understated; in fact, he left it to the imagination. If true, American sailing pre-dated the Phoenicians by thousands of years.

[Minimalist]

Way....way before the Phoenicians....and even us!

You may enjoy this, Cato.

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~auranet/marin...index.html

One of the most significant finds in the history of archaeology is the discovery that hominins of more than 850 000 years ago managed to cross the sea to colonise a number of Indonesian islands. Nusa Tenggara, the islands east of Bali, have never been connected to either Asia or Australia, but they were found to have been occupied by Homo erectus as well as by several endemic species of Stegodonts (extinct elephants) early in the Ice Age. Until recently, it had been assumed that the first sea crossings occurred no more than 60 000 years ago.

These crossings of several sea barriers involved the use of watercraft, because sea straits cannot be crossed without propellant, so this was the first time in human history that our ancestors entrusted their destiny to a contraption designed to harness the energies of nature. All human development followed on from that first triumph of the human spirit; it set the course of the human ascent right up to the present day. In comparison to this achievement, Neil Armstrong's 'giant leap of mankind' was indeed a small step for man.