7 ms·

Melting Yukon ices reveal 5,000-year-old archaeological treasures

57 points by curtis 12y ago

sounds 12y ago
More than anything I am ecstatic to hear that First Nations are playing a key role in the archaeological work. It's a great way to integrate cutting-edge technology while simultaneously encouraging teenagers to become interested in their heritage.
- beloch 12y ago
  Based on the age and region of the artifacts, they are probably related to the Dorset culture. Some of the First nations in the area are descended from the Thule, who migrated from Siberia and extirpated the Dorset after the date of the most recent of these finds. As such, this is not really the heritage of those first nations that is being studied, but people their ancestors may have encountered and still tell tales of. Other first nations in the area likely share a common, but distant, ancestry with the Dorset. Most people of European extraction are far more intimately linked, in terms of decent, to the Roman empire than any of the modern first nations would be to the Dorset. It's a bit strange to think of in this way, but the Inuit are almost as new to North America as Europeans are. Vikings built tentative (and quickly abandoned) settlements on the East coast of Canada when the Inuit were establishing themselves in the West and had yet to spread across the North. The Vikings actually encountered the Dorset before they disappeared, and later the Thule as they replaced the Dorset. As such, those of us descended from Vikings are almost as intimately related to the Dorset as the Inuit! Archaeology is a discipline that, ultimately, tries to tell the story about those who came before us, no matter our relation to them. First Nations groups really have no more right to protest these digs than we, here in Canada, have to protest digs in Italy. It is only our vast ignorance about the pre-history of the Americas that forces us to entertain their court claims. The artifacts uncovered by melting ice must be found within a very short period of time before the stories they can tell are lost for all time. While it is important to involve First Nations, just as any other Canadians, their interference, to the point of entirely preventing searches some years and thereby causing the loss of a part of our heritage, must not be permitted. The history of humanity belongs to us all.
- contingencies 12y ago
  In northern Australia, the Aboriginals of Arnhem Land are also being trained by archaeologists based in Darwin.
coldcode 12y ago
It's amazing how people who deny climate changes have no good answer to why ancient glaciers keep melting. But this melting allows for great archeology.
- lallysingh 12y ago
  Do folks who think that the world is only 6000 years old have anything for human-made artifacts 9000 years old?
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Satan put them there to trick us.
    - lostlogin 12y ago
      I thought you were right and did some searching. It seems you are wrong though. It turns out that the method of dating is flawed and old stuff like fossils have just been dated wrong and are less than 6000 years old. It's so depressing flicking though these sites. http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/200/How-Does-Bible-Explain-Fossil-Ages-Over-6000-Years-Genesis-12.htm http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/... http://www.missiontoamerica.org/genesis/six-thousand-years.html http://www.missiontoamerica.org/genesis/six-thousand-years.h...
  - learc83 12y ago
    They would say that our methods for dating are wrong. (I don't believe the earth is 6k years old in case you're wondering.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - KMag 12y ago
    It's probably incorrect to assume there's a single group with a single explanation on the subject. There are groups that will argue that dating methods assume that we know initial conditions and assume that certain parameters are constants when they may just be drifting more slowly that we can notice over the 100 years or so that we've been able to measure them. On the other hand, one of my fraternity brothers got religious his senior year, moved into a kosher living space, finished his Physics degree from MIT, and then went to a yeshiva in Israel. Last I heard, he was a rabbi in the Boston suburbs. I think he believed the Universe is billions of years old, but he did tell me that there are some rabbis that will tell you that when God created the first trees that first week, if you drilled into trees, you would find hundreds of rings as if they had been hundreds of years old, and likewise for isotope distributions in rocks, etc. This is much harder to argue against because it makes not falsifiable claims, but fortunately, it's also much less dangerous... it doesn't deny science's ability to forecast the future or contradict our best understanding of how the world currently works.

57 points by curtis 12y ago

More than anything I am ecstatic to hear that First Nations are playing a key role in the archaeological work. It's a great way to integrate cutting-edge technology while simultaneously encouraging teenagers to become interested in their heritage.

beloch 12y ago
Based on the age and region of the artifacts, they are probably related to the Dorset culture. Some of the First nations in the area are descended from the Thule, who migrated from Siberia and extirpated the Dorset after the date of the most recent of these finds. As such, this is not really the heritage of those first nations that is being studied, but people their ancestors may have encountered and still tell tales of. Other first nations in the area likely share a common, but distant, ancestry with the Dorset. Most people of European extraction are far more intimately linked, in terms of decent, to the Roman empire than any of the modern first nations would be to the Dorset. It's a bit strange to think of in this way, but the Inuit are almost as new to North America as Europeans are. Vikings built tentative (and quickly abandoned) settlements on the East coast of Canada when the Inuit were establishing themselves in the West and had yet to spread across the North. The Vikings actually encountered the Dorset before they disappeared, and later the Thule as they replaced the Dorset. As such, those of us descended from Vikings are almost as intimately related to the Dorset as the Inuit! Archaeology is a discipline that, ultimately, tries to tell the story about those who came before us, no matter our relation to them. First Nations groups really have no more right to protest these digs than we, here in Canada, have to protest digs in Italy. It is only our vast ignorance about the pre-history of the Americas that forces us to entertain their court claims. The artifacts uncovered by melting ice must be found within a very short period of time before the stories they can tell are lost for all time. While it is important to involve First Nations, just as any other Canadians, their interference, to the point of entirely preventing searches some years and thereby causing the loss of a part of our heritage, must not be permitted. The history of humanity belongs to us all.
contingencies 12y ago
In northern Australia, the Aboriginals of Arnhem Land are also being trained by archaeologists based in Darwin.

coldcode 12y ago

It's amazing how people who deny climate changes have no good answer to why ancient glaciers keep melting. But this melting allows for great archeology.

lallysingh 12y ago
Do folks who think that the world is only 6000 years old have anything for human-made artifacts 9000 years old?
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  Satan put them there to trick us.
  - lostlogin 12y ago
    I thought you were right and did some searching. It seems you are wrong though. It turns out that the method of dating is flawed and old stuff like fossils have just been dated wrong and are less than 6000 years old. It's so depressing flicking though these sites. http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/200/How-Does-Bible-Explain-Fossil-Ages-Over-6000-Years-Genesis-12.htm http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/... http://www.missiontoamerica.org/genesis/six-thousand-years.html http://www.missiontoamerica.org/genesis/six-thousand-years.h...
- learc83 12y ago
  They would say that our methods for dating are wrong. (I don't believe the earth is 6k years old in case you're wondering.)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- KMag 12y ago
  It's probably incorrect to assume there's a single group with a single explanation on the subject. There are groups that will argue that dating methods assume that we know initial conditions and assume that certain parameters are constants when they may just be drifting more slowly that we can notice over the 100 years or so that we've been able to measure them. On the other hand, one of my fraternity brothers got religious his senior year, moved into a kosher living space, finished his Physics degree from MIT, and then went to a yeshiva in Israel. Last I heard, he was a rabbi in the Boston suburbs. I think he believed the Universe is billions of years old, but he did tell me that there are some rabbis that will tell you that when God created the first trees that first week, if you drilled into trees, you would find hundreds of rings as if they had been hundreds of years old, and likewise for isotope distributions in rocks, etc. This is much harder to argue against because it makes not falsifiable claims, but fortunately, it's also much less dangerous... it doesn't deny science's ability to forecast the future or contradict our best understanding of how the world currently works.