Mail, Comments and Creationists
by Heather Pringle
September 5, 2008
This week I thought I’d reply to some of the comments that you have kindly posted over the past few months. I really regret that I can’t answer each and every missive, but there’s just not enough hours in the day, particularly when I have a manic, seven-month old Labrador retriever puppy roaming the house. If he’s not taken out on long, exhausting walks three times a day, he devours scientific articles, munches books, demolishes entire book cases and generally wreaks havoc.
Ok, now down to business. In response to my blog on creationism, a reader wrote to tell me that I was hopelessly out of date when I suggested that the “first Native Americans were Asia migrants who trekked on foot across the vast grasslands of Beringia or paddled in boats along the northern Pacific rim more than 13,000 years ago.†This reader—who describes herself as a Native American who believes that “we have always been hereâ€â€”points out that the oldest layer at the Topper site in South Carolina dates to some 50,000 years ago. She also notes that earlier dates could still emerge from the Americas, and observes that modern humans dispersed out of Africa only 60,000 to 80,000 years ago.
I think this reader is indulging in some very wishful thinking. First of all, the Topper dates are not widely accepted in the archaeological community. Critics have particularly questioned the “stone tools†unearthed in the site’s 50,000-year-old layer, observing that they look like flakes created by natural forces instead of human artifacts. Beyond that, however, there is simply no evidence that modern humans evolved in the New World. Paleoanthropologists have failed to uncover any fossil remains showing that Homo erectus or Homo neanderthalensis reached the Americas, then evolved into Homo sapiens . Instead, a staggering body of evidence shows that the first Americans were H. sapiens migrants, and current data suggests that they arrived in the New World no more than 30,000 years ago. Check out the paper that Ted Goebel, an archaeologist at the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A& M University, and colleagues published in Science in March 2008. It superbly synthesizes the daunting body of archaeological and genetic evidence on this important issue.
Another reader has chided me for placing my money on science and dissing faith and philosophy in the creationist blog. “What in the world,†he wonders, “are we fighting about when mutual respect through discussion—not debate—would enrich everyone’s understanding of the truth.â€
Contrary to what this reader implies, I’m happy to discuss and debate this matter with anyone. And I personally believe there is much we could all learn from the sacred stories of Native Americans: they distill thousands of years of human wisdom and experience. But on the subject of Native American origins, these stories are clearly metaphorical, not factual. Science, as imperfect as it is, gives us our best glimpse at where the first Americans came from and how they got here. I simply can’t ignore all that archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence. Sorry.
Last but not least, I want to thank readers for sending those terrific suggestions for the best archaeological novels. The list is growing, but I’d love to hear from more of you before I post the new, improved model. Please send me your suggestions.
Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Heather Pringle is a freelance science journalist who has been writing about archaeology for more than 20 years. She is the author of Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust and The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead. For more about Heather, see our 
