RULES AND STRUCTURE- All Must Read

Here is a reminder of the rules and structure of the competition:

FOR THE CONTESTANTS:

1) At the beginning of the week, a photoshoot is assigned. READ THE BRIEF CAREFULLY, READ THE BRIEF, READ THE BRIEF!!!!!!! Ahem! I will give you an allocated amount of "frames" (photos) you may submit. It is in your best interest to send that amount, and not any less, even if there is just ONE photo you love. Any more you have submitted beyond that allocated number will not be accepted- not even looked at!

After the allocated due date for the shots, there will be a 2 day Grace Period. If you submit your photo during this grace period, you will receive penalty points, so it is best to send your shoots in ASAP. You will also get less out of the experience, because I may not wait 4 or so days for the judges' comments before I post panel, so if you send in late, your photo may not be judged by everyone.

If a photo is not received by the end of that Grace Period without any explanation, I WILL NOT accept the photo and you may be eliminated!

2) Upload your photos to photobucket.com, tinypic.com or any other photo sharing site. If using photobucket, make sure the photos are in an UNLOCKED album. DO NOT send me links to photos on Facebook. Do not delete the photos from that site once you have uploaded them because I may need the link later on. Send me the links to the pictures VIA PM ON THIS FORUM. The "PM" icon is top right hand corner of this post and every post of mine, it is the icon with the little man and it says PM.

3) You MAY NOT USE PHOTOSHOP TO ADD EXTRAS INTO YOUR PHOTO unless otherwise specified. HOWEVER, you may use it to alter other photographic effects, such as darkness, contrast, red-eye, colour etc.

4) The best photo is chosen by ME and I send them to the judges, who then comment on your photo and arrange each photo into a ranking from best to worst. You get 1 point for a first callout, 2 points for 2nd and so on. All of your scores are added up and the two people with the highest total at the end will be up for elimination. The judges will then vote out of those two who they think should go home and those with the highest votes will be eliminated!

5) STICK AROUND! Please do not leave the forums when eliminated. Of course, I can't going to hold you here against your will haha, but it is nice to have a full cast to contact when needed!

6) PLEASE DONT QUIT!! Please! I beg you!!! Haha. This game will run for approx 3 months so if you know you won;t be available for a period within that time, don't sign up!

FOR EVERYONE:

7) There is to be NO bullying or blatant bashing of other members of this forum. I dont mind if you are bitches to each other because it is good entertainment for me haha. However, there is a line! Also, please refrain from posting spam!

8 ) Any questions about the forum or any other suggestions, send them my way! I always love to hear about how you guys think I could improve the competition!

Disclaimer: I have the right to remove anyone from this game and this forum completely at any time if these rules are consistently ignored. There is only one winner, so there is a high chance that you will be eliminated, so expect it. If you cannot deal with criticism and rejection, this is not the game for you!

**IMPORTANT** By personally sending me your pictures and/or videos, or posting them on this forum as part of the competition, you are agreeing to allow me use them and display them on PUBLIC forums on the internet and are agreeing for me to use them as I wish. Once a photo is submitted, I consider it to belong to the INTM name and I may not be willing to delete and remove photos when requested. Signing up to the game as a contestant is your online signature agreeing to these terms!!! To assure you have read and understood this please post below with "I understand the important terms and conditions!!!" or something to that affect.

BONUS FEATURES:

QUITTING: If a model quits the competition before the next photoshoot is due, the previously eliminated contestant will be given a second chance and will be able to re-enter the competition. However, penalty points will be incurred for that photoshoot. So make sure you stick around once you are eliminated because your time may not be up just yet!

CMOTW: After every Judging Panel, everyone may vote on their favourite model of the week. The winner will receive bonus points at the following Panel.

CHALLENGES: There may be a few little challenges pop up every now and then so keep your eye out!

VIDEO CONFESSIONALS: To gauge a better understanding of your passion and personalities, contestants are encouraged to post regular vlogs on the forum.



MOST IMPORTANTLY- Have fun, be silly and weird and creative and magical and amazing and just enjoy the ride!!!!! I can;t wait for it to begin!!

no bullying?!? bullying is my middle name, or according to school polls i was voted SCHOOL BULLY, the sadness...

Bitch please Im Nicave and im the Number one Bitch from the ATL Yaw Hey

Leigh you forgot number 7.

