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New Blog Software

2010-08-12T03:54:00-04:00

Well, I took the plunge, and moved on over back to a dynamic blog. I had way too many entries and tags for my previous software to handle in a timely fashion. The rest of the site is the same as before. I really like wikis and the amount of work needing doing to write something "non-bloggy".

I'm still working out kinks here and there, but it seems stable and very fast (and no PHP! :) ).

If you have issues with it, let me know in the comments.

Dead Whale in the Gulf of Mexico

2010-08-04T17:20:08-04:00

Some people found a dead whale...

This captain said (paraphrasing) : " There is always sea life caught in the ' U '... So before BP would set it alight, I would go in and pull out sea turtles, birds and other wildlife so it would not be burned to death. We'd start cleaning the animals onboard my boat, and when we got back to shore there were vets who would work on them further."

"Well, a couple weeks ago BP told me: 'hey listen, it is taking TOO MUCH TIME and COSTING US TOO MUCH MONEY for you to go in there to save some shit. So, we dont' want you around anymore.' So, they told me to get lost. And now they are BURNING ALL THE SEALIFE ALIVE IN THEIR PYRES!"

WARNING: very graphic images It's charred, burned. The PDF says "... from sun and heat..." - that's possible, but somehow I don't think that was the cause of death of this poor innocent whale.

18green_whale.pdf [PDF]

Medicine Wheel

2010-05-29T20:30:17-04:00

Sprituality, not religion!
“Newagers” and such
Native, but don’t know your culture?
“Medicine Wheel”

Re-posted from the wiki .

Sprituality, not religion!

It isn't a religion, it's spirituality, and it's very personal. We don't have books, churches, temples, or synagogues, or priests, like the settlers do. Also, it isn't "primal", whatever that means. We are animals, like every other human being is (being apes), but we're not 'savages'. So don't call us 'primitive', 'primal', or anything like that. That's just insulting. Look to your own ancient ways for guidance, not ours. Non-Natives using our traditions without knowledge or background is stealing, pure and simple. So seriously consider looking into your own old ways.

"Newagers" and such

In my opinion, one has to have both culture and ancestry to follow our ways (not talking about adoptions, that's another thing). So to me, if you're just stealing, especially when it's to "run sweat lodges", or some other scam, you might as leave and forget this web site, because I won't tolerate it. There are legitimate people who run real sweats, and know what they're doing, and have been taught the proper protocols and traditions. Only they are qualified to do sweats, or any other ceremony, if they have been taught that ceremony in the proper ways. Like I said, if you don't know, don't do it.

Native, but don't know your culture?

If you are a Native/Indigenous/First Nations/whatever person, who's looking for their culture, then talk to people in your community, your elders, and find out from them. You'll make them happy, and be sure to offer them tobacco first! That's one thing many Nations have in common, is that tobacco offering, in exchange for learning something. It's a sign of respect, it's an exchange, and shows the person you mean it. It's also a very spiritual and had a deep meaning to us. Ask around to learn your language, too. That's important. Your ancestors (very likely) might not understand English, French, Spanish, whatever, so learn it! The person teaching you will be happy to teach to you. It's a part of who you are. To me, I think it's the central part of your culture. For cultures that no longer have speakers, that's a horrible loss, but the culture will live on, if you participate in it! Your culture isn't for show, it is living, breathing.

"Medicine Wheel"

We (Mi'kmaq) don't have one. Any Mi'kmaq elder who says we do is under a false impression. Please refer to the following information and links.

This was posted on Indianz.com:

New topic discussion continuing from this thread

Andrea Bear Nicholas Chair in Native Studies St. Thomas University Fredericton, NB, Canada April 24, 2007

To Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Peoples of the Maritimes:

It has been repeatedly brought to my attention how completely our people have been fooled into believing that the medicine wheel is somehow part of our traditions, especially our spirituality. While I had long had concerns about its origins, what woke me to the hoax was an event that occurred several years ago at a national conference of Aboriginal women scholars. It occurred when I raised the concern and prefaced my remarks with an apology to those whose tradition it might have been. Immediately a chorus went up with virtually everyone in the room saying loudly that it was not their tradition! And these were Aboriginal women scholars from across Canada!

