From the University of South Carolina – PNAS: Topper site in middle of comet controversy
By Peggy Binette, USC
Did a massive comet explode over Canada 12,900 years ago, wiping out both beast and man in North America and propelling the earth back into an ice age?
That’s a question that has been hotly debated by scientists since 2007, with the University of South Carolina’s Topper archaeological site right in the middle of the comet impact controversy. However, a new study published today (Sept.17) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides further evidence that it may not be such a far-fetched notion.
Albert Goodyear, an archaeologist in USC’s College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-author on the study that upholds a 2007 PNAS study by Richard Firestone, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Firestone found concentrations of spherules (micro-sized balls) of metals and nano-sized diamonds in a layer of sediment dating 12,900 years ago at 10 of 12 archaeological sites that his team examined. The mix of particles is thought to be the result of an extraterrestrial object, such as a comet or meteorite, exploding in the earth’s atmosphere. Among the sites examined was USC’s Topper, one of the most pristine U.S. sites for research on Clovis, one of the earliest ancient peoples.
“This independent study is yet another example of how the Topper site with its various interdisciplinary studies has connected ancient human archaeology with significant studies of the Pleistocene,” said Goodyear, who began excavating Clovis artifacts in 1984 at the Topper site in Allendale, S.C. “It’s both exciting and gratifying.”
Younger-Dryas is what scientists refer to as the period of extreme cooling that began around 12,900 years ago and lasted 1,300 years. While that brief ice age has been well-documented – occurring during a period of progressive solar warming after the last ice age – the reasons for it have long remained unclear. The extreme rapid cooling that took place can be likened to the 2004 sci-fi blockbuster movie “The Day After Tomorrow.”
Firestone’s team presented a provocative theory: that a major impact event – perhaps a comet – was the catalyst. His copious sampling and detailed analysis of sediments at a layer in the earth dated to 12,900 years ago, also called the Younger-Dryas Boundary (YDB), provided evidence of micro-particles, such as iron, silica, iridium and nano-diamonds. The particles are believed to be consistent with a massive impact that could have killed off the Clovis people and the large North American animals of the day. Thirty-six species, including the mastodon, mammoth and saber-toothed tiger, went extinct.
The scientific community is rarely quick to accept new theories. Firestone’s theory and support for it dominated the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union and other gatherings of Paleoindian archaeologists in 2007 and 2008.
However, a 2009 study led by University of Wyoming researcher Todd Surovell failed to replicate Firestone’s findings at seven Clovis sites, slowing interest and research progress to a glacial pace. This new PNAS study refutes Surovell’s findings with its lack of reported evidence.
“Surovell’s work was in vain because he didn’t replicate the protocol. We missed it too at first. It seems easy, but unless you follow the protocol rigorously, you will fail to detect these spherules. There are so many factors that can disrupt the process. Where Surovell found no spherules, we found hundreds to thousands,” said Malcolm LeCompte, a research associate professor at Elizabeth City State University and lead author of the newly released PNAS article.
LeCompte began his independent study in 2008 using and further refining Firestone’s sampling and sorting methods at two sites common to the three studies: Blackwater Draw in New Mexico and Topper. He also took samples at Paw Paw Cove in Maryland, a site common to Surovell’s study.
At each site he found the same microscopic spherules, which are the diameter of a human hair and distinct in appearance. He describes their look as tiny black ball bearings with a marred surface pattern that resulted from being crystalized in a molten state and then rapidly cooled. His investigation also confirmed that the spherules were not of cosmic origin but were formed from earth materials due to an extreme impact.
LeCompte said it was Topper and Goodyear’s collaboration, however, that yielded the most exciting results.
“What we had at Topper and nowhere else were pieces of manufacturing debris from stone tool making by the Clovis people. Topper was an active and ancient quarry at the time,” LeCompte said. “Al Goodyear was instrumental in our approach to getting samples at Topper.”
Goodyear showed LeCompte where the Clovis level was in order to accurately guide his sampling of sediments for the Younger Dryas Boundary layer. He advised him to sample around Clovis artifacts and then to carefully lift them to test the sediment directly underneath.
“If debris was raining down from the atmosphere, the artifacts should have acted as a shield preventing spherules from accumulating in the layer underneath. It turns out it really worked!” Goodyear said. “There were up to 30 times more spherules at and just above the Clovis surface than beneath the artifacts.”
LeCompte said the finding is “critical and what makes the paper and study so exciting. The other sites didn’t have artifacts because they weren’t tool-making quarries like Topper.”
