Location of Santa Rosa island.
The Arlington Springs remains (man or woman) are also sometimes known as the Arlington Canyon or the Santa Rosa person (man or woman).
54. Possible Relatives in the Americas
Arlington Springs remains
(Santa Rosa Island, California, USA)
by George Weber
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Location of Santa Rosa island. The Arlington Springs remains (man or woman) are also sometimes known as the Arlington Canyon or the Santa Rosa person (man or woman).
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The Arlington Springs human was for a long time both one of most ancient of all human remains ever found in the Americas. It was (and still is) one of the more diffiicult finds to interpret. Firstly, there was not a full skeleton (and above all no skull), just two bones (two femora and one humerus) for reliable analysis. The question of whether the owner of the bones might have been male or female also remains undecided and the remains have "changed sex" at least three times since their discovery in 1959.
No tools or any other artefacts have been found associated with the remains.
At the time of the arrival of the first Europeans in California, the local population in the silands were Chumash Indians. It is possible, but unprovable, that the remains are those of a Chumash ancestor. What has been (sort of) established is that he Arlington Springs human has been of haplogroup B (see Genetics), a group that is known to be quite common among Amerindian populations.But that result could not be repeated and so remains unproven.
Originally dated to around 10,000 years old, it is now thought that the Arlington Springs human could have lived as early as 13,000 years ago.
Even when sea levels were very low during the ice age (they were 46 m or 150 ft or below present levels at the time of the Arlington Springs human), Santa Rosa island was never connected to the mainland. This means that the Artlington Springs people must have had fairly sophisticated seagoing boats, which in turn strengthens the opinion of those who think that at least one stream of prehistoric migrants moved south along the American west oast.
The northern Channel islands were a climatically favoured area during the turn of the Paleocene to the Holocene, i.e. at the end of the ice age. Not only have humans prospered there, a race of dwarfed mammoths also survived on Santarosae island (then much larger than today's Santa Rosa island - see map below) until that species died out later. The last known mammoth bones date to around 11,000 years. The mini-mammoths were contemporary to humans on the island and it is possible that they were hunted to extinction (see also photograph and caption below).
The Santa Rosa island and location of theArlington Canyon in which the late pleistocene human remains were found. Red line: oaved road, yellow line: tracks.
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Left: one of the Arlington thigh bones excavated in 1959
Below: fusion lines on a bone indicate that the owner had been adult at the time of his or her death a a a a a a a |
Environmental change in Arlington Canyon between 1994 and 2004 in the area where the Arlington Springs human was found.
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Excavation work in in Arlington Canyon.The bones were found buried 9 m (30 ft ) in the side wall of Arlington Canyon.
Phil C. Orr, discoverer of the Arlington bones in 1959. Dr. Orr recognized the importance of his find immediately, calling it Arlington Springs Man.He locked up the bones until 1987 because of the dispute over whether they belonged to a man or a woman. Until 1993 they were thought to be male and from then until 2006 to be female. The matter is still not definitively settled because of the very limited presence of genetic material in the bones.
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At the time of the Arlington Human, sea levels were ca. 46 m (150
ft) lower than today and the three islands San Miguel, Santa Rosa and
Santa Cruz plus the tiny Anacapa island formed one large island,
called Santarosae.
Dark green : today's dry land, light green: dry land 13,000 years
ago. The sea is likely to have begun to rise to the level of today
around 10,000 years ago.
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The Arlington Springs humans 13,000 years ago shared prehistoric Santarosae island for probably several thousand years with dwarf mammoths (Mammuthus exilis). These were a late pygmy form that outlived the full-sized mainland mammoths for many thousands of years. The pygmies stood 120-140 cm (4-8 ft) high at the shoulders and could weigh around 1 ton. They are another example of the dwarfing effect that many species experience when they are cut off and isolated on islands. It is not known when these creatures died out, but it is probable that human hunters, the warming climate and the shrinking island all played a part in their extinction. A similarly dwarfed race of mammoths survived on arctic Wrangel island (north-west of the Bering Strait) until around 1,500 years ago (an island that was not discovered and named until 1867). |
Among web-sites with further information are:
- http://www.friendsofpast.org/earliest-americans/california.html
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Last change 1 November 2006