Subsequent to that meeting, we in the Native Studies Program at St. Thomas University began researching the history of the medicine wheel, and what we have found is appalling!

Indeed, it was not even known by our people in the Maritimes until the last couple of decades. It is not anywhere in the oral traditions of Maliseet, Mi’kmaq or Passamaquoddy people collected as recently as the 70s and 80s. So how in the world could it represent the knowledge of our elders, if none of them ever heard of it until recently? The answer is that it was a totally invented tradition that was foisted on our people only as recently as the 1970s.

The following is an excerpt from a paper I have written which is due to be published soon. It is titled “The Assault on Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Past & Present.” I include in this paper an analysis of the assault on our languages, as the most important of our oral traditions, specifically the fact that our languages have been deliberately targeted for destruction, not only by residential schools, but also by public schools and all schools taught only in a dominant language such as English. The paper also deals with the fact that so many of the stories of our people have been both distorted and often totally invented or fabricated by non-First Nations people. It is in connection with the destruction of our languages that I discuss the matter of invented traditions, especially the medicine wheel, as follows.

[Begin quote] “It is into this void [where so many people no longer speak their languages] that invented traditions have come with a vengeance. One such “tradition”, the medicine wheel, is of particular concern for it is now widely promoted as the basis of Maliseet or Mi’kmaq traditions. In fact, it was invented as recently as 1972.

by a man representing himself as Cheyenne, but who was immediately exposed as a fraud.

The medicine wheel is not a Maliseet or Mi’kmaq tradition, nor, it seems, was it a Cheyenne tradition. Within two decades, however, it evolved into the form it is known today, thanks to the embellishments of several others, including the discredited “plastic medicine man” known as Sun Bear, who exploited the idea for their own personal gain.

The irony is that this now very non-Native invention is seen as the essence of Native traditions, not only by the dominant society but also by First Nations people, even many who style themselves as “traditionalists”, in spite of the fact that the enormity of the fraud has been known at least since 1983.

With the 1996 publication of a Native Studies textbook that features the medicine wheel,

the concept has been foisted upon a whole generation of Maliseet and Mi’kmaq high school students who now firmly believe that this invention is an old Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tradition.
Furthermore, Native Studies teachers in New Brunswick high schools are now provided with supplementary binders and curriculum materials that are totally focused on the medicine wheel. That this philosophy has effectively and almost totally displaced the oral traditions of our people in schools, makes it impossible to conclude that it does not serve the ends of the ongoing colonial assault on the traditions of our people. That this headlong rush for an invented tradition has occurred without critical attention to its origin as a hoax is a serious indictment of academia, and particularly those institutions that have taken on the responsibility of training First Nations teachers.

The sad irony is that anyone who now voices objections to the medicine wheel as tradition is generally condemned for “messing” with tradition.” [End of quote]

I put these comments out knowing that they will stir up much reaction and discussion, and that they will even be considered disrespectful, to say the least! I just hope that the discussion it provokes is respectful. As an indigenous academic my duty is to seek the truth, and to speak out against untruth, particularly with regard to our history. In fact, I now realize it would be disrespectful of me to hold my tongue on this matter any longer, especially when I know that young people are being taught this hoax as some sort of truth or legitimate tradition of our peoples, even in school.

I urge people to read the following footnotes to the excerpt quoted above, and the sources they cite before weighing in on this matter.

Storm, Hyemeyohst, Seven Arrows, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.

Kehoe, Alice B., "Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men", in James B. Clifton, ed., The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, New Brunswick & London: Transaction Publishers, 1990, p. 200.