While the comet hypothesis and its possible impact on Clovis people isn’t resolved, Goodyear said this independent study clarifies why the Surovell team couldn’t replicate the Firestone findings and lends greater credibility to the claim that a major impact event happened at the Younger Dryas Boundary 12,900 years ago.
“The so-called extra-terrestrial impact hypothesis adds to the mystery of what happened at the YDB with its sudden and unexplained reversion to an ice age climate, the rapid and seemingly simultaneous loss of many Pleistocene animals, such as mammoths and mastodons, as well as the demise of what archaeologists call the Clovis culture,” Goodyear said. “There’s always more to learn about the past, and Topper continues to function as a portal to these fascinating mysteries.”
Goodyear joined USC’s College of Arts and Sciences and its South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology in 1974 to pursue prehistoric archaeology.
The Topper story
Albert Goodyear, who conducts research through the University of South Carolina’s S.C. Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology, began excavating Clovis artifacts along the Savannah River in Allendale County in 1984. It quickly became one of the most documented and well-known Clovis sites in the United States. In 1998, with the hope of finding evidence of a pre-Clovis culture earlier than the accepted 13,100 years, Goodyear began focused excavations on a site called Topper, located on the property of the Clariant Corp.
His efforts paid off. Goodyear unearthed small tools such as scrapers and blades made of the local chert that he believed to be tools of an ice age culture back some 16,000 years or more. His findings, as well as similar ones yielded at other pre-Clovis sites in North America, sparked great change and debate in the scientific community.
Goodyear reasoned that if Clovis and later peoples used the chert quarry along the Savannah River, the quarry could have been used by even earlier cultures.
Acting on a hunch in 2004, Goodyear dug even deeper into the Pleistocene terrace and found more artifacts of a pre-Clovis type buried in a layer of sediment stained with charcoal deposits. Radiocarbon dates of the burnt plant remains yielded ages of 50,000 years, which suggested man was in South Carolina long before the last ice age.
Goodyear’s findings not only captured international media attention, but it has put the archaeology field in flux, opening scientific minds to the possibility of an even earlier pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas.
Since 2004, Goodyear has continued his Clovis and pre-Clovis excavations at Topper. With support of Clariant Corp. and SCANA, plus numerous individual donors, an expansive shelter and viewing deck now sit above the dig site to allow Goodyear and his team of graduate students and public volunteers to dig free from the heat and rain and to protect what may be the most significant early-man dig in America.
The Topper timeline
1998 Goodyear and his team dig to a meter below the Clovis level and encounter unusual stone tools up to 2 meters below the surface.
1999 Team of outside geologists visit Topper site and propose a thorough geological study of the location.
2000 Geological study done is by consultants; ice age sediment is confirmed for pre-Clovis artifacts.
2001 Geologists revisit Topper and obtain ancient plant remains deep in the Pleistocene terrace. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates sediment above ice-age strata show pre-Clovis is at least older than 14,000 years.
2002 Geologists find new profile showing ancient sediment lying between Clovis and pre-Clovis, confirming the age of ice age sediment layer between 16,000 – 20,000 years.
2003 Archaeologists continue to excavate pre-Clovis artifacts above the Pleistocene terrace. New and significant Clovis artifacts are found.
2004 Goodyear discovers major Clovis occupation on the hillside. Additionally, radiocarbon dates for sediment associated with pre-Clovis artifacts come back at 50,000 years.
2005 “Clovis in the Southeast” conference held in Columbia, S.C., with tours of Topper and Big Pine Tree sites.
2006 The 3,500-square-foot roofed structure is built over pre-Clovis excavations.
2007 Firestone study about a possible Clovis comet is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, including evidence from Clovis age sediments from Topper.
2008 PBS “Time Team America” spends a week at Topper filming for an hour-long television special devoted to Topper.
2008 SCETV broadcast of “Finding Clovis,” a public television presentation of Topper Clovis. 2009 PBS “Time Team America” program airs.
2011 Topper and Big Pine Tree included in a study of post-Clovis Paleoindian decline/reorganization that is published in the journal “Quaternary International.”
2011 The first permanent exhibit of Topper artifacts installed at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie.
2012 Independent study of micro-spherules related to an extra-terrestrial impact hypothesis is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences using Clovis-age sediments from Topper that confirm the original 2007 Firestone study.