SEVEN) I AM THE GAY SLUT OF THE BOARDZ AND NO ONE ELSE. BREAK THIS RULE AND YOU WILL NOT ONLY BE ELIMINATED FROM THE GAME, YOU WILL DIE.

pulls out his news paper and crumbels it up dont Make me get Cha Cha Diva on you Big boy

pffft, check yo thighs in tha mirrah

oh Jb ypu know you want to beep me, come on ill let u spank me

Across the Sea: Analysis of the Solutrean Hypothesis

The Americas were the last of the continents on our planet to be colonized and settled by humans. Estimates range from as late as 12,000 BC to as early as 18,000 BC for the date of human arrival, depending on what site you are looking at. The arrival date, however, is a secondary concern as far as the route and means used to reach the Americas. In response, four basic theories of migration have been made: The Bering Land Bridge, the Bering Sea, the Pacific Crossing, and the Atlantic Crossing theories. Of these theories, the Bering Land Bridge/Bering Sea theories are seen as the most viable in terms of genetics, logistics, and timing. The Atlantic crossing model is seen as the least likely, given the same reasons. However, in recent years two anthropologists, Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford, have postulated that Trans-Atlantic colonization of the Americas actually occurred. Their argument is that the Bering Sea model of migration was not based on hard archaeological evidence, but instead on supposition. "In the absence of any clear alternatives, the theory has become dogma, and ultimately ideology." (Bradley, Stanford 2004) Their evidence consists of three primary theses: The Pre-Clovis and Clovis lithic culture of the Americas bears far more resemblance to the Southwestern Europe Solutrean culture than can be coincidental, the sea ice and drop in sea levels during the last glacial maximum was sufficient to allow migration across the Atlantic, and that there isn't enough hard data for an exclusively Beringia-based migration to the New World. In other words, their own theory is based on similarities between lithic cultures, sea ice levels, and the fact we do not have a great deal of hard evidence for Beringia-based migration given the fact that New World archaeological sites are notoriously rare and difficult to locate. While the evidence is stronger than it first appears, absence of proof against your claim is not the same as proof. In addition, genetic studies into Native Americans further refute the possibility of migration via the Atlantic. While Sanford and Bradley's paper did not cover the genetic part of the theory in great detail, I felt that bringing this aspect of it into the paper would present a more complete overview of the Solutrean hypothesis than simply working off the Sanford and Bradley paper alone.

First, the Clovis and Solutrean technologies: The Clovis lithic technology is distinctive in it's usage of bi-facial percussion flaking, forming fluted "Clovis points" that were made to take down megafauna. Occasionally pressure flaking was utilized in the shaping of Clovis technology. The Clovis culture appeared from 13500 BC to 11500 BC (Elias 1997). Solutrean technology appeared around 19000 BC, the first examples found in eastern France. Rather than flint-knapping, Solutrean points were created with bifacial pressure flaking, lending them a fluted appearance similar to the Clovis technology (Stanford, 2004). Both technologies featured large spearpoint designs. As far as the technological similarities go though, it's rather slim. The focus has been on a site known as Cactus Hill in Virginia, where Stanford and Bradley allege there is a transitional lithic technology to be found in the site. While the artifacts in question are called Pre-Clovis in the news brief, no outstanding characteristics of the Solutrean culture are present. Pressure flaking is not automatically evidence of an entirely different lithic culture, dating aside. Relations in size are also irrelevant-Lithic technology is based on what you have and what you need. Megafauna were around in both the Americas and Europe at the time of the last glacial maximum (~20000 BC) and in both cased fluted points on large spear heads were effective against big game. There's no reason to assume that the Clovis culture required the Solutrean culture's assistance to figure out that big spear points are more effective against big animals than small spear points. The fact that both the Clovis and Solutrean cultures used pressure flaking for fluting of their points is also irrelevant-Again, you utilize what you can and since the laws of physics are uniform across the planet when it comes to the creation of stone tools, what works in one place to make tools will almost assuredly work the same way in another place with similar resources. Basing your entire premise on similarities in fluting of spear points is thin, even for lithic technologies. Place an ocean between the two cultures and the evidence looks even weaker.