Sun Bear and Wabun, The Medicine Wheel, New Jersey: Prentice-Hill, 1980. Judy Bopp, The Sacred Tree, Lethbridge, Alberta: Four Worlds Development Project, University of Lethbridge, 1988; and Lorler, Marie-Lu, Shamanic Healing within the Medicine Wheel, Albuquerque: Brotherhood of Life, 1989. For a critique of this idea and other New Age phenomena Aldred, Lisa, 2000."Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality" in The American Indian Quarterly, vol. 24(3):329-352; and Jenkins, Philip, Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Parkhill, Thomas, Weaving Ourselves into the Land: Charles Godfrey Leland, "Indians" and the Study of Native American Religions, Albany: State University of New York., 1997. p. 141, citing Alice Kehoe, “Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men”, p. 200-201, who in turn cites Castro, Michael, Interpreting the Indian, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982, p. 155; and Bruchac, Joseph, “Spinning the Medicine Wheel: The Bear Tribe in the Catskills”, in Akwesasne Notes, 1983, vol. 15(5):20-22.

Leavitt, Robert, Maliseet & Micmac: First Nations of the Maritimes, Fredericton, NB: New Ireland Press, 1995. .

Dorson, Richard M., Folklore and Fakelore: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies, Cambridge & London, Harvard University Press, 1976, p. 119.

Respectfully, Andrea Bear Nicholas

www.indianz.com

Your Claim of Jurisdiction over Sovereign Indigenous Peoples

2009-05-27T14:03:25-04:00

(sent by regular mail)
To: Municipal Court of Montreal
PO 1116 succ. Centre-ville
Montreal, QC H3C 5H2

From: (colonial name) Eric Cote
ericscote@ymail.com
Indigenous Territory of Tiotiake

2009-05-25

Re: 998 207 980 & 302 085 136
(Offer to Perform Compensatory Work, given at Montreal May 15 2009)

This letter is to inform you that I am a member of the sovereign Wabanaki Peoples and that you have no jurisdiction over me. Only my Creator, Creation, has any sort of jurisdiction; I have not committed any agregious, violent crime, unlike the current settler, foreign regime in place, which has committed crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against my peoples.

As for serving "Compensatory Work", I already do so every day in my community, with no compensation except love and respect in return.

Signed and written by my hand, with pen
2009-05-25
(Eric S. Cote)
(graphic - totem)

cc: Mayor of Montreal
cc: National Assembly, QC
cc: Gilles Duceppe MP Laurier Ste-Marie
cc: Stephen Harper PM of "Canada"
cc: Elizabeth Windsor, Buckingham Palace
cc: Gerald Tremblay, Mayor, City of Montreal maire@ville.montreal.qc.ca, National Assembly Quebec courrier.president@assnat.qc.ca Parliament Building, 1045, rue des Parlementaires, Québec (Québec) G1A 1A4 , Gilles Duceppe MP Laurier-Ste-Marie Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca, Chef du Bloc Québécois, Chambre des communes, Ottawa (Ontario), Canada K1A 0A6, Stephen Harper PM of “Canada” Harper.S@parl.gc.ca House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, SQ1A UK

http://truthactionottawa.com/main/?page_id=531

250000 Year Old Mastodon Hunter From Puebla

2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

HERESY IN THE CAMP: HUEYÁTLACO, A 250,000 YEAR OLD MASTODON-HUNTER SITE FROM CENTRAL MEXICO AND ITS TREATMENT BY DARWINISM IN LATE 20TH CENTURY USA
INTRODUCTION
HUEYÁTLACO SITE
DATING METHODS
1. URANIUM SERIES DATING
GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR GREAT AGE
ZIRCON FISSION-TRACK DATES
MEDIA WOES
MEDIA SUCCESSES
HUEYÁTLACO, 1997 TO PRESENT
HUEYÁTLACO SITE: THE SAGA CONTINUES …

05-21-2007, 12:45 AM

The Fifth World Archaeological Congress
Theme: Colonialism, Identity and Social Responsibility
Session: The History of Archaeology in the Service of ‘Isms’

HERESY IN THE CAMP: HUEYÁTLACO, A 250,000 YEAR OLD MASTODON-HUNTER SITE FROM CENTRAL MEXICO AND ITS TREATMENT BY DARWINISM IN LATE 20TH CENTURY USA

Virginia Steen-McIntyre

INTRODUCTION

Archaeologists and anthropologists say the Hueyátlaco site is impossible. In no way were humans actively hunting mammoth and mastodon in the Valsequillo Reservoir area of south-central Mexico a quarter-million years ago. Much less could they produce elegant incised art work. And/or perhaps even nibble on maize.

