But in more recent years, archaeologists have found more and more traces of even earlier people with a less refined technology inhabiting North America and spreading as far south as Chile.
And now clinching evidence in the mystery of the early peopling of America — Clovis or pre-Clovis? — for nearly all scientists appears to have turned up at a creek valley in the hill country of what is today Central Texas, 40 miles northwest of Austin.
The new findings establish that the last major human migration, into the Americas, began earlier than once thought. And the discovery could change thinking about how people got here (by coastal migrations along shores and in boats) and how they adapted to the new environment in part by making improvements in toolmaking that led eventually to the technology associated with the Clovis culture.
Archaeologists and other scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that excavations show hunter-gatherers were living at the Buttermilk Creek site and making projectile points, blades, choppers and other tools from local chert for a long time, possibly as early as 15,500 years ago. More than 50 well-formed artifacts as well as hundreds of flakes and fragments of chipping debris were embedded in thick clay sediments immediately beneath typical Clovis material.
“This is the oldest credible archaeological site in North America,” Michael R. Waters, leader of the discovery team, said at a news teleconference.
Dr. Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, and his colleagues concluded in the journal article that their research over the last six years “confirms the emerging view that people occupied the Americas before Clovis and provides a large artifact assemblage to explore Clovis origins.”
If the migrations began at earlier, pre-Clovis times, moreover, extensive glaciers probably closed off ice-free interior corridors for travel to the warmer south. Archaeologists said this lent credence to a fairly new idea in the speculative mix: perhaps the people came to the then really new New World by a coastal route, trooping along the shore and sometimes hugging land in small boats. This might account for the relatively swift movement of the migrants all the way to Peru and Chile.
The first of the distinctive Clovis projectile points represented advanced skills in stone technology. About a third of the way up from the base of the point, the artisans chipped out shallow grooves, called flutes, on both faces. The bifacial grooves probably permitted the points to be fastened to a wooden spear or dart.
Other archaeologists pointed out that the Buttermilk Creek dates, more than 2,000 years earlier than the Clovis chronology, are not significantly older than those for other sites challenging the Clovis-first hypothesis. In recent years, early human occupation sites have been examined coast to coast: from Oregon to Wisconsin to western Pennsylvania and from Maryland and Virginia down to South Carolina and Florida.
James M. Adovasio, an archaeologist who found what appears to be pre-Clovis material at the Pennsylvania site known as Meadowcroft Rockshelter, was not involved in the Buttermilk Creek excavations but has visited the site and inspected many of the artifacts. These pre-Clovis projectile points were also bifacial but not as large and well turned as the later technology. The most striking difference was the absence of the characteristic fluting.
Dr. Adovasio, a professor at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., said some of the Buttermilk Creek material resembled tools at his site and others at Cactus Hill, Va., and Miles Point, Md.
“It would appear the assemblage of artifacts is enough different from typical Clovis to be a distinct technology,” Dr. Adovasio said in an interview. “But it is not as much different as not to be ancestral to Clovis material.”
That is another likely implication of the new findings, also noted by Dr. Waters and his team. It would appear that the Clovis technology was not an Asian import; it was invented here.
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Thursday, March 24, 2011
Clovis People Weren’t First in Americas, Texas Arrowheads Suggest
Think Quarterly: Say Hello to Google's New Online Magazine
Google has quietly launched its own full-length online magazine, a quarterly publication whose aim is to create a “breathing space in a busy world.”
The first edition of Think Quarterly, based out of the U.K., is a 68-page dive into the world of data and its impact on business. The first thing most people will notice is that it’s a visually stunning piece of work. It’s a rich Flash app with Google’s quirky sensibilities and the in-depth writing you might find in BusinessWeek or Salon. Google’s quarterly magazine is edited and designed by creative agency The Church of London.