2013 The pre-Clovis occupation of Topper will be presented in October at the international conference on the peopling of the Americas, titled “Paleoamerican Odyssey,” in Santa Fe, N.M. http://www.paleoamericanodyssey.com/
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h/t to Dennis Wingo
AGF
By polar shift, I’m speculating that the north pole was in north eastern Greenland prior to 12900 years ago and the comet storm shifted enough mass to move the pole to its current location.
Nature abhors a vacuum. We live within a quarter mile of the Station Fire burn so I get to appreciate nature’s recovery. Shortly after, we had birds that don’t normally live at our area but now they are all gone as vegetation revives up in the mountains. Even if the center of the continent was scorched clean in an hour, there would be growth and repopulation by the grasses and burrowing animals within a few years. We lose perception of time and how fast nature recovers. There would be refuges in the mountains whether the Rockies or the Appalachians where the bigger animals would have survived the blast just like forest fires will skip some canyons where animals take refuge. Not all of the mammoths and giant ground sloths would have perished but they do have slow reproductive cycles compared to the smaller animals. Yes, you can blame man for finishing them off as large game feeds the tribe with less effort. There was no mass migration from the Siberia down to the America but a few surviving tribes of mammoth hunter fleeing south from the now frozen lands they once had hunted on. What did they hunt there? Mammoths, so you would expect them to go after the bigger game once they got south. How many generations would it take before they finished off the few mammoths that survived? Not many. Once they are gone, the next biggest would do. Others would go extinct for lack of mates. The last giant ground sloth didn’t perish until 800 years ago IIRC.
Chuck Forward
Paul Marko says:
September 23, 2012 at 6:30 pm
One of the more serious problems with this mass extinction scenario is that more animals are supposed to have been killed than the land could possibly support at any given time. It’s like saying all our fossil fuels were created by a K/T like event. A less silly interpretation is that over tens of thousands of years mammoths that grazed on ice growing moss often slipped and fell into crevasses where they were preserved till the ice melted. Others, along with the rhinos, are killed when rivers flood, and occasionally get buried in the permafrost.
You are the one who needs to educate himself–you have been fed on creationist nonsense where C14 dates are ignored or discounted. Moving ice collects mammoths just like it collects meteorites, and many of the carcasses are much older than the YD. Furthermore, mammoths survived on Wrangel island till 3700BP precisely because it took that long for humans to arrive.
–AGF
agfosterjr says:
September 24, 2012 at 7:15 am
The “Muck” deposits of Siberia and Alaska that contain the frozen fauna and vegetation consists primarily of unstratified loess. The large ice inclusions and lenses are not contiguous. The ice is saline and not of glacial origin. There are no fissures or crevices associated or noted. The areal extent of the deposit across two continents precludes a landslide origin. Nothing in its texture or stratification suggests lateral or horizontal movement. The areal extent, content, and lack of stratification of the deposit indicates a common mode of deposition unassociated with fluvial or marine processes. This leaves few options when one takes into account the preservation of both fauna and flora incased where quick freezing has been documented.
The concern with C14 dating is the result of divergent dates from the same mammoth:.
Russia Dima – 8 month old male, 26,000 RCY and 40,000 RCY; Alaska – two males, same deposit, 16,150 RCY and 22,850 RCY; Alaska – 6 month old, 15,380 RCY and 21,300 RCY. It would appear this needs additional work.
If there is good evidence, not from a model, then more research would be a good idea.
If there is good evidence, not from a model, then more research would be a good idea.
As in, replicate this particular 20 to 50 micrometer spherical melt quench fraction of the magnetic microspherule fraction for further soil samples from in and around any definitively dated Younger Dryas Boundary sediments, from anywhere in the world, or even just in North America. Preferably without any of the previous collaborators on the team – a completely fresh look at these things.
I’d like to see more ultra precise nanoprobe isotope analysis of a larger variety of these objects if they are demonstrated to be genuine markers from the dated sediments of that era and not anomalous in some manner. They seem to be the easiest to both extract and work with.
It’s quite possible they may have just reached the detection threshold for moderately size impacts such that Corossol crater in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or Charity Sholes or any number of smaller and newly discovered craters could be viable candidates. Certainly these are not climate reversing impacts. To do that the only hypothesized location would be south of Nipigon, and even then the climate reversal would be hydraulic and not atmospheric, although any ozone collapse could have exacerbated the multiple stresses that the megafauna were already experiencing.