Geologists say that may be true, at least according to established theory. But then you must explain away: (1) Well made stone tools associated with remains of butchered extinct Pleistocene animals dated by the uranium-series methods at 250,000 years. (2) Overlying (younger) beds of volcanic ejecta (pumice and coarse ash) giving roughly similar zircon fissiontrack dates. (3) Infinite 14C dates (no carbon remains). (4) A primitive human skull, collected in the area over 100 years ago, filled with microfossils (diatoms) including several taxa that either became extinct or first appeared during the Sangamon Interglacial 80,000 to ca 320,000 years ago. (5) A similar Sangamon-age diatom suite collected from the artifact-bearing layers and overlying sediment. (6) A layer of volcanic ash from deep within a sediment core in Mexico City, associated with grains of maize pollen, that might be the same age.

Hueyátlaco is a dangerous site. To even publicly mention the geological evidence for its great age is to jeopardize one’s professional career. Three of us geologists can testify to that. It’s very existence is blasphemous because it questions a basic dogma of Darwinism, the ruling philosophy (or religion, if you will) of the western scientific world for the past 150 years. That dogma states that, over a long period of time, members of the human family have generally become more and more intelligent. The Hueyátlaco site is thus ‘impossible’ because Mid-Pleistocene humans weren’t smart enough to do all that the evidence implies. Besides, there is no New World anthropoid stock from which they could have evolved.

The high priests of Darwinism have spoken. The heresy has been suppressed; the heretics suitably punished. And the Hueyátlaco site has been relegated to limbo for the past 30 years. It may have passed from the minds of most archaeologists, but the Hueyátlaco site is far from dead. Interest in it has revived thanks to recent exposure in the popular media and seed money from a wealthy North American philanthropist. A new generation of scientists from several countries is now prepared to carry on the study: new maps, new surveys, new excavations, new dates. At this juncture in time, with young blood poised to add new chapters to ‘The Valsequillo Saga’ it behooves the older generation, those of us still living who were involved in the classic phase of the study (1962-1981) to remember how things were back then and to share with the present generation the salient points of the history of that era. It follows here.

HUEYÁTLACO SITE

Hueyátlaco is one of four Early Human sites discovered in 1962 on the north shore of the Valsequillo Reservoir, State of Puebla, Mexico. The reservoir, which lies 100 km southeast of Mexico City and south of the city of Puebla is surrounded by four of Mexico’s famous volcanoes: Tláloc, Iztaccíhuatl, Popocatepetl, and La Malinche (Fig. 1).

The fluviatile and lake sediments exposed in the low-lying badlands around its shore are rich in layers of volcanic debris. The area has been a famous fossil collecting locality for over a century, and well preserved bones of extinct Pleistocene animals, including mastodon, mammoth, camel, horse, glyptodon, sloth, dire wolf and saber-tooth cat have been reported (Osborn, 1905; Irwin-Williams, 1967, Kurtén, 1967, Guenther, 1968, Gunther et al 1973).

In the same area, as recorded by the late Professor Juan Armenta Camacho, University of Puebla (1957, 1959, 1978) are found well made stone and bone tools, bones of extinct Pleistocene animals with signs of butchering operations, and even bones engraved with recognizable figures (Fig. 2).

The Hueyátlaco site was excavated by Professor Armenta and the late Dr. Cynthia Irwin-Williams, Harvard and Eastern New Mexico University in 1962-1966. Meticulous removal of the highly indurated sediment by them and their workers, often using only dental tools and brushes, uncovered a two component site. Uppermost were sediments that contained bifacial tools associated with the bones of butchered animals; lower in the section unifacial tools made their appearance (Irwin-Williams, 1967) (Fig. 3).

