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Who were the first Americans? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
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  Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
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  Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which means that you're listening to
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  Speaker 1: stuff you should know right this, straight ahead, as you've
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  Speaker 1: been in a long time. My friend is very nice.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks you think, Yeah, I try to mix it up
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  Speaker 1: every once in a while. We consider it mixed. Thanks. Um.
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  Speaker 1: I will as a matter of fact from this point forward,
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  Speaker 1: Chuck um quick who discovered America? Christopher Columbus. Yeah, even
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  Speaker 1: if you qualify it by saying what European discovered America? Uh,
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  Speaker 1: Columbus was beaten by a good five years by the
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  Speaker 1: Norse right who found who were in Newfoundland. That's not
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  Speaker 1: what we were taught in history. Definitely, there's no Norse day,
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  Speaker 1: No no leaf ericson day. I don't think there is
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  Speaker 1: not in the US. Um. And there's also evidence that
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  Speaker 1: the Norse were beaten by a good five hundred years
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  Speaker 1: by an Irish monk who used a rowboat to make
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  Speaker 1: it from Ireland over to North America and he wrote
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  Speaker 1: about it, and um, the tenacious monk was at his name,
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  Speaker 1: that's what I would call him. Yeah, well, yeah, at
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  Speaker 1: the very least, or if not the completely insane monk.
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  Speaker 1: He came back and wrote about it and draw or
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  Speaker 1: drew some maps. I believe he drawed some maps and
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  Speaker 1: um there, so there is some sort of evidence that
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  Speaker 1: that he made contact with these people. Apparently the Norse
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  Speaker 1: described meeting people who, um were dressed like monks that
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  Speaker 1: they had met, So this guy might have come over
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  Speaker 1: and been like, you guys are dressed all wrong here,
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  Speaker 1: we need to church you up. They didn't pillagees well
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  Speaker 1: as the Europeans did, though in Columbus and the game
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  Speaker 1: single Irish Monk. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he felt outnumbered.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Um so if you qualify who what European
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  Speaker 1: discovered America, there's debate right there. Um, there's evidence that
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese beat Columbus by seventy years, I should say
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  Speaker 1: there's some evidence that's highly questionable. And also, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: you can read an article I wrote on the Irish
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  Speaker 1: Monk and an article I wrote on the Chinese beating
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  Speaker 1: Columbus wondering you know, all this stuff. Ye did you
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: ever hear the Luis cave it on Indian giving? Do
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you want to hear it? It's awesome he's talking about Basically,
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  Speaker 1: the Indian giving is probably the most offensive thing you
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  Speaker 1: can say on Earth because it implies that we like,
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  Speaker 1: they gave us the land and that or we get
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  Speaker 1: and that we wanted it back and they wouldn't give
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  Speaker 1: it back. And uh, he's he's talking about the the
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  Speaker 1: settlers coming over and saying, can we have everything in
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  Speaker 1: the Indians said, well, we don't really have We just
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  Speaker 1: use it and enjoy it and share it. And then
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  Speaker 1: we started killing everybody and that's like a thing. And
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  Speaker 1: the Indian says, dude, if this is what have is,
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  Speaker 1: can we not do that? It's really good. I love
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  Speaker 1: that guy. He's great. And because Chuck just paraphrased everything
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  Speaker 1: that's not copyright infringement, no, I don't think so okay,
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  Speaker 1: So Chuck, we' we've we've clearly ruled out. Christopher Columbus
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  Speaker 1: is the discoverer of North America? Right, um, who did
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  Speaker 1: discover North America? Though you have to ask this question.