The Solutrean lithic technology actually bears closer resemblance to the Sandia lithic culture found in New Mexico, but as you may have surmised, "No matter what the origin or function of Sandia points, there is no historical relationship between the development of Sandia and Solutrean artifacts" (Dixon, 1999). If you can't find a relationship between a lithic culture in New Mexico and one in Eastern France that actually bear some similarities, then what amounts to superficial similarities between two cultures still separated by an ocean does not a connection make. Maybe I'm not an archaeologist but this isn't evidence to me. Dr. Straus, a noted critic of the Solutrean hypothesis, did his own work on Cactus Hill and couldn't find anything to indicate that the Pre-Clovis culture there was in any way related to the Solutreans. In response, Stanford and Bradley theorized it was a "subset of the Solutrean lithic culture" (Stanford, Bradley 2006) for which there is just their theory in support of it. It's just difficult to take this theory so seriously particularly in light of the similarities between the Solutrean and Sandia lithic technologies. Would Stanford and Bradley have them descended from the Solutreans as well? Why is it that across this particular ocean from this particular culture there is so much contributed to Native American technologies?

Speaking of oceans, the next part of Stanford and Bradley's theory is dependant upon glacial maximums affecting the sea levels of the Atlantic (and thus the rest of the world) and the abundance of sea ice during these periods. The last glacial maximum occurred around 20,000 years ago, with sea level drops that varied from 120 to 135 meters below current levels (Clark, Mix 2002). This fits within the time frame of the Solutrean culture and the age of the Cactus Hill site, and the theory is that like the Eskimos, the Solutrean culture crossed the Atlantic with kayaks, living off marine life and stopping on sea ice floes on their journey. The earliest kayaks were documented 4000 years ago (Hamilton, 2006) and are relatively simple constructions of animal skin, bone and wood. This is Stone Age technology at its finest-Simple but effective. The levels of sea ice at the last glacial maximum are also encouraging-With Greenland, Iceland and the British Isles surrounded by glaciers the sea ice during winters would be significant. An industrious Stone Age people with some experience with the sea (that is, fish hooks) could figure out how to build watercraft for coastal navigation, certainly. Following the edge of the ice pack would provide a base for trans-Atlantic sea farers so that they wouldn't have to make it a straight trip. Modern-day Inuit have demonstrated the ability to travel from Greenland to Iceland to Scotland via large sea kayaks. The Solutrean culture appeared to spread out across France and Spain and thus they would have no shortage of launching points to utilize.

Of all the components of the Solutrean hypothesis, this is the strongest. Inuit kayak technology has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years, and there was certainly no shortage of local materials for the purposes of building kayak-like craft for traversing large stretches of ocean. Skin-based water craft would be a valuable asset to people living on the coast for the purposes of resource collection. Technologically it is certainly feasible to build Stone Age level water craft capable of making a trans-Atlantic voyage travelling from, say, the Bay of Biscay to Scotland, up to Iceland, to Greenland and reaching Nova Scotia and the rest of the coast of North America. There is also the fact that during the last glacial maximum, Beringia was covered by glaciers and thus, impassable by humans. Crossing it 20,000 years ago was not very feasible, though after the maximum ice levels swiftly dropped as sea levels increased (Dixon, 1999).

However, like with the case of the Solutrean/Clovis connection, there is simply no hard evidence for these trans-Atlantic crossings. In addition, even with the pack sea ice courtesy of the glaciers to ease transport, this is a journey of around 3,000 miles. It is no light undertaking. What's more, while curiosity could certainly fuel such exploration, hunting in the open ocean in small boats is difficult, tiring and requires a great deal of resource expenditure: To say nothing of the resources involved in creating watercraft capable of making the trip. The primary concern of hunter-gather societies is survival and large watercraft's biggest purpose would be in collecting large amounts of food. For instance, the Makah Tribe did not build large canoes simply for the fun of it-They were built for whale hunting. We have little evidence of significant animal migrations across the ice pack which would be a major reason for humans to migrate as well, to keep up with food sources. Finally, the earliest kayaks are old, but we have only found ones 4,000 years old-Nowhere near the time of the Solutrean culture. The Native Americans may put their invention and usage back further but this is still not hard evidence. While this does not rule out the crossings, it certainly does make it far more difficult to substantiate. You could make the argument on a theoretical level or on a practical technological level but without definitive proof it remains theory.