Early in the project an attempt was made to date Hueyátlaco using the radiocarbon method. It was not successful. Sufficient carbon was not preserved at the site. What was thought by Irwin-Williams to be charcoal turned out to be manganese dioxide concretions. Bones sent to the research laboratory at Humble Oil and Refining Company, Houston, Texas in 1962 (personal letter to Cynthia Irwin from C.R. Hocott, January 10, 1963) and to the University of Arizona (?) in 1968 (unsigned laboratory report of the results of examination of Hueyátlaco camel scapula 66-1,C5 10 and camel pubis 66-1, L-7, 300, dated January 16-19, 1969) were undatable by 14C: no collagen and only a very small amount of organic matter were preserved. It was thought at the time that this lack of carbon was caused by some odd quirk in the groundwater chemistry.

Harold E. Malde, the project geologist, thought it might be possible to date Hueyátlaco using the coarse layers of volcanic ejecta (tephra) that occurred at the site. By 1966 he had already dated several tephra layers in the 8,000 - 26,000 year range on nearby La Malinche volcano. He did this by the 14C method, using charcoal logs caught up in the deposits or in the burned buried soils at their base. If one could match up the petrographic properties between a sample of dated tephra from La Malinche volcano with a coarse sample of tephra from Hueyátlaco, one could say that both samples came from the same blanket of ejecta, and thus the Hueyátlaco site would be dated indirectly.

What the project needed was a tephrochronologist, a volcanic ash specialist who could us[e] a petrographic microscope to examine and “fingerprint” the mineral and glassy components of the dated pumice and ash layers on La Malinche volcano and compare them to samples of coarse tephra found at the Hueyátlaco site. I was chosen for the job. It was to be my PhD dissertation in geology at the University of Idaho.

To make a long story short, I spent six years (1966-1972) at the microscope, examining hundreds of tephra samples, looking for that elusive correlation (Malde 1967,1968; Steen-McIntyre 1968, 1972; Steen-McIntyre and Malde 1970). No luck. No correlation.

DATING METHODS

URANIUM SERIES DATING

Meanwhile, Dr. Barney Szabo, a geochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey was applying the then-new uranium-series dating methods on material supplied by Irwin-Williams to date three of her sites: Caulapan, Hueyátlaco, and El Horno. The Caulapan site was situated roughly 5 km northeast of Hueyátlaco, in a remnant deposit of young sediment that had once filled the steep-walled Caulapan barranca. It consisted of only one stone flake, but that flake was associated with a proboscidean vertebra that could be dated by the U-series methods and shell that had been dated previously by Meyer Rubin, U.S.G.S., using the 14C method. From Hueyátlaco, a butchered articulated camel pelvis associated with bifacial tools was chosen for dating. The El Horno site, roughly a kilometre southwest of Hueyátlaco and lower in elevation provided a tooth fragment from a butchered mastodon associated with unifacial tools. The resulting dates for the Hueyátlaco and El Horno specimens are included in Table 1.

The Caulapan dates for the proboscidian bone were well received (20,000 ± 1,500 yrs, 230Th and 22,000 ± 2,000 yrs, 231Pa). They agreed with a 14C date on shell from the same sedimentary horizon (21,850 ± 850 yrs, Szabo et al., 1969, Table 2.). Exciting, to say the least! It meant Caulapan was twice as old as the oldest officially recognized site yet dated from the Americas! But oh! the others! They were at least ten times older that Caulapan! Cynthia Irwin-Williams, the project archaeologist, stated that the dates for the reservoir sites couldn’t be correct. At the time, bifacial tools were thought to have originated in the Old World around 50,000 years ago. In addition, even the unifacial tools were well made. According to theory, both tool types had to be the work of Homo sapiens and the species evolved only 100,000 years ago, and NOT in Mexico!

This was the beginning of strain between the archaeologist and project geologists over the Valsequillo sites, a strain that would grow over the years until there was a complete break in communication that lasted until Irwin-Williams' death.

Cynthia agreed reluctantly to published Barney’s dates. She insisted the paper appear in a journal few anthropologists would ever read. It finally saw print in 1969 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a journal for geochemists and geophysists, published in Amsterdam (Szabo et al . 1969). In her subsequent lectures and reports, Irwin-Williams consistently criticized the uranium-series dating methods and rejected the Hueyátlaco and El Horno dates (Irwin-Williams 1978, 1981 and cited references). She never mentioned the U-series dates for Caulapan, the ones that agreed with the 14C date for the same unit.

GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR GREAT AGE

After a number of years at the microscope, it became evident to me that I would never find that correlation between the Hueyátlaco tephra layers and one of those from the dated sequence on La Malinche. The Hueyátlaco equivalent must be older than 26,000 years and out of sight, buried deep within the flanks of the volcano. Perhaps Barney’s dates, as “impossible” as they seemed, were correct!

Looking at the evidence with new eyes, those not clouded by the ruling paradigm, it was obvious that the Hueyátlaco site was old. That is, if the stratigraphy was as we had assumed. The artifact-bearing layers were buried beneath 10 metres of younger sediment at the site proper, and mapping by Malde indicated that the Tetela brown mud unit near the top of the section extended across a broad basin from 3 to 5 km wide, and that the nearby Río Atoyac had cut through this unit to a depth of at least 50 metres, forming a mature dendritic system with a central valley generally more than 1 km across (Malde and Steen-McIntyre, 1981).

There were buried soils preserved there, each representing a long period of stable landscape where there was little erosion or deposition (Cornwall 1969, 1970, 1971). There was a secondary carbonate layer; not a soil caliche, but casts of old animal burrows and root molds. This in itself suggested that a very long period of time had passed since the calcium-rich sediment had been deposited, with a major swing in climate from semi-arid to humid and back to semi-arid again.

And finally there were the tephra layers themselves. Even though all but one lay above the high water mark at the reservoir, they were surprisingly weathered. Certain heavy mineral phenocrysts (crystals) were frayed or etched, especially at the ends, and not only were the volcanic glass shards hydrated, but they had passed beyond that stage to superhydration, where water had collected molecule by molecule in the enclosed bubble cavities — a process that usually takes millions of years to complete (Steen-McIntyre 1975b, 1977, 1981a, 1985 and cited references).

I’d not seen such an advanced state of weathering from the 10,000 year tephra layer collected at the Tlapacoya archaeologic site, Valley of Mexico, or the ca 25,000 year tephra in the La Malinche sequence. In fact, the only similar superhydration curves for volcanic glass were from a sample at 72 metres depth in the Belles Artes sediment core in Mexico City, where the tephra layer contained grains of modern maize pollen; and a volcanic ash from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, dated by others at 251,000 years (Fig. 4) (Steen-McIntyre, submitted).

ZIRCON FISSION-TRACK DATES

Obviously more work needed to be done to make certain of our stratigraphy, and to collect sediment samples for analyses and material for radiometric dating — in this case tiny zircon crystals from the tephra layers, for fission track dating. In 1973, with the blessings of archaeologist Irwin-Williams, three of us geologists, Roald Fryxell Laboratory of Anthropology, Washington State University, Hal Malde and I returned to Hueyátlaco for more excavation.

We cleared away the vegetation from Irwin-Williams’ 1966 southernmost trench wall, which was still standing in 1973, and excavated a cross trench to connect it with a pair of INAH trenches to the south. The stratigraphy was as we had surmised: the artifact-bearing beds passed beneath (were older than) the bluff of sediment that contained the tephra units, the buried soils, and the secondary carbonate layer (Fig. 5). The complete sedimentary record for the site was preserved in two sets of stabilized sediment columns (stratigraphic monoliths), and we collected coarse pumice fragments that contained zircon crystals from within two of the tephra units, the Tetela brown mud and the Hueyátlaco ash. Dr. Charles Naeser, a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver agreed to concentrate the crystals and run fission track dates on them.

The zircon fission track dates are shown in Table 2. A large plus/minus because we are working at the extreme end for the method, but they fall closer to Szabo’s 250,000 U-series dates than to Irwin-Williams’ 23,000 preferred one. In fact, the four radiometric dates for Hueyátlaco seem to cluster around 275,000 years (Fig. 6)!

MEDIA WOES

It’s one thing to make an earth shaking discovery in the field of Early Human studies; it’s another thing to get the information into print. Cynthia Irwin-Williams, the site archaeologist, declared our dates “impossible”, and her colleagues agreed with her. She rejected our early dates (Irwin-Williams, 1978, 1981), insisted on a ca 23,000 year date for the site (Dincauze, 1984, p. 288) and ceased all further communication with us.