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  Speaker 1: Let's say Columbus comes over, he thinks he's in India
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  Speaker 1: and he shows up and he's like, hey, you guys
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  Speaker 1: are Indians, but you look a little crazy, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and finally comes to realize that he's not in India,
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  Speaker 1: that he's just discovered this new place. But that immediately
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  Speaker 1: begs another question that I'm sure it took a little
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  Speaker 1: while for people to come up with, because they were
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  Speaker 1: so excited that they just discovered this whole new land
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  Speaker 1: mass an awesome land mask. Yeah, the best land mass, um,
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  Speaker 1: But the question had to eventually come up, like, wait
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  Speaker 1: a minute, where did these people come from? How did
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  Speaker 1: they get there? How did they get there? For millennia,
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  Speaker 1: there was a theory, a widely accepted theory in both
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  Speaker 1: the public and scientific lives, um of spontaneous generation. Right
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  Speaker 1: Like just if you put left meat out too long
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  Speaker 1: and it started to rot, uh, flies showed up, So
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  Speaker 1: rotting meat gave rise to flies. The same with moldy grain,
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  Speaker 1: uh giving life to um mice. Generally, people thought that
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  Speaker 1: there was a life force that could spontaneously produce life,
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  Speaker 1: and that some some inanimate objects were associated with giving
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  Speaker 1: rise to certain animate objects. Right, And that was the
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  Speaker 1: case in North America. They I don't know that, right,
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  Speaker 1: but in eighteen sixty four Louis Pasteur definitively proved that
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  Speaker 1: there was no life force that gave rise to um life,
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  Speaker 1: that if you put a if you sterilized a broth
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  Speaker 1: and put it in a flask and kept it sterile,
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  Speaker 1: life didn't spontaneously originate there. So he definitively disproved it.
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  Speaker 1: So if people did think that the Native Americans in
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  Speaker 1: North and South America and Central America did spontaneously generate,
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  Speaker 1: Pasteur approved that that wouldn't have happened. So there's last
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  Speaker 1: the question where in the name of God did these
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  Speaker 1: people come from? How long had they been there? That's
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  Speaker 1: an awesome question. I love this article. I thought it
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  Speaker 1: was really really interesting. Thanks the Clovis. Well, yes, that
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  Speaker 1: was the first theory that uh, well, not the first,
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  Speaker 1: but it was widely held for quite a while. Yeah. Um,
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  Speaker 1: actually in the couple first couple of decades. Actually in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen o six, I believe nineteen o eight, there's a
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  Speaker 1: terrible flood in southern New Mexico, and uh it killed
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of cattle, which in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen o eight and southern New Mexico cattle and people
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  Speaker 1: were on par um. And it also washed up a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of weird artifacts, a lot of weird um clear
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  Speaker 1: clearly Indian spearheads, arrowheads, that kind of thing. Was this
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  Speaker 1: in Clovis. It was near Clovise, Falsome, I believe was
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  Speaker 1: the first sight that they found. UM. So people started,
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  Speaker 1: you know, kind of collecting these things, and we're got
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  Speaker 1: out that you could find inexplicable or uncommon spearheads, Mexican spearheads,
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  Speaker 1: as it turns out, Yeah, the Clovis Point. Yes, that's
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  Speaker 1: that's not what it was called. Yet people were just like,
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  Speaker 1: look at this crazy thing. That's what I think they
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  Speaker 1: called it, right. Um. And then over the course of
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  Speaker 1: the next couple of decades, more and more um archaeological
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  Speaker 1: research was done. A guy named um Ridge Whitman. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and then es name Now he was just a dude
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  Speaker 1: in Mexico. Um, he found uh, one of these very
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  Speaker 1: characteristic spearheads in the bones of a bison. All right,
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  Speaker 1: So things are starting to come together. The the the
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  Speaker 1: tipping point is reached, as Malcolm Gladwell will put it,
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  Speaker 1: would put it in two. When the state of New
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  Speaker 1: Mexico was digging a highway and they started excavating near
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  Speaker 1: um Clovis and just found a whole trove of stuff, bones, spearheads,
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  Speaker 1: the whole, the whole shebang. Yeah, it really gave us
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  Speaker 1: a lot of info. And a guy who was excavating nearby,
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  Speaker 1: Dr Edgar Edgar B. Howard, he was excavating for mammoth
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  Speaker 1: bones in a cave nearby. We'll see the guy that
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  Speaker 1: was all mad because they moved the spear points. That
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  Speaker 1: was a different guy that had happened about ten years earlier.
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  Speaker 1: You tell them about that because that's significant, kind of
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  Speaker 1: like it demonstrates the mentality that's going on at the time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they found some spear points and I guess they picked
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  Speaker 1: it up or something, which is like a crime scene.