The articles themselves are thought pieces about major business and technology topics from a variety of freelancers and contributors. Google was able to snag Simon Rogers (editor of The Guardian‘s Datablog), Ulrike Reinhard (editor of WE Magazine), and other journalists for the project. Many of Think Quarterly‘s articles feature interviews with Google executives and technology leaders. Some of the people featured include Vodafone U.K. CEO Guy Laurence, Google chief economist Hal Varian and famed psychologist Peter Kruse.
“At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest,” Matt Brittin, Google’s managing director of U.K. and Ireland operations, said in Think Quarterly‘s introduction. “We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service.
“But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.”
It’s unclear whether the new online magazine is another sign that Google is entering the media business or whether it’s just a project to feed the company’s intellectual curiosity. Google doesn’t describe its newest project as a magazine or a publication. Instead, Google calls it a book on its website and a “unique communications tool” on its Twitter account.
Regardless of what you call it, Think Quarterly is an interesting and informative experiment by the search giant.
Update: Google says that Think Quarterly is designed as useful information for its business customers. Here’s the company’s statement:
“Like most companies we regularly communicate with our business customers via email newsletters, updates on our official blogs, and printed materials. This short book about data was sent to 1,500 of our UK partners and advertisers.
“There are only a limited number of copies, and they aren’t for sale or designed for anyone other than our partners – but anyone who’s interested can visit the companion website at www.thinkquarterly.co.uk.”
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor, Oft-Married Beauty, Oscar Winner, Dies at 79 - Bloomberg
British-born child actor Elizabeth Taylor arrives in America at the age of seven. Archive Photos/Getty Images
Elizabeth Taylor feeding a horse for the film 'National Velvet' in 1944. Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Elizabeth Taylor and her first husband hotel heir Conrad Hilton at the Savoy Hotel in London, on June 14, 1950. She would go on to marry seven more times, including actor Richard Burton twice. Photo: Keystone/Getty Images
Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed beauty whose hectic off-screen love life often eclipsed her most sultry film roles, has died. She was 79.
She died today at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CNN reported, citing a statement from her publicist. She was hospitalized six weeks ago for congestive heart failure.
The former child actress grew into a voluptuous and jewel- drenched movie star, making headlines with stormy love affairs and eight marriages. Her husbands included actor Richard Burton (twice), singer Eddie Fisher, U.S. Senator John Warner and producer Mike Todd.
“I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands,” she said in an interview with Kim Kardashian posted by Harper’s Bazaar on Feb. 9. “For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else. I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things.”
Though critics panned many of Taylor’s performances, the actress and her fans proved she could strike gold at the box office. In 1963, she signed a then-record $1 million contract to appear in “Cleopatra” with Burton -- and earned $6 million more because of delays in filming.
Over the years, she won two Academy Awards, for playing a call girl in “Butterfield 8” and a shrewish professor’s wife opposite Burton in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” She also received Oscar nominations for three other films.
She became an early AIDS activist, raising millions for research and treatment. She also supported a number of charities and, in a business venture, sold perfumes and scents under her name. In 1999, she was made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
‘Seeing People Suffer’
“Acting is, to me now, artificial,” she told the Associated Press at an AIDS clinic dedication in 2005. “Seeing people suffer is real.”
Her movies, public dramas and health problems made Taylor a frequent topic of cover stories in Life, People and other magazines. By the time she won her first Oscar at age 28, Taylor had been married five times. “What do you expect me to do? Sleep alone?” she said.
Aside from her many love interests, Taylor was known as a loyal friend. She met Montgomery Clift early in her career and remained a lifelong friend. She was a steadfast ally of her friend Michael Jackson, speaking out on his behalf after he was charged with child abuse. Jackson died of an overdose of prescription drugs in June 2009.
Rock Hudson’s Death
When Rock Hudson died of AIDS in 1985, Taylor became one of the first figures in Hollywood to raise money and campaign against the disease. And she stayed the course, helping establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991.
Taylor battled health issues throughout her career, as well as drug and alcohol abuse that landed her in the Betty Ford Clinic, where she met her seventh husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born on Feb. 27, 1932, to American parents living in London. In 1939, at the outset of World War II, her mother Sara, a former actress, took Elizabeth and brother Howard to California. By 1943, Elizabeth was in “Lassie Come Home” and the following year attained stardom in “National Velvet.”