In the fall of 1973 we announced our Hueyátlaco dates at a press conference at the Geological Society of America annual meetings in Dallas, Texas (Steen-McIntyre et al., 1973). The news went around the world and then — nothing. The site was ignored; the data suppressed.

Our attempts to bring the Hueyátlaco dates to the general scientific public seemed jinxed from the beginning. The first blow was the death of our colleague, Roald Fryxell in a single-car crash in 1974. It was with heavy hearts that Hal Malde and I carried on without him. In 1975, we presented our evidence for the age of the Hueyátlaco site and my note on the Belles Artes tephra/maize pollen possible age equivalent at a symposium for anthropologists and archaeologists in Santa Fe, New Mexico (Steen-McIntyre, 1975a; Steen-McIntyre et al., 1975). My abstract containing the information about the Belles Artes tephra was never published. The conveners did not know how to add a table of scientific data to the text, so they left out the whole thing. We submitted the papers for publication in their symposium volume. And waited five years for it to be published. In 1980 it was decided not to publish the volume at all, and the manuscripts were returned. I then submitted the Hueyátlaco manuscript to the editor of Science 80, at his request. And waited, and waited. I finally cornered him by telephone in his office. He stuttered a bit, then said the manuscript had fallen behind the file cabinet and had been lost. It was returned. I presented the information at a 1980 NATO conference in Iceland, as one of the invited speakers (Steen-McIntyre, 1981). When I checked the final version shortly before publication, I discovered the editor had drastically changed the section on Hueyátlaco and removed all mention of the Belles Artes data. Reason? “Someone” had told him the work was “controversial”. I had to threaten media exposure for his university before he reluctantly agree to print my original version, but he never did replace the table with the Belles Artes data.

The paper on the Hueyátlaco geology was finally published in 1981 in Quaternary Research, a prestigious journal for Pleistocene scientists (Steen-McIntyre et al., 1981; Malde and Steen-McIntyre, 1981). But it was too late. The rumor mill had been busy, the old dates were rejected out-of-hand. The site was declared “controversial”, with a maximum possible age of 23,000 years. I was discredited as a scientist, unable to work in my profession, and my personal integrity is questioned to this day.

From 1981 to the present, the struggle has been to get the old Hueyátlaco dates out to the general scientific public. Because establishment science has declared these dates “impossible” this has not been easy. The information has NOT appeared in letters I’ve written to Nature, Science, Science News, American Scientist (Steen-McIntyre, 2000), National Geographic, The New Yorker.

Neither has the interview I did for an article on maverick scientists that was to appear in Harper’s Magazine. (In the latter case, the article, by an investigative reporter, was accepted and, I assume, paid for, but never run.)

MEDIA SUCCESSES

By contrast, the alternative media have become interested in the dates, especially since “The Valsequillo Saga” appeared in Cremo and Thompson’s book, Forbidden Archeology (1993, 1994), Cremo’s Forbidden Archeology’s Impact (1998), and Bill Cote’s video Mysterious Origins of Man (1996). This has resulted in various interviews for videos in Japan and Mexico and a radio talk show, and for articles in the popular press (for example, Steen-McIntyre 1998 a,b). Also, since 1997, there have been new excavations at Hueyátlaco, new research, and new radiometric dates, all thanks to the interest of a wealthy philanthropist and a world-class micropaleontologist.

HUEYÁTLACO, 1997 TO PRESENT

Exciting new information for the Hueyátlaco site has come to light since 1997, but the work is not mine and not all of it is published, so I can say little about it here. There are new radiometric dates on the overlying tephra layers — zircon fission track and (U-Th)/He (Donelick et al.). The artifact-bearing horizons have been found to be rich in diatoms, including over a dozen taxa that either became extinct or first came on the scene during the Sangamon Interglacial 80,000 — 330,000 years ago (VanLandingham 2000, 2002 a,b,c,d, 2003) .

