At www.postandcourier.com/20160521/160529887/topper-site-find-reveals-peopl… … the Topper archaeological site has revealed evidence of fire going back 50,000 years agao – long before humans are thought to have arrived in the Americas. Al Goodyear says the human occupation at Topper goes back well before 15,000 years ago (the mainstream preferred date) but evidence of fire somewhat earlier raises the possibility they were in the Americas before the Late Glacial Maximum. However, as the evidence is based on C14 and the maximum date this is reliable is around 40,000 years ago we can expect a lot of criticism. Even if the date holds the fire, or carbon, may have nothing to do with humans. Whatever else the Topper site is raising a lot of questions – and we can look forwards to more surprises.
At http://phys.org/print383401336.html … two rings in a French cave are making waves as they have been attributed to Neanderthals living around 176,000 years ago. The rings are made from hundreds of pillar shaped mineral deposits (stalagmites) and they were all chopped to a similar depth and arranged in tow oval patterns 16 inches high. The rings were found in 1990 but because they were date much earlier than modern humans there was a great deal of resistance to a release of the information concerning the find. More on this tomorrow – with images.
At http://phys.org/print383381401.html … volcanoes in Australia. Some of them have been dated fairly recently – one of them just 5000 years ago (around 3000BC).