One aspect only briefly touched upon by the Stanford and Bradley article is the genetic evidence. Genetic analysis has been a significant boon to anthropological studies over the past few decades, but of particular interest for the purposes of the Solutrean hypothesis is the genetic haplogroup X. It is a unique haplogroup due to the fact that it has a global distribution but is not particularly localized to certain human populations. In other words it is found in every population across the planet to some extent. While it is almost completely gone in Eastern Siberian populations, it occurs with more frequency in European populations.

According to the American Journal of Human Genetics, "Native American populations exhibit almost exclusively five mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups (A–D and X). Haplogroups A–D are also frequent in Asia, suggesting a northeastern Asian origin of these lineages" (Fagundes, Nelson, Kanitz 2008). X has always been regarded as an old man out among the various haplogroups and given its higher level of occurrence in North American populations; this is seized upon in the Solutrean Hypothesis as a sign of Trans-Atlantic colonization. Given that it is literally found almost everywhere on the planet, this also seems rather thin a theory but among the Algonquianpeoplesof North America, whose distribution runs across the North Eastern United States and throughout Eastern Canada, haplogroup X recurs in 25% of the male population (Lewis, 2009). This significant recurrence given the historic homes of the ethnic group in question grants a genetic component to the Solutrean hypothesis.

For the third time, however, this theory has a flaw. According to the Fagundes article in the American Journal of Human Genetics (Fagundes, et al 2009):

"For each haplogroup, all Native American sequences trace back to a single founder haplotype that can be distinguished from Old World haplogroups by the presence of exclusive mutations or, in the case of haplogroup C, by specific control region sequence motifs, corroborating the results from Bandelt et al. We observed 2, 5, 0, 1, and 3 coding-region mutations which are markers for the five Native American haplogroups A–D, and X, respectively. The accumulation of these Native American specific mutations possibly reflect the duration of the transition period after the ancestral population divergence from Asians but before the within-haplogroups diversification."

Simply put, due to exclusive mutations found in haplogroup X traceable to mutations in the other haplogroups part of the Native American population, independent migrations from Europe adding to the gene pool can be ruled out. If there was genetic evidence of this, the mutations in haplogroup X would have been more specific and independent of other groups. Haplogroup X may have a global distribution but in reality, in most populations it has a very low occurrence-Only in five percent of European males, for instance (Fegundes, et al 2009). In Siberian populations the occurrence is even lower, and none of the Eastern Siberian populations possess it, but this is explained via drift theory-Rare haplogroups have a tendency to be phased out through subsequent generations due to genetic mutation. However, in those populations where it does occur, the data supports it being distantly related to Native American haplogroups-The intermediate groups are presumed to have been lost due to the separation of the populations for thousands of years. "Finally, it is noteworthy that haplogroup X is not the only one of the Native American haplogroups that is more frequent in the New World than in Siberia; haplogroups A and B also show this pattern." (Fegundes, et al 2009). Haplogroup X provides far better support against the Solutrean hypothesis than it does for it.

The Stanford and Bradley paper opens up with the fact that there is little evidence to support the Beringia Migration model, that there is no "smoking gun" and that it is based only upon "supposition" (Bradley, Stanford 2004). They point to the difficulty of dating North American archaeological sites, the lack of sites found in Alaska, and the apparent inability of anthropologists to imagine possibilities beyond those of the Bering Land Bridge: That it is embraced merely out of convenience and for lack of anything better. Their theory is, based on this, no less valid for lack of evidence based upon these things. There is, however, one distinct difference between the Solutrean Hypothesis and the Beringia Migration Model: Occam's Razor.

The original meta-physical principle went like this: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: Roughly translated it means "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." In modern times it is generally expressed as "the simplest solution is usually the best," but is also known as the law of economy. A more modern variation, but no less valid, is summed up as KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. No matter which way you put it, the simplest explanation of anything is usually the best one to use. Maybe man was seeded on Earth by super advanced aliens millions of years ago, maybe President Kennedy was shot by seven gunmen working for the CIA, the Catholic Church, Castro, the USSR and his wife, and maybe wiener dogs are from the Gamma Dragonis Star System. In all those cases, just as with this one, the fantastical is possible but science is based on facts and what you can reproduce in the laboratory, not on the abstract. Granted, Occam's Razor is not strictly a scientific principle but given the nature of anthropology and based upon the evidence presented to us, it is a good rule of thumb to go by without proof that says otherwise.