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  Speaker 1: You're not supposed touch anything, evidently, and he came up
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  Speaker 1: on the scene and he started, you know, he pitched
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  Speaker 1: hissy fit. Because it's out of context now, it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: really tell us that much. It was and and pretty
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: much the guy who ruled on whether or not um
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  Speaker 1: archaeological evidence was archaeological evidence. I can't remember his name,
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  Speaker 1: but he worked for this Smithsonian as a physical anthropologist.
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  Speaker 1: He said, sorry, they touched it. I didn't see it.
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  Speaker 1: It could have been placed there. I'm not accepting it,
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  Speaker 1: but they found something later and left it intact right
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  Speaker 1: right years later? Yeah, then this is this is when
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  Speaker 1: all of it starts to take off in nineteen thirty two, right. So,
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden they figure out that this, these
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  Speaker 1: spear points have never been seen before anywhere else. They
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  Speaker 1: have no idea where these things came from. They just
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  Speaker 1: knew they were very, very old because like the bison
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  Speaker 1: bones that they were found within, it was an extinct
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  Speaker 1: bison and had been an extinct about some thousand years.
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  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it's becoming clear that these people
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  Speaker 1: pre date any settlement that we'd been aware of or
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  Speaker 1: known as Native American or Paleo Indians. Look at you, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: well I have a minor in anthropology, of course. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And so all of a sudden people are saying, okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: these Clovis were the first Americans. And in the fifties
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  Speaker 1: when radio radiocarbon dating came about, that that proved definitively
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  Speaker 1: that these people were old as old as you would think.
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  Speaker 1: Eleven thousand two years ago is what they dated at. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and how do you do that? Chuck with radiocarbon dating.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Well, what they do is they actually take
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  Speaker 1: soil samples, right, and the soil strategy. Right, they measured
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  Speaker 1: that the age of the carbon isotopes sea fort teen
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  Speaker 1: carbon isotopes present in the soil around the artifact, right,
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  Speaker 1: And the artifacts have to be laid out in a
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  Speaker 1: certain way, like there can't be evidence that it was
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  Speaker 1: buried humans when we make a camp or when we
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  Speaker 1: did twelve thousand and ten thousand years ago, when we
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  Speaker 1: made a camp and just left it, they were very
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  Speaker 1: telltale signs, right, So things weren't buried, they're just kind
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  Speaker 1: of laid about what was going on there when they
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  Speaker 1: were extinct or whatever. So if there, if that's how
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  Speaker 1: this site is presented, then you can measure the soil
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  Speaker 1: and say, okay, well the carbon isotopes in the soil
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  Speaker 1: are eleven thousand years old. That means that this site
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  Speaker 1: was above ground and just left eleven thousand years ago. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So that proved that the Clovis were around eleven thousand
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  Speaker 1: two years ago, right, yes, which is old and definitely
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  Speaker 1: pre Native American. So how did they get here? Well,
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  Speaker 1: the Clovis first camp, which was it sounds to me
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  Speaker 1: like they're a very angry bunch of people. They eventually,
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  Speaker 1: at least they came to be called the Clovis Police.
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  Speaker 1: Ye like that name, yea? Or what was the I
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  Speaker 1: wonder if the Clovis, New Mexico Police like it, but
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  Speaker 1: they're like, that's us or the Clovis Barrier. They created
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: this Clovis Barrier. Basically, anybody who had any other competing
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  Speaker 1: theory or idea was an idiot, and they had lockdown
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  Speaker 1: on on the academic view of the origin of life
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  Speaker 1: in North America. So, getting back to your question, where
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: did they come from and how did they get there?