We have evidence for two primitive human skulls. The Dorenberg skull was collected in the area over 100 years ago (Reichelt,1899 (1900)) . The interior cavities were filled with a diatomite that contains the same Sangamon-age suite of taxa that occurs associated with the artifacts at Hueyátlaco (VanLandingham 2000, 2002b,c, 2003). It was on display in a museum in Leipzig for many years, and was destroyed during the bombings of WW II. We are looking for a photo or drawing of it.

The second skull, the Ostrander skull, is rumored to have been collected illegally at Hueyátlaco sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s and recently to have been turned over to a Native American tribe for reburial. No attempt was made to date it.

A photo of the Ostrander skull is shown in Fig. 7 , the only one we have, comparing it with a modern skull. Note the thick brow ridges and shallow brain case.

HUEYÁTLACO SITE: THE SAGA CONTINUES …

These are truly exciting times for Hueyátlaco and the Valsequillo area! As I mentioned earlier, a new Valsequillo Project is waiting in the wings, with a new generation of archaeologists and geoscientists eager to work together to “determine the age of the Valsequillo Reservoir sites once and for all.” It is with a sense of relief that I can now turn the work over to my younger colleagues.

It’s been a long haul, at times exhilarating, at times discouraging. For almost 40 years, the Hueyátlaco site has dominated my professional career, detrimentally for the most part, and it’s time to move on to other things. Along with St. Paul I can now leave it in good hands saying, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”.

We Are The People of This Land

2008-07-19T20:01:41-04:00

Roland J. Nadjiwon
May 1979

I feel that I should tell you
About the people of this land
I ask you please to listen
Understand it if you can

Our life blood is the rivers
Our flesh and bone the sod
We are the people of this earth
Placed here by Our God

You came with your gilded bible
Your god you said to trust
We learned your hymns of praise
While his image turned to rust

You brought us books and learning
You said we needed schools
We learned to read and cypher
Now we’re educated fools

You brought us beef and bacon
You drove the deer away
Today we cash our welfare cheques
And hunt at the Hudson’s Bay

You crawled from out your caves
Ten thousand years or more
We were cultivating corn
Twenty thousand years before

You dammed up all our rivers
Run its power in little wires
We told you the earth had power
You thought that we were liars

We shared this entire land
A truly democratic place
You fenced it back and forth
And called it real estate

We said this earth was our mother
Our mother could not be sold
But each of you a Judas
With thirty pieces of gold

You killed and buried Jesus
He arose and left this place
I guess I really can’t blame him
When I think of this human race

We used to have our spirits
They were always here before
But now we buy our spirits
At the local liquor store

You burned our shaking tent
Put a phone upon our wall
And charge outrageous prices
For a long-distance call

We knew about the universe
The animals, earth and trees
While you were telling people
That the moon was made of cheese

We had our herbs and medicines
We cured with drum and song
You lock us up in hospitals
And try to guess what’s wrong

You said it was the devil
He never did such good
When you crucified your God
I guess you never understood

You took away our tipis
Outlawed our right to roam
You built us all new houses
But you took away our homes

You shared with us your blankets
They were filled with your disease
Annihilating our people
The way you’re cutting down our trees

You brought war and destruction
You murdered your fellow man
We spoke of life and sharing
Now you try that if you can

We spoke of co-existence
The way all people should
But only your vengeful God
And only your laws were good

Perhaps there’s still a chance
I don’t speak of assimilation
For us all to co-exist
As unique and growing nations

I feel that I have told you
About the people of this land
I hope you tried to listen
I hope you tried to understand

Our life blood is its rivers
Our flesh and bone the sod
We are still the people of this earth
Placed here by OUR God

http://www.shingwauk.auc.ca/ShingwaukHall/SH_p20.html

(corrected typos)

Protest at The PFII Meeting May 2008

2008-06-01T19:44:29-04:00

Protest at the PFII Meeting May 2008

PART 1 © by Rebecca Sommer, (SommerFilms) - for EARTH PEOPLES. Additional footage and pic courtesy Arthur Manuel. Indigenous Peoples representatives and organizations held a protest at the May 2 2008 conclusion of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York.

Video, part 1

It doesn’t allow embedding, BTW.

Brenda Norrell’s blog posts

Post 2

Post 1

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