Paul Marko says:
September 24, 2012 at 11:54 pm
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You continue to lump everything together as if due to a single catastrophe, and to make very questionable assertions. Sue Bishop writes: “Their ages fall into two main groups, one ranging in age from 45,000 years to 30,000 years and a smaller number of remains from 14-11,000 years old.” (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html)
Nor is there any evidence for quick freezing, nor could there be–this fairy tale is getting pretty old now. And what’s this “saline ice” you mentioned. I never heard of such a thing.
Finding carcasses of different C14 ages in the same cache is precisely what refutes your catastrophe hypothesis, and your approach is to kill the messenger (C14). Like I described, animals from different ages are collected by the ice, and of course the killer crevasses are long gone. It’s time you recognized that Velikovsky was a crackpot.
Thomas Lee Elifritz says:
September 25, 2012 at 9:30 am
“…although any ozone collapse could have exacerbated the multiple stresses that the megafauna were already experiencing.”
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No end of disasters! Meaning climate stresses presumably, which stresses never affect the little critters, not worth hunting. At least these climate stresses involve peer reviewed nonsense, somewhat more acceptable than creationist nonsense. But really size discriminating climate stresses are just as silly as size discriminating comets and ozone holes. It was good to be small then. –AGF
agfosterjr says:
September 25, 2012 at 10:44 am
The listed carbon dating documents the occurrence of widely different C14 dates acquired from the same Mammoths. This is a problem that clouds the water regarding dating.
Russian research determined that the only definitive cause of death for the Mammoths and Rhinos was asphyxiation. Their mouths and air passages contained sand, small gravel and clay particles derived from an airborne source. Their small blood vessels and capillaries were gorged with coagulated blood, an occurrence used to distinguish asphyxia from drowning. Some of their mouths also contained freshly cropped, perfectly preserved grasses, bean pods and flowers that they had no time to swallow. It is not reasonable that these animals had their last meal foraging on the barren surface of a glacier.
Frozen Mammoths have been noted in the literature since the early 1700’s, but most notably Tolmachoff (1929) in Russia and Hibben (1946) in Alaska. In addition, the Mammoths have been found associated with other animal assemblages, trees and vegetation strewn together and frozen. The “Muck” deposits and their frozen fauna assemblages have always provided a problem for uniformitarian proponents, but they have not been discounted by field research.
The ice associated with the “Muck” deposits is very granular, similar to compacted hail and air undersaturated compared to tiny granularity and air saturated glacial ice. The ice is described having large linear bubbles, unlike glacial ice, and dirt and plant material is prevalent and visual. The salinity is noted in the following:
“Cryohydrochemical Peculiarities of Ice Wedge Polygon Complexes in the North of Western Siberia,” Permafrost: Fourth International Conference Proceedings (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, July 17–22, 1983).
The “Muck” beds and their fauna and flora assemblages are an enigma deposited by no known or accepted geological process. Until further research provides an answer, nothing noted should be discounted.
Paul Marko says:
September 25, 2012 at 7:31 pm
The listed carbon dating documents the occurrence of widely different C14 dates acquired from the same Mammoths. This is a problem that clouds the water regarding dating.
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This is an outright falsehood perpetrated by a professional liar. If you take the trouble to check it out you’ll see.
“The “Muck” beds and their fauna and flora assemblages are an enigma deposited by no known or accepted geological process.”
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More nonsense. Your sources are an assemblage of know-nothings–don’t believe them. Arctic rivers routinely freeze up and ice dams form on a tremendous scale. This was especially true for Siberia during the last ice age which had no permanent ice cover, hence plenty of seasonal flooding. I don’t know how salt walter gets into the permafrost but I think a good geologist could come up with an explanation. And if mammoths died of starvation they stood little chance of being preserved–on the surface; those which died accidentally had food in their stomachs, and if they died in a flood the food would not be ice moss.
You use the label “uniformitarian” the way a Creationist does. Therefore I assume you attribute the mammoth deaths to Noah’s flood. Noah’s flood is a myth, as any good Bible scholar will tell you. The Genesis version is a conflation of two sources, J and P, J derived mainly from the Sumerian version and P from the Babylonian. That’s why it is so full of contradictions. The Sumerian retains traces of a regional flood while the P version is full blown universal. (Note that while Noah is still stuck on Mt. Ararat a dove is able to return with on olive twig–makes no sense.) The Hebrew word for ‘ark’ is ‘teva,’ which is only used otherwise of the basket that baby Moses was saved in. And in the Sumerian version Siusudra turns his reed hut upside down to make a boat out of it. Therefore ‘ark’ in the old J version means a contraption made of reeds–yet the J tradition assimilated the universal zoological salvation of the Babylonian version while still theologically independent of P: J has Noah distinguish between clean and unclean animals, which P considers impossible since the Torah had not yet been revealed.