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  Speaker 1: The general theory was that they basically walked during the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the ice Age, which I can't imagine living
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  Speaker 1: during an ice age? Could you imagine? Like crossing the
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  Speaker 1: Bearing was it called the Bearing Straight Bridge, the Bearing
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  Speaker 1: Land Bridge, the Bearing Land Bridge? How they got here supposedly,
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  Speaker 1: which is only about a mile wide and is now
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  Speaker 1: beneath the ocean of the Bearing Straight and that that's
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  Speaker 1: how they migrated from Siberia to I guess what would
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  Speaker 1: be like Canada in Alaska in Alaska and then found
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  Speaker 1: their way down to eventually the southeastern United States and
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  Speaker 1: because of that um, so they walked here. There was
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  Speaker 1: actually a very very brief as far as the timeline
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  Speaker 1: of history goes, there's a very brief moment in history
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  Speaker 1: where the bearing Land Bridge was exposed and where the
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  Speaker 1: Laurentide ice sheet that covers like northern Canada and Alaska
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  Speaker 1: did at the time was receided enough to to allow
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  Speaker 1: passage between it and a nearby glacier. Can you imagine
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  Speaker 1: how scary that was? Though? I imagine it was kind
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  Speaker 1: of scary, but it was only a mile wide. Though,
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  Speaker 1: it's not like it wasn't a pleasure walk. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a stroll. No. But and and you raise a good
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  Speaker 1: question like why would you do that? Why? Food? Food,
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  Speaker 1: Mastodon baby, your favorite band, the cloth mastodon and the
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  Speaker 1: wooly mammoth. That was the theory is that they were
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  Speaker 1: dependent and on these animals as they're one of their
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  Speaker 1: soul sources of meat. I guess right. It was very
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  Speaker 1: clear based just on their spear points in their arrowheads.
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  Speaker 1: The clothes were extremely advanced big game hunters. Yeah, they
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  Speaker 1: were hafted, which I had to look that up. It's
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  Speaker 1: actually when they attach um something to a handle. So
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  Speaker 1: it's either attached to a bow or a spear shaft,
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  Speaker 1: axe handle, and that means you can throw it, yes,
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  Speaker 1: or shoot it, which is how you need to kill
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  Speaker 1: a mammoth. You can't just walk up to it and
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  Speaker 1: stab it. You also need a lot of coordination, planning,
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  Speaker 1: cooperation to take down a mammoth, the mastodon, or one
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  Speaker 1: of these extinct bison. And also I read um the
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  Speaker 1: point was made like they were definitely big game hunters,
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  Speaker 1: but they they would take small game two or medium
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  Speaker 1: sized game like deer, antelope or whatever. That's what I wondered,
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  Speaker 1: because they've made a big point about the fact that
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons they may have become extinct was
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  Speaker 1: that the mammoth and masodon were over overhunted. Chuck, you
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  Speaker 1: have just brought everything to the four the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis. Yes, Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: what this is and this is one of the reasons
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  Speaker 1: why the Clovis barrier was so supported and so able
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  Speaker 1: to just lock down academia. Um, it was because it
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  Speaker 1: it was a cautionary tale about ecological collapse. Right, But
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  Speaker 1: I just I don't get that not every animal. They
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  Speaker 1: couldn't have overhunted every animal just because they overhunted the
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  Speaker 1: masodon in the mammoth, why not skip down to the
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  Speaker 1: lower smaller animals. That's that's an excellent point. That's something
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  Speaker 1: that that's that's a quite and that hasn't been satisfied
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  Speaker 1: by or wasn't satisfied by the Clovis police. They basically
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  Speaker 1: were saying, the Clovis came down from they came across
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  Speaker 1: the land bridge from Siberia down through North America, got
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  Speaker 1: to the Great Plains, over hunted the masted on the bison,
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  Speaker 1: and followed them around and um kill them off and
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  Speaker 1: eventually that led to the the extinction of their own kind.
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  Speaker 1: Because the what's really interesting and curious about the Clovis
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  Speaker 1: is they appear out of nowhere in North America and
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  Speaker 1: actually like South and eastern North America and clearly New Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: And over the period of five years, they pop up
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  Speaker 1: out of nowhere and they disappear into the ether. They
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  Speaker 1: just show up and they're gone. There's no evidence of
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  Speaker 1: any technology leading up to them, like you can't see
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  Speaker 1: a progression of fluted spearheads that show like these people
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  Speaker 1: are figuring out how to make the Clovis point. And
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: then you don't see any refining of it or continuation
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of it after this five year period. So these people
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: like if you're if you're looking at it just on
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the timeline of history and archaeologically, they pop up in
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the middle of North America out of nowhere and then
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: just disappear. Pretty cool. Yeah, I mean maybe they were alien.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It's entirely possible. There was another theory though about why
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they may have vanished, the Clovis comment theory. It's also
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: called the Younger Driest impact event. And this is just
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a few years old. Um. Some people theorized that a
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: comet exploded above the Earth's atmosphere around the Great Lakes
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: and basically caught most of North America on fire, sweet
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and not only killed the mastodon in the Mammoth, but
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the Clovis. And there's a little bit of evidence of this.
