rLp N^o^' 2?/" JOHN H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — MILLER 45 



Kirk Bryan for the Lindenmeier site iu Colorado, would meet with no opposi- 

 tion. The alarm at these figures is due partly to the ingrained habit of setting 

 up short calendars for the New World and partly to the high stone-working skill 

 of these ancient hunters, who in Old World terms would be called advanced 

 Mesolithic. Ai-cheologists are not ready to face the disquieting thought that any 

 skill that may have been introduced (or developed?) iu the New World may 

 have had priority in any part of culture history over western Europe. [Sauer, 

 1944.] 



Geologists have placed a tentative date of around 25,000 years for 

 the closing of the Pleistocene age, the time when man first appeared 

 in the New World. By means of radiocarbon dating methods de- 

 veloped by Dr. Willard F. Libby, one of man's earliest western lithic 

 industries has been dated at Tule Springs, Nev., approximately about 

 this same time (Harrington, 1955) . 



A new radiocarbon date has been released for the Tule Springs site 

 in southern Nevada in which were found crude scrapers and choppers, 

 bone tools, and masses of split and burned bones of camel ( Camelofs 

 hesternus)^ horse {E quits paciflcus and Equus sp.), deer {Odoco'deus 

 sp.), mammoth {Parelephas columhi), and bison {Bison aff. occi- 

 dentaUs)^^ as well as large masses of charcoal and ash beds. 



The date of 23,800-plus years, by radiocarbon methods, constitutes 

 at the present time (1957) the oldest radiocarbon dated site in the New 

 World and extends man's existence over a much longer period of time 

 than heretofore realized, thus negating the Mankato altithermal 

 geological period as the time of his arrival in the New World and as- 

 suring us of a Paleolithic man comparable in time with Old World 

 forms of Homo sapiens sapiens. Just how much older than this date 

 would indicate is not known since all measureable radioactivity has 

 ceased in the Tule Springs material, causing it to be classed as "dead." 

 This gives the coup de grace to the concept that the earliest existence 

 of man in the New World occurred during the terminal phase of the 

 Pleistocene. Instead, it places his presence well within the Pleistocene 

 limits, indicating a much longer period of human occupancy of the 

 New World, a feeling that has been growing ever stronger and more 

 apparent that the old arbitrarily established age ceilings must be dis- 

 carded, leaving the way clear for objective unbiased research. 



In the light of this Tule Springs date, it now appears that Dr. Kirk 

 Bryan, who believed from his studies that man entered America at 

 an earlier date than noted by other geologists, has been vindicated and 

 his estimates proved more nearly correct. Bryan thought that 



a route or migration through the Canadian Plains may have been open twice 

 during periods of milder climate in the Wisconsin ; once during the interstadial 



s. . . "which is not Bison occidentalis, by current standards of species making, and 

 would have to be placed in a new species. It belongs, however, to the general group of 

 B. occidentalis, crassicornis, chaneyi, taylori, texanus, and possibly some others, without 

 resembling any of these closely cnougli for specific reference. It differs from typical 

 occidentalis in being more robust, with broader frontals and longer and stouter horns." 

 (Simpson, 1933, p. 6.) 



