The Hueyatlaco Archeological Site is situated on the Tetela Peninsula, along the north shore of the Valsequillo reservoir in the State of Puebla, Mexico, approximately 100 km southeast of Mexico City and 10 km south of the City of Puebla. Field work was undertaken between April 23 and July 15, 1962. Since the material in the existing collections represented a very wide area, well over one hundred square kilometers, the primary objective of the reconnaissance was the location of well defined localities which would be suitable for controlled excavation. Highly sophisticated stone tools rivaling the best work of Cro-magnon man in Europe were unearthed during the work. A US Geological Survey team, consisting of Harold Malde, Virginia Steen-McIntyre, and Roald Fryxell, working under a grant from the National Science Foundation, assigned dates of 250,000 year B.P. for these artifacts. These geologists stated that four different dating methods independently yielded an anomalously great age for the artifacts found near Valsequillo. The dating methods used were: 1. uranium series dating 2. fission track dating 3. tephra hydration dating 4. study of mineral weathering The date of 250,000 years obtained for Hueyatlaco by the US Geological Survey team provoked a great deal of controversy. If accepted, it would have revolutionized not only New World anthropology but the entire picture of human origins, since human beings capable of making the sophisticated tools found at Hueyatlaco are not thought to have come into existence until about 100,000 years ago in Africa. One of its early excavators Virginia Steen-McIntyre writes “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. Prior to this site the common belief was humans migrated to the Americas around 14000 years ago. Several sites have since been discovered that supports a much older human habitation in the Americas.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 05:05:13 +0000
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