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  Speaker 1: They found a charred, carbon rich layer of soil at
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: fifty different Clovis age sites, and it contained a bunch
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of unusual stuff in it that they interpreted as like
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: an impact event. Is that the scientific term for that stuff?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And unusual materials? Yeah, like like what unusual materials? Don't
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: ask me that? Like stuff that you would find in
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a comet. Uh, stuff that would indicate there was an
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: impact event. I guess, like a meteor impact landing stuff
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: like that. That's awesome, but that's been refuted to Like,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you know, that's why I love all this stuff. There's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: all these theories that makes sense, and then some other
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: person comes along and pokes holes in it, and then
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you're back at square one. All right. So, but that's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: not how it went with the Clovis barrier. Like it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was fact, as far as anybody was concerned, you had
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: radio carbon dating, you had um no other evidence of
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of any earlier settlement in North in the America's at all, um,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and any anybody who put forth a hypothesis other than
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: that with pooh pooed. And they were very successful at
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: controlling the origin of life in North America or in
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the America's for several decades, and then they gave it
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: up and became scientologists, right yeah, um, until that was
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the end of the Clovis first the Yeah, sadly,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe not, because really the whole reason that you're looking,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the whole reason you're spending decades excavating a single site,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: is to find out the truth like, we have to
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: know who is first, We have to know See I'm
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: not I'm not in that camp. I know you made
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a point your article. That's not really that important. Who
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was first? Is that? It wasn't that just like such
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a hippie end liked it though. It's like afterwards, yeah,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: we should respect the Clovis man just because they weren't first.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: They gave us the halted fluted spear. Yeah. I was
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: listening to uh hands across America the whole time I
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was writing this. So are we going to down south?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Let's go down south, chuck to Monte Bade. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that wasn't well. One of the early theories of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Clovis is that they migrated from south to north. No,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: north to south. They came down originally, but didn't didn't.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: They later go on to say, but wait, it looks
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: like they went from south to north. That's what Monte
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Verity did. There was a University of Kentucky arch ologist
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: named Tom Delahey who dedicated uh twenty five years of
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: his life to a single settlement in Chili outside of
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Monteverde Chili. What a loser, But this guy managed to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: quietly and methodically destroy the Clovis first theory. And even better,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: he brought the Clovis police down to Chili after he
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: presented his final findings and said, yeah they were. That
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was a sad day for the Clovist police, I think
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: it was. And to turn in their badges and their
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: uniforms and their little billy clubs. They all retired and
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: went fishing in Florida. So what happened, Chuck? What did
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: what did de la Haye find in monte Verda. Well,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: he found, uh, he found he found that predated him.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Irrefutable evidence is another way to put it. Well, that's
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the non cursing way to put it. So you want
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to know what they found? Yes, they found hers of
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: wood with knotted strings attached, which was no accident. It
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: meant that a human being uh tied some string around it. Well,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: not only that, they also found um left over, masted
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: on flesh preserved. This is what mont Inverty is just so,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this is how archaeology advances by leaps and bounds by accident.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Mont Inverty um the site is a bog um, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: it actually preserved. This would string masted on flesh preserved
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: it beautifully. Um because it's an oxygen depleted environment and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it was twelve thousand, five years old. That's what radiocarbon
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: dating showed. So first of all, you have the fact that, um,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it's clearly these hearts, these um, the nodded string, all
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: this stuff. It was clearly presented in a way that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: this was a settlement. It was a camp. They estimated
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it housed like people. Um, even like the tent pegs
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: are left in the ground. That's pretty cool. So it
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't buried, right, it was just left. And then when
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the radiocarbon dating proved that, yeah, it was twelve years old,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: so they had a good millennium on the Clovis. It
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: still doesn't answer how they got there. No, it doesn't.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it raises even more questions
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: because what what the Clovis police said was well, okay,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that's fine, that's fine, we'll give you monte verity jerk.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Here here's the This is one thing that was never
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: addressed with the Clovis by the Clovis police is why
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: weren't there any evidence of Clovis settlements along the way
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: from uh Siberia to Canada Alaska the Great Planes. There
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: aren't any because if you come across. If you come
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: down Alaska and Canada into North America, you had the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Great Plains and brother, there was really good hunting around
