# Neanderthals in California! (Or so they claim...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 27, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337 "2017-04-27T01:41:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/1 "2017-04-27T01:41:27Z")
Just to be clear, I’m very skeptical about this. But it is intriguing, and would be earth-shattering if validated. Not sure if it would be our species, Neanderthals or Denisovans (or even _H. erectus_), so we’ll have to wait and see if anything more comes of this, or if other sites are found. Plus, there is no guarantee that if the claims are true, that those early humans didn’t die out before the established ancestors of the Amerindians arrived. > [@](#): > > [**First settlers reached Americas 130,000 years ago, study claims**](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-settlers-reached-americas-130000-years-ago-study-claims?tgt=nr) > > An unidentified Homo species used stone tools to crack apart mastodon bones, teeth and tusks approximately 130,700 years ago at a site near what’s now San Diego. This unsettling claim upending the scientific debate over the settling of the Americas comes from a team led by archaeologist Steven Holen of the Center for American Paleolithic Research in Hot Springs, South Dakota, and paleontologist Thomas Deméré of the San Diego Natural History Museum. If true, it means the Cerutti Mastodon site contains the oldest known evidence, by more than 100,000 years, of human or humanlike colonists in the New World, the researchers report online April 26 in Nature. ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/2 "2017-04-27T15:39:07Z")
How can it surprise anybody that there are Neanderthals in CA. Just look at the statehouse and who they send to Washington. No need to dig around in the dirt. It’s a Dog Bites Man story. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/3 "2017-04-27T16:13:00Z")
An interesting notion, for sure. The article is full of ifs and buts and skepticism, so it will be interesting if something concrete comes from it. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/4 "2017-04-27T16:39:29Z")
I’m a little skeptical about identifying the bone damage as being done by stone tools. Still, the ice bridges across the Bering Strait were there for a long time, they have followed mammoths across to North America, or even their cousins the mastodons if they were in northern Asia at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/5 "2017-04-27T16:47:22Z")
Yeah, while certainly plausible, it would be nice to have more direct evidence, not simply inference. ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/6 "2017-04-27T16:56:01Z")
Wow, that’s fascinating! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/7 "2017-04-27T17:02:44Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > How can it surprise anybody that there are Neanderthals in CA. Especially after we all saw that documentary about Encino Man. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/8 "2017-04-27T17:57:25Z")
The Washington Post Express (free newsrag handed out at public transportation hubs) is notoriously poorly edited. Today they have a headline on this article: “Bones could alter America’s timeline – Study says humanlike behavior goes back far earlier than thought.” No it doesn’t. Study suggests human PRESENCE in the Americas far earlier than thought. Humanlike _behavior_ is debatable, but anatomically- modern humans date back 200,000 years and the hominid line is much older than that. So unless they’re arguing that the mammoth was showing human-like behavior, the headline both misses the important issue and is misleading as well. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/9 "2017-04-27T18:04:11Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Study says humanlike behavior goes back far earlier than thought. Yea which behavior is this exactly? Rape, Murder, Genocide, etc Not to say everything human is evil, but they say “humanlike” like we are saying as opposed to animal like. Well most animals actually do the good stuff in some fashion or another, so that only leaves the things only humans do. Think someone should have proofread better 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/10 "2017-04-27T21:18:12Z")
Sometimes you never see what you’re not looking for. This might make some folks rethink what and where they dig for signs of human habitation, and the things they look for. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/11 "2017-04-27T21:39:45Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > Yeah, while certainly plausible, it would be nice to have more direct evidence, not simply inference. _Neil Young_ circa 1969 Q.E.D. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-in-california-or-so-they-claim/785337/12 "2017-04-28T01:07:17Z")
> [@Orwell](#): > > How can it surprise anybody that there are Neanderthals in CA. Just look at the statehouse and who they send to Washington. No need to dig around in the dirt. > > It’s a Dog Bites Man story. 😃 Let’s ease up on making blanket and political statements like this. It’s a minor jab at anyone who lives in that state at best and can cause hijacks or fights at worst. Either one here is bad, so that’s why I’m modding this post. Try not to make ones like it again, please.