Ware Dogma!
GLACIERS AND ICE FIELDS AS BARRIERS TO EARLY MAN
These maps follow the outlines of the continent today, and so do not show the land-bridge from Alaska to Siberia that existed in varying extent throughout the entire Wisconsin period. The maps indicate tentatively how the great white ice fields may have appeared to different areas at different times, producing an effect of shifting from west to east and then back across the continent. Drawn in 1936, the first three maps probably show too little ice in arctic Canada and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland region. (After Antevs; the first three in Gladwin, 1937, the fourth from data furnished by Antevs.)
Wisconsin glaciation 65,000 years ago
Wisconsin glaciation 50,000 years ago
Wisconsin glaciation 15,000 years ago
Wisconsin glaciation 10,000 years ago
Today we have a few facts about early man and many guesses. Not so long ago there were a few reputable anthropologists who believed that the New World was innocent of man before 1000 B.C. Now most of them grant a foothold at least 10,000 years ago to an enterprising savage—called Folsom man—whose taste for travel was as great as his talent for making an exceptionally fine and original type of stone spear point. Some say he came to the New World 25,000 years ago. A few daring students find traces of an earlier Australoid human who may have seen the last glaciers taking shape. Well informed opinion places man’s entrance into the New World between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago.
Of course we must not expect early dates to be precise. Many of them must be intelligent guesses as we go deeper and deeper into the past and reach the time when the glaciers were waxing and waning. To gain a perspective upon such toying with time—as well as upon early man in the Americas—we must next consider the story of early man in the Old World. Incidentally, its contradictions and uncertainties—prefaced by a few in New World prehistory—may help you to look with a charitable as well as critical eye upon certain theories about the peopling of the Americas which may be suspect today yet respectable tomorrow.
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THE DEAD HAND OF THE AGES
... systems into ruin hurl’d. —ALEXANDER POPE