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: there ten thousand years ago. You're gonna have campsites, You're
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: going to have some evidence. There was nothing like we
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: said that. It is totally possible. I think that's how
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the Clovis first theory was able to stand for so long,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: is because maybe we just haven't found it yet. Whatever.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: But this monte verity theory turns it on its ear
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: because instead of from north to south, it suggests they
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: went from south to north and it was years older. Yes,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: but I like your theory of how they got here.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It's not a theory. It's not my theory. It's a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it's a hypothesis that other people have suggested as well.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Because the same thing happened uh in Australia, right, yeah,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: well possibly, Uh think about it. Australia has been a continent,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: unattached continent for fifty million years. Uh. They believe archaeologists
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: anthropologists believe that um, the Aborigines in Australia got there
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about sixty thousand years ago, which means they would have
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: had to have parachuted in or come by boat or swam. Yeah.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I think boats there most plausible, and islands along the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: way that you could stage and uh, you can island
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: hop over there. I mean, there's some pretty horrible journeys
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: along the way, but it's entirely possible. And the theory
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: is that that could have the same thing could have
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: happened to the the folks in mont ver day it's
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: true or the other. The other way to look at
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it is there's a lot of people who still believe
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that they came from the north to south migration pattern,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: but that they just came a lot earlier, so they
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: went north to south and then back up. Okay, that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: makes sense, it does. Um. The fly in that ointment
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: is this there's another site found at Monte Verity that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: is being excavated. Now I'm pretty sure delah Haye was like,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I'm out, I'm out, I did my thing where you
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: guys take this over. Yeah, but they found another camp
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: nearby or evidence of more human activity nearby that's dated
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to about thirty thirty three thousand years ago, which turns
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: this on it here. Yes, so does that hold to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the theory of the waves of migration that you were
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: talking about in the article. Um, I don't know. I
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: don't know. I think that I've also heard there's a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: lot of um archaeological sites that are under water right now.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: They're sure because you know, once the ice ages ended,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the water levels rose, and who knows, what's you know
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: underwater along our coasts and there could be definitive evidence
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that they came by boat. We have no idea. Ultimately,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: we just know that the Clovis weren't the first people here,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: although they and how they they left, why why they vanished,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: still don't know. It's it's very interesting, but there there was.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It looks like people in Chile thirty three thousand years ago. Wow,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: which goes to prove Columbus did not discover America. Full circle.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: What does this all have to do with me and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you living here in Atlanta today? Nothing on Clovis ground. Yeah,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with us. That where they
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in Georgia? They said Southeast and and Carolina. So we're
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: just a couple of slobs here in two thousand nine. Ah. Yeah,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And you ask, really there other than the pursuit of knowledge,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: other than the pursuit of definitive truth, it really doesn't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: apply to us. But it is fascinating, and there's not
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to say that it's not. I think you could argue
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that all of archaeology is I'm not saying pointless, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: because I think it's fascinating. But what are you doing
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: besides trying to find the truth? And there's value in that. Sure,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: there's definite value in it. But it's not like they're
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: gonna find some ancient cure for cancer. Or will they.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll find out. They'll keep digging into
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the meantime, because I gotta tell you, Chuck, most archaeologists
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: could care less what you and I think about their field. No,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get some emails about this. Well, since
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I just said most archaeologs just could care less, that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: means it's time, Chuck for Oh yeah, if you want
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to read this article, you can type Clovis into the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: handy search bart how stuff worst dot com, which now
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: means it's time for listener mail. So Josh, before we
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: have listener mail, Okay, we want to talk about something
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: we're excited about. I'm excited about a lot of stuff.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have to specify. Don't switch off your podcast.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Your people, this is really good. H you were call
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: during the micro lending episode. Sure, we talk about an
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: awesome website Kiva dot org k I v A and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that is where you can donate money twenty five dollar
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: minimum to satisfy these micro loans for needy people all
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: over the world, needy entrepreneurs, needy entrepreneurs. Yes, it's not yet,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it's not. It's not a charity like you're you're going
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to fund their enterprises. So if you haven't listened to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: that episode, give it a listen. And we found out
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: through Kiva you could start a team. And then we