“She wasn’t a kid,” recalled “Velvet” co-star Mickey Rooney on a CNN program. “She had the essence of a growing, beautiful child who was going to be more beautiful every day.”
Her early movies tracked the young star’s life: “Life With Father” (1947) and “A Date With Judy” (1948) led to “Little Women” (1949) and “Father of the Bride,” which came out in 1950, the year of her first marriage, to Conrad Hilton Jr.
Romantic Roles
Early romantic roles included “A Place in the Sun” (1951) and “Giant” (1956), followed by her first Oscar nomination for “Raintree County” (1957). She was nominated and again failed to win for well-regarded performances in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) and “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959), before scoring in “Butterfield 8” (1960).
In her movies, Taylor sometimes revealed a character’s unexpected vulnerability by a familiar catch in her throat, a portrayal that seemed to echo her real-life dramas.
A pattern was established by the 18-year-old Taylor, whose marriage to hotel heir Hilton began with a three-month honeymoon and ended in divorce nine months later.
She then married actor Michael Wilding, whom she divorced in 1957 after five years and two children. Three days later she married producer Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash a year later.
Love Again
“I never thought I’d love again” after Todd died, Taylor said, according to CNN. “It was a disaster.”
Still, love again she did. A year after Todd’s death, Taylor married Fisher, Todd’s best friend. When Fisher met Taylor, he was married to actress Debbie Reynolds. “In the old days, if Elizabeth saw a man she wanted, she got him, no matter who she stepped over,” Reynolds told Hello! magazine in 2001.
Even as her movies proved her box office luster, Taylor was beset by health crises. (Her Oscar for “Butterfield 8” came after she underwent a widely reported tracheotomy.)
Fisher and Taylor divorced after she and Burton -- who was also married -- began their much-publicized love affair on the set of “Cleopatra” in Rome. The shoot ran well over budget, almost bankrupting 20th Century-Fox, and the torrid affair brought unneeded publicity to an already troubled film. Overtime due to various delays earned Taylor $7 million for the movie.
Big Box Office
Taylor became seriously ill during production and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz neared a nervous breakdown, but, after three directors, five writers and a cast of literally thousands, the picture was finished -- and then smashed box-office records even as it failed to impress the critics.
Taylor and Burton shed their old mates and were married in 1964. They made 11 more pictures together, most memorably “Virginia Woolf.” None gained the notoriety of “Cleopatra” even as Taylor’s and Burton’s relations grew more tempestuous in the course of a 10-year marriage that ended in divorce in 1974. They remarried in 1975, then divorced again 10 months later. Burton died in 1984.
In November 2004, Taylor said she’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure but would continue raising money for AIDS research. Among other contributions, she auctioned a diamond-and-emerald engagement ring Burton had given her. Earlier she sold a $1 million diamond from Burton to fund a hospital in Botswana.
In addition to breaking her back several times, which hobbled her over the years, she was hospitalized in February 1997 for removal of a brain tumor. The tumor proved benign but she suffered a seizure six days after her discharge and had to be re-hospitalized.
AIDS Research Fund
In early November 2005, wearing a billowy black pantsuit and much jewelry, Taylor appeared in a wheelchair to help dedicate a UCLA clinical research and education center. With bracelets dangling from her arms and a huge diamond on her left hand, the 73-year-old actress announced creation of the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund to support AIDS research.
Aside from her charities, Taylor over the past two decades promoted a line of scents and perfumes with such names as Passion, White Diamonds, Black Pearls, and Diamonds and Rubies, thus playing off her well-known romance with costly jewelry.
She had two sons, Michael and Christopher, with Wilding; a daughter, Elizabeth, with Todd; and a daughter, Maria, whom she and Burton adopted.
To some, Shakespeare’s reference to Cleopatra seemed to fit Elizabeth Taylor as well: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Felix Kessler in New York at fkessler1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net