Of course the most serious problem with the flood myth is the present distribution of species, which is proof in itself of Darwinian evolution. Or do you believe that Noah unloaded all the marsupials in Australia? So what I’m trying to tell you is there is nothing scientific about your approach to the problem, but in this the Creationists and Velikovskians have plenty of peer reviewed company. “Overkill” is the only reasonable explanation for the Pleistocene extinctions. –AGF
Agf
Even though this post has gone past the first page, I’m trying to figure out your beef? Are you stating that you do not buy any comet(s) impact theory at all or just tweaked that some use it as an excuse as to why man isn’t to blame for killing off the mega fauna? I agree with you that man is most like source of the extinctions but those extinctions were helped along by having a much smaller population of animals than otherwise should been present. If not, then how come all of the mega fauna of Africa and Asia have not met the same fate? Granted, the dim witted quadruped herbivores might have been easier prey but those that survive learn. It is surprising how many more deer habitat the safe zones of parks when hunting season opens.
Something big happened 12900 years ago that triggered a major cooling event. The evidence is building that something caused the black mat that extends across this continent, parts of Europe and down to Venezuela. My contention is a polar shift happened during that event that made lands which supported a large bio mass unsustainable today. It caused a geographical change (the Bering strait) that disrupted an ocean’s circulation pattern which contributes to making those lands uninhabitable.
Now comes to question, is hot really cold and cold really hot? Were the glacial epochs a period of great warmth and the interglacial times that we currently live in a period of cold? Is the warming we are experiencing the natural process of heading back into a glacial age (post the next 30 year minimum)? As I was taught back in the 70s, glaciers grow at altitude from warm moist conditions. Tropical plants could have existed next to the walls of melting ice on arctic shores if that was the case.
Chuck
agfosterjr says:
September 26, 2012 at 7:23 am
The dialog has moved off topic with certain assumptions related to a Biblical Flood and Creationism.
It’s possible that certain authors may have derived the wrong conclusions interpreting their observations. It’s also possible an author is fabricating the observation, data or conclusions – this website has had considerable experience in that regard. It’s the recorded observations, not the interpretations that are anomalous.
The critical anomalies are the quick frozen fauna and flora, saline rock ice, dismembered fauna, and shredded vegetation deposited in unstratified loess.
What’s missing is a unified geologic theory to explain the extinction, deposition and association of those assemblages.
Chuck, Africa experienced the fewest Pleistocene extinctions because humans and animals evolved together. As humans evolved hunting skills, animals, through a combination of evolved instinct and learning passed from one generation to the next, adapted to the new predator. Man evolved in and was adapted to a warm climate, and in Africa seems to have played a minor role compared to climate in animal population fluctuation and movement. To a lesser extent these factors held in temperate Eurasia. The first great extinctions occurred in Australia, about 40ky, when humans arrived. The next, when a combination of cold surviving technology and easy passage allowed for the colonization of the New World. The sudden meeting of predator and naive prey allowed for very rapid population growth and prey depletion that exceeded replenishment. Only the most northern animals survived: island mammoths, polar bears, and the small musk ox. The new arrivals only took centuries to wipe out the big game in South America as well.
So, it’s the suddenness of the encounter that matters. No meteor was involved in Australia in 40k BP, or in South America 12ky; why should we invoke such in North America? Who knows where these strange carbon nodules came from? Maybe impact, maybe not. How do we know a volcano didn’t do it? They never did before? Neither did a meteor.
As R G Brown indicated earlier, the notion that a meteor could cause a change in earth rotation is pretty far fetched. The core and Greenland ice can move the North Pole a few meters relative to the crust. Chandler wobble moves the crust itself a few meters in periods of about one and five years. But it’s been a long time since the planet had an impact big enough to affect its rotation. The K/T event probably did not. The impact that supposedly made the moon certainly would have. So no, I don’t believe you’ve done the math to support any polar shift, nor has anyone done good science to show a meteor can change the climate for a thousand years.
Paul, I repeat, there is no good evidence for quick freeziing mammoths–this is a creationist fairy tale. Check it out. These carcasses get pretty beat up after being dragged through the ice for thousands of years. That’s no evidence for a catastrophe. See if you can find me a reliable source for salt water getting into the permafrost. –AGF