==================================================== > Subj: Re: [WiMilwau] humans in Milwaukee 13,500 years ago!? > Date: 11/5/01 9:39:24 PM Central Standard Time > From: grubisic@netwurx.net (Ashley Tiwara) > Reply-to: WIMILWAU-L@rootsweb.com > To: WIMILWAU-L@rootsweb.com > > John, > How did I happen to miss your long article posted to the WI-Milwaukee > list? I must have deleted it in my sleep early this morning. Stranger things have been known to happen (see below). > The glacial lake is always called Lake Chicago by archaeologists. > Lake Michigan is merely the present lake. Yes, Gayle, I know. And actually I referred to "Lake Chicago" in the initial draft of my posting yesterday. But this term seemed too technical, and so I decided to replace this with "Lake Michigan" (surrounded by quotation marks). Geologists say that the Lake Chicago period ended about 11,000 BP ("Before Present") and was followed by the Lake Chippawa low phase-- attested by the recently discovered Olson Drowned Forest and its tree stumps (ca. 8300 BP) that are located 80 feet below the present surface of Lake Michigan and several miles east of Chicago's north suburban shoreline. This low phase was followed by the higher Nipissing phase, ca. 6000-4000 BP, when "Lake Michigan" rose again (for reasons that I won't bore you with now) to about 25 feet above its present level and once again flowed into the Mississippi River to the southwest of the submerged site of Chicago's Loop. I think it's interesting to contemplate that at the time the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, were being constructed (ca. 4700-4500 BP) most of Chicago and large sections of Milwaukee were apparently still submerged under what geologists call Lake Nipissing. > I cannot see why anyone who has read at all about prehistory would think > humans were only just arriving in North America at 12 or 13 thousand > years ago. Reliably dated sites exist down the coast of South America > including Chile at that time and earlier. Dates individually not given > credence exist in the thousands for sites in South and North America that > go back 35,000 and 40,000 years. ....... I've done very little reading recently on this interesting subject-- but I wonder how reliable these 35,000 BP dates are for South America especially. Sounds like a lot of unsubstantiated hype to me-- but I well be wrong, and I also suppose that some sort of Kon-Tiki expedition from, say, Africa to South America 35,000 years ago is theoretically possible. On the other hand, my understanding is that human occupation sites over 35,000 years old HAVE been reliably identified in Alaska and the Yukon. But partly because land access between the Yukon and the 48 US states was mostly blocked by vast ice sheets for thousands of years prior to about 13,000 BP, no reliable evidence of a pre-13,000 BP human presence in North America outside of Alaska and the Yukon has yet been found. At least, this is my nonprofessional impression of things. > [Early human settlers] had too much fun petting the saber-toothed cats > and collecting the hairs of the hairy mammoths........ Maybe we're getting increasingly off-topic. But my understanding is that saber-tooth cats were indeed relatively tame compared to the giant so-called "short-nosed bears" which perhaps originated in South America. These beasts were fast-moving and were apparently far more dangerous to humans than modern tigers and lions. However, due to the accelerated influx of humans and their domesticated dogs, etc.-- plus the Old World diseases imported by all of these new arrivals-- these nasty New World bears became extinct about 9,000 BP. > Robert W Fay wrote: > > > John and all, > > > > I'm not an archaeologist but from the local newspaper reports, the date > > of the earliest human settlements in North America are about 12,310 > > years ago. Apparently there are three sites proven to be of that age by > > carbon dating and two of them are in Kenosha county. They find it based > > on the existence of butchering marks on the bones of mammoths. Here > > is a newspaper article describing it. > > http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/kids/mammoth/news.htm A very helpful article above-- but where is the third site that's NOT in Kenosha County? New Mexico? > > Perhaps I'm wrong but doesn't the absence of moraines in Chicago > > indicate that the last glacier never reached that far south?...... I feel I have a reasonably good basic grasp of metro Chicago geology over the past 15,000 years or so. But I know relatively little about Milwaukee's geology during the same time span-- and I soon hope to learn more. Nevertheless, my suspicion is there WAS a final glacial advance that may have stalled about 13,000 BP to the east of the present Milwaukee River and then permanently retreated to the northeast. But actually there's plenty of significant glacial end moraines that still surround Chicago, and these extend down into southern Illinois and Indiana. But very of these survive within the city of Chicago itself-- maybe due partly to the former erosive action of lake water pouring through the ancient Chicago Outlet and into the Mississippi drainage system. It was this Outlet, created by the scouring action of the escaping waters of "Lake Michigan," as they drilled southwesterly through several high glacial moraines encircling Chicago, that led to Chicago's emergence as one of the largest US cities. About 4000 years ago the lake waters that formerly flowed through this Outlet began flowing over Niagara Falls instead. But all that was needed was a primitive canal completed through this outlet in 1848 to link the waters of New York City and New Orleans-- and thereby launch Chicago as a major world transportation hub. .........John (in Chicago)

On 6 Nov 2001, at 17:25 JQMagie@aol.com <WIMILWAU-L@rootsweb.com> wrote: > I wonder how reliable these 35,000 BP dates are for South America > especially. > Sounds like a lot of unsubstantiated hype to me-- One person's unsubstantiated hype is another person's gospel truth. It depends on the criteria you require to prove substantiation. > > [Early human settlers] had too much fun petting the saber-toothed cats > > and collecting the hairs of the hairy mammoths........ > > Maybe we're getting increasingly off-topic. You're reading my mind here John. Try the list at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sewis/Mound_List.htm Then you'll be on topic and other subscribers will be interested. But my understanding is > that > saber-tooth cats were indeed relatively tame One can hardly imagine how a scientist came to a conclusion on the tameness of a wild carnivorous cat that became extinct thousands of years ago! the > > > date of the earliest human settlements in North America are about > > > 12,310 years ago. Apparently there are three sites proven to be of > > > that age by carbon dating and two of them are in Kenosha county. > A very helpful article above-- but where is the third site that's > NOT in > Kenosha County? New Mexico? My recollection is that it is at Clovis, New Mexico But I know relatively little about > Milwaukee's geology during the same time span-- and I soon hope to learn > more. Nevertheless, my suspicion is there WAS a final glacial advance > that may have stalled about 13,000 BP to the east of the present > Milwaukee River and then permanently retreated to the northeast. There lots of evidence that the last glacier, the "Wisconsin" period timeframe went farther south. How it stalled and sputtered and left the masses of rocks and how they were rearranged by the torrents melting off the glaciers is pretty localized though. That may be what you are observing. But very of these survive within the city of Chicago itself-- > maybe due partly to the former erosive action of lake water pouring > through the ancient Chicago Outlet and into the Mississippi drainage > system. Oh, I see. The morraines were there but got scrubbed away as the glacial torrents sought an outlet. Makes sense. Bob Fay > It was this Outlet, created by the scouring action of the escaping > waters > of "Lake Michigan," as they drilled southwesterly through several high > glacial moraines encircling Chicago, that led to Chicago's emergence as > one of the largest US cities. About 4000 years ago the lake waters that > formerly flowed through this Outlet began flowing over Niagara Falls > instead. But all that was needed was a primitive canal completed > through this outlet in 1848 to link the waters of New York City and New > Orleans-- and thereby launch Chicago as a major world transportation > hub. .........John (in Chicago)