Talk:Bering land bridge

From Academic Kids

This is by no means an encyclopedic article. - Montréalais

I would like to know how far below sea level the area in question currently is. Dietary Fiber

According to [1] (http://www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/~crsmith/bering.html), 30-50m. Hephaestos

User 64.whatever seems to make some very interesting points here, even though I am not thrilled with the way he/she is doing it. He is stating that the landbridge is a theory. Fair enough. He is giving solid scientific reasons why he (and certain scientists) reject the hypothesis of a land bridge). The article as it stands now is confusing anyways. The third paragraph says that the Clovis people used the land bridge 12,000 years ago, but the last time it was visible was 70,000 years ago. What did they do? Walk on an invisible bridge? I certainly do not have the scientific background to decide on this one, but it seems to me that 64.whatever's ideas should be incorporated into the article. There is nothing wrong with stating that the land bridge is theoretical and that there are reasons for and against its supposed existence. It is certainly not dogma. Danny

That shoud read 7,000, not 70,000, Danny. Tannin 01:11 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Danny

I for one have absolutely no problem with 64.'s points being added (in NPOV language) but unfortunately at the moment it's hard to get a word in edgewise on this article. Hephaestos 00:02 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Acording to a book I've just looked at, the last time the land bridge was exposed was between 24,000 and 9,000 bc User:G-Man

In the Summary Box comments, an anonymous user is slandering a Wikipedia contributor as promoting "scientific racism" for the "sin" of writing about the Bering Land Bridge, a very mainstream scientific theory which has a lot of science to back it up. This same anonymous user then claims that this land bridge is only as real as Atlantis! Finally he makes insulting comments about "Don't believe what they tell you about Indians". His over-the-top comments make clear that he has no interest in dispassionately discussing the article. He just has an axe to grind, and is willing to demonize all those who write about the scientific consensus on this issue. And the consensus is this: Much data exists for the existence of a land bridge at various times; much data indicates that people lived near this bridge at times that it probably existed. And there is indisputable evidence that Asians did cross over from the northern Asia area to northern North America, somewhere in the vicinity of the putative Bering Land bridge. Does this prove that this land bridge existed at all the times it is said to, and that people crossed it? No, and the scientific community makes no such absolute claim. The current consensus is that it probably existed, that's all. It is not held as a dogma! At the moment, some new evidence has surfaced which questions whether people crossed this land bridge. Fine. But that is no reason to hurl charges of "racism" at those who write about a mainstream belief! RK

If people didn't walk from Asia to North America, what did they do? Did they build canoes and sail from North Africa to Brazil? Dietary Fiber

There is quite a lot of genetic evidence indicating that modern american "indians" ancestors were asian in origin. This seems to be solid evidence that either they walked across the land bridge, or crossed the Bering Sea in boats of some kind. Maybe even BOTH at various times!!! -- RTC 03:31 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe they floated across on icebergs! Dietary Fiber

Maybe some did... we will never know that one :-) -- RTC 03:36 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I have restored a clearer version of the Clovis sentence. There is indeed a theory that the Clovis people were not the first to reach America, a good deal of deeply questionable evidence for it, and a smaller amount of evidence that appears much more difficult to discredit. The jury is still out on that one. Be that as it may, there is no question that the Clovis were the first significant human arrivals in America: the Clovis left evidence of their passing everywhere and had a profound effect on the ecology of the North American continent. This is why I wrote "notably the Clovis arrival" - this is probably not the right article in which to explore the pre-Clovis controversy

It is certainly not dogma. -RK

Which is why American archaeologists rejected accelerator mass spectrometry outright when a site in Brazil showed up with cave paintings 60,000 years old - far too old for the Bering Strait Puts them right up there with Duane Gish and other creationists, eh? I'm sure you've heard of Pedra Furada? Also, they've never found Clovis points in Asia or Alaska, but they insist that Clovis came from Asia; it's like some wacky diffusionist claim. Mibbyagain

On a side note, here's evidence humans were in South Carolina 50,000 years ago:

http://www.sc.edu/usctimes/articles/2004-11/topper_discovery.html

Doesn't help much to have humans in South Carolina before Siberia.

It does help though when the evidence is so tenuous that nobody whose opinion matters is taking it seriously [2] (http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/topper.html). adamsan 08:47, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, well, "everyone whose opinion matters" seems to be a mixture of out-of-their-field types and people resorting to ad hominems. That was certainly the case with Pedra Furada and Monte Verde; they "discredited" it via ad hominems.