[meteorite-list] Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Oct 31 12:46:32 2005
Message-ID: <43665874.4000702_at_wanadoo.nl>

> Looking at it, it is quite clear that the dates on mummified
> mammoths are spread over a range of radiocarbon dates starting
> from greater than 50,000 BP to 32,000 - 34,000 BP.

Also, > 30,000 BP is exactly the region where the 14C method starts to get
insecure and easily falters. Very small amounts of contamination already leads
to large errors, and the error on any 14C age determination is large for this
period anyways.

The preservation of frozen mummies relies on a very specific sedimentation
regime (see Guthrie's book about "Blue babe"), which produces a bias on where
and when mummies of this kind are preserved in the permafrost or not.

About the "Human Hunting Overkill" hypothesis:

> This claim is an old misstatement of the facts, which has been
> endlessly recycled on various catastrophist web sites despite
> having been long known to be quite false. It is true that more
> than many genera of mostly megafauna have become extinct
> during the Pleistocene. However, it is quiet false to say that
> all of them became extinct between 11,000 to 13,000 BP.

> Also, the claim that conventional scientists, as a rule, regard
> humans as the sole cause of these Pleistocene extinctions is
> simply not true. In fact, there now exists a wide divergence of
> opinion and a lack of any real consensus as to what, if any role,
> humans played in any the several extinction events, which
> occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch.

I agree. The Overkill hypothesis is pushed for a long time now by people like
Martin etc. and gets much attention in the press, but it is certainly not
accepted by every scholar in this area.

- Marco

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Dr Marco Langbroek - Pleistocene Archaeologist
e-mail: marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl
website: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek
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Received on Mon 31 Oct 2005 12:46:28 PM PST