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: started searching around and found out the mark as a
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: team to mark as a team, A lot of corporations,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: being in bisexuals have a team. Sure, who else, Well,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the Colbert Nation, Stephen Colbert has a team. Oh that's right.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And we saw that and we thought, hey, they're lame.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: They're not raising much money. No, there's like a hundred
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: members last time I checked, and they've raised like sixth grade,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: which I guess is pretty good for a hundred members.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: But I think we can top that. We could definitely
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: top that. And we have people that right in and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: talk about the fact this is a free podcast, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: they wish there was something they could do. Well. Now
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you can go to Kiva dot org join the Stuff
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: you Should Know team under a community. Uh, sign up
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and join the team and start donating, and we can
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: start satisfying some of these loans. I love satisfying things.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And we'll we'll keep up with this through the blog
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and kind of let people know and how many loans
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: we've satisfied. And we're gonna keep our eye out for Colbert. Yeah,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: this is not gonna be some throwaway poo poo idea that,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: like you know, we came up with and forgot about,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Like Colbert, We're in this for the long run. Boom.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: We're gonna put it on the blog and uh, we
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: want the Stuff you Should Know Team to to satisfy
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: these loans. And you can get paid back. That's a
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: cool thing. You can give fifty bucks and if you want,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you can Once a loan is repaid, you can get
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that money back. Yeah. You can take it and run
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: or buy some donuts with it, or you can reinvest it,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: or you can just donate it to the Kiva Foundation
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: as a whole. Either way, you're helping people in the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: developing world again fund their own enterprises, uh in a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: in an effort to become self sufficient for a lousy bucks. Plus,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you're like a hair's breadth away from Mohammed Junius, right,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's right there next to you. So go
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to Keeva dot org check out the stuff he should know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: team and join up and we're gonna keep up with
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: it on the blog and through the podcast, and we
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: will shame you if you haven't joined. Chuck, this is
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: a great idea. Thank you. It was a really good idea, man.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: All right. So now listener, mail, I'm gonna just do
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this one since we're short on time. This you ask
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: people to write in UM after the Bhutan Gross National Happiness. Yeah,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: we've gotten a lot of good responses from that. Everybody.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Everyone who's written in has this nice, mellow, even keeled
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to me. Nobody has been like help me, especially this guy.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I like Chris. Chris says h in answer to your
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: request for someone who has left the rat race of
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the American money Chase, I think I qualify. I live
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: on a commune, he says, in a commune. I also
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: thought it was on. He lives in a commune and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: files taxes under the I R S Code five O
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: one D, which I don't even know what that is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I've only heard of five on three. It sounds like
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: some sort of a hippie thing. Yeah, I've lived in
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: this commune with my wife for close to fifteen years.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Before moving in, I grew up in another commune whose
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: income was solely based on donations. So all in all,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: you could say I've always lived with a yearly salary
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: under ten thousand dollars. Am I happy? I'd say yes.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I find lots of ways to have fun and live
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: hand to mouth. You never really know what you can
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: live without until you read Your Life of Stuff. When
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I host visitors at our place, it pretty much blows
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: people's minds. My wife and I take up three rooms
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: in our building. We try to make the most of
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: our space and not hang onto extra books, clothes, et cetera.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: For too long. Your Show and Happiness and Money, Your
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: show on Happiness of Money asked some good questions my
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: regular listener, and and he signed off, Peace Chris, Chris,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So you left out as Michelle's Shock quote, he has
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: a quote from singer songwriter Michelle Shock, who apparently once said,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: if you ever want to if you ever want an adventure,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: live without cash? So true, that is an adventure. Yeah, well,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: thanks for it in Chris dirty Hippie. Thank you to
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: everybody who took time to write in about dropping out
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of there at race or just never joining in some cases.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Um and uh, let's see, Chuck, do you want to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: hear about anything specific from people for this week? Now?
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I want people to go to kiva dot org and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: join our team. Yeah, how about that? Why don't you
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: right in and let us know if you've joined, if
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you see anybody that you think, uh, we should focus
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: our attention on. Let's let's do all things Kiva this week.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Send it in an email to me and Chuck and
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Jerry at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com
• 29:42
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• 29:44
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