Another Elephant

[uniface]

In light of the date, this is hardly news. But it's the sort of news that achieves only limited circulation and disappears quickly, with anyone bringing it up easily labeled a "crank" (conveniently relegating it to archaeological outer darkness). Nevertheless, it's there -- one of any number of elephants in the prehistoric American livingroom. FWIW then :

In 1989, the remains of a human skeleton were discovered in a rock shelter at the Cook petroglyph site in Wyoming County, West Virginia during an archaeological Phase II investigation. Upon examination, archaeologist Robert Pyle speculated a connection between the ancient human remains and the Ogam petroglyphs about ten meters away.

This discovery would become the highlight of nineteen years of ongoing research on Ogam petroglyphs which was heralded by the March 1983 Wonderful West Virginia magazine. Photographs and stories in that issue connected southern West Virginia's mysterious petroglyphs—with their Christian message—to the legendary transatlantic voyages of St. Brendan of Ireland in the sixth century AD.

One of the arguments against this hypothesis has been that there was no physical scientific proof. So this discovery was believed to be significant. The Skull, that of an adult male, was sufficiently preserved to recognize a unique brachycephalic (round headed) feature indicating a possible European origin. Based on the archaeologist's experience, the condition of the remains indicated great age.

But the only proof would come from future DNA and radiocarbon testing to determine the ethnicity and age of the remains, so the remains were carefully preserved for future analysis. Not until the year 2000 was funding made available from a private source to pay for DNA analysis and radiocarbon dating.

Mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the roots of the teeth and compared to previously cataloged DNA sequences from ethnic groups around the world. No association was found among North American groups. The closest DNA matches were European.

Radiocarbon dating (commonly called C14) established the age of the remains at 1,292 +/-40 years old (about the year 710 +/- 40 years AD).

These combined scientific data from DNA and C14 testing establish the presence of a person of European origin in southern West Virginia around the year 710 AD, the earliest date that a European has been positively identified on the North American continent through scientific data. There have been numerous theories and extensive controversy for the past two centuries about pre-Columbian visitors to this continent, but no suitable remains have been discovered and available for testing with any conclusive results until now.

Prehistoric WV

[CarsonChris]

Cool, thanks for the article.

[Buckeye]

Interesting, found a few more links:

Linguistic Analysis of Some Purported Irish Ogham (Ogam) Petroglyphs in West Virginia

Hunter Lesser Finds Cult Archaeology at Purported Ogham (Ogam) Petroglyphs in West Virginia

[TurtleMan]

That reminded me of an t.v. progam (I hope I'm remembering corectly) about the Eastern Band of Cherokee who beleave that they came from "over the water". The limmited DNA analisiss that was done on the show was inconclusive, but showed that their DNA was different than other native tribes sampled. This could have been due to dilution of the gene pool from later europeans, or it might have come from a mutch more ainchent source. Not to sound all nutjob but there is plenty of reasons to beleave that as far back as people had sea-worthy craft, they were exploring our world. It is almost harder to beleave that untill Leif Ericson, and more famously Colubous, no other people since the last ice age set foot in the Americas. That's almost a 12,000 year gap! It seems almost more proboble that (if only by acident) other European, Asian, or African peoples didn't stumble upon our corner of the globe. There are some very interesting sculptures in Meso-America that if not for were they were found, we would clearly say they depict peoples with mongoloid, negroid, and aquine features respactively. My reference to this was found in a book entitled "The Worlds Last Mysteries" and far from being a preachy book, giveing speculation as "truth", it mearly states the facts of a subject and lets you draw your own conclusions. Not that I am rejecting all main stream beleifs, (my crystal colection has yet to make contact Atlantis). I just prefer to keep an open mind in general, and not put on the "blinders" when something possibly goes up the stream of fact. That being said I will be one of the first to call B.S. on this one, because I feel that is what is!

[ghost recon]

Isn't frustrating that this major discovery has been basically disregarded and filed under " cult archeology " because it doesn't fit within the framework of " established " history? Ogam glyphs and artifacts have been found in several areas of Wv. and Ky. Pyle the archaeologist who discovered the Cook site brought in Celtic linguists and scholars to translate and confirm the Ogam script. Is it really that hard to believe a boat of Irishmen landed some 1400 yrs bp and followed major indian trails inland into what is now modern day WV? Seems more than reasonable to me.

What's sad is after this news made the rounds the haters showed up calling Pyle a recreational archy, crackpot and looter by some and worse. Now there are groups saying it was " The lost tribes of Israel " lmao and even other more far fetched claims. Makes you wonder how many other hugely important discoveries have been discredited and buried on purpose. His story, what a crock of $h!t, the more you learn the less you know. / rant.

Pyle wrote a small but really good book where he covers the Ogam petroglyphs in more detail, it's called " All That Remains " , I recommend it for anyone interested in this subject.

Couple more links:

Purported Irish ogham (ogam) petroglyphs in Wyoming and Boone Counties West Virginia

WV Petroglyphs

Robert Pyle Looks for Petroglyph Evidence of Pre-Columbian Contacts by Europeans

[TurtleMan]

The problem I have with this discovery is that we are arguing over wether or not the "wrighting" is ogam or if it is even wrighting. What we should be realy studying is the bones, so that everyone can read the data and see that they are from europe and they do predate Colomdus. It seems strange to me that this "ogam" wrighting turns up in a landlocked location. If they did come from the sea, there should be ogam wrighting in rock shelters from west verginia to the sea. I hate to think that the hard evidence (bones) might be relogated to the shadows by this arguement over ogam. I do beleave that eropean and other eastern peoples ventured to this land before more popular dates, but I don't want to overzeously proclame "evidence" were there isn't any. especialy if we do have the proof (bone\dna).