The similarities between the Clovis and Pre-Clovis cultures and the Solutreans is better explained by convergent evolution than by communication between the two groups. Lithic culture analysis only gets you so far, and not every variation in the technology shared with other industries is going to be significant. If a certain technology works in one environment, then it is entirely possible this technology will work in another, similar environment. For instance, there are five universal constants of physics: speed of light in vacuum, Gravitational constant, Dirac's constant or "reduced Planck's constant", Coulomb force constant, and Boltzmann constant. While they may go by different names, these universal constants are things any sentient lifeform of sufficient technological advancement could determine for themselves and utilize for communication. Does this mean the alien race shares an ancestry with us? No, these are merely universal constants. It is a constant that large, fluted spear points are more effective against large animals than small, non-fluted spear points that humans figured out through observation, experimentation, and ingenuity. There is no reason to believe that the Clovis culture needed to be told any of this or be descended from a culture with similar technology to figure this out.

Prehistoric humans were not stupid: Maybe they didn't understand the true sources of the natural forces of their world but they knew what they did and how they behaved, and they adapted accordingly with the resources at their disposal. No matter how you look at it, the Atlantic is thousands of miles across from Europe to North America and even with the ice pack, much of a journey like that would be without readily available food resources to exploit with nothing but glaciers and ice to stand on. Even the Inuit maintained a somewhat sedentary lifestyle, and if they had the option to stay on solid ground versus ice, they chose solid ground. This is not to say that prehistoric humans were cowards, far from it, but when most of your day to day activities are related to survival, long ocean voyages at this stage without significant chances of pay off were probably out of the question. This does not discount the theory, but as said before, a lack of evidence is not evidence.

The genetic evidence is very clear, and complicating it only demonstrates a lack of knowledge about the subject. Seizing upon haplogroup X as evidence for Trans-Atlantic migration alone is not enough, you need more to it than that. As demonstrated, further research into the genetics of the Native American population revealed the simple truth that it just isn't that important.

Finally, as has been stated over and over before in this paper, a lack of evidence against your theory is not enough. While anthropology does require some speculation, all of it is based upon what you can see and what is already known, and all of that must be carefully scrutinized and tested before it can be used in a scientific theory. The Solutrean Hypothesis is not entirely invalid an idea-With ingenuity, experience, and sufficient resources, Stone Aged peoples could construct ocean going watercraft. However, there is more to it than simple capability. You need more than a lack of evidence against your theory, one that is already shaky to begin with, to support it. With three strikes against it, the Solutrean Hypothesis as is looks extremely weak and without anything to buoy it up, there's a good reason it's regarded as the least likely model of migration to the New World from the Old.

^ too long for me to even care to read...

i read the first sentence and lost focu models arent supposed to be smart

i was just so lost, i scrolled and saw so much text, i was like PEACE...

Damn Strait!

^ Sea what I did there? Not that it has any Bering.

FYL for having to write that, but it seems epic from my gloss-over of it. Hope you got an A. xD

Ok, Kazara, you are always so much pun!

i remember when i used to write essays like that.
but then i joined a private school where the teachers reward us with pretty much everything we do, so now my essays are pretty much "i think adams edited his pictures because he wanted to show us what he saw and not what was actually there. like yosemite."
sometimes i don't even know what i'm talking about anymore.

I knowww, right? Today was especially punny for me today 'cause we had to think up names for our class boat. Long story!

It's the Adams conspiracy! But yeah, that's how I felt on the AP Composition exam today, not even knowing what I'm talking about anymore. I made an analogy between slavery and biochemistry ("The existence of slavery shows that not all the reactants of the Constitution have been made into products!"), and that should just not happen. Even if you're really tired. When I'm tired, I act pretty much like an acid tripper without the actual, physical symptom of hallucinating.

my thing is not that i'm tired, it's that i just don't care anymore cause i know im gonna do well and i'm gonna pass
and such and so on and so forth.
adams was such a pill.

i like this site...at first i was just okay, but now i like it...and im talking about forum wise...the color theme and stuff...

However, Adams was not on the pill. Which would explain the existence of John Quincy Adams!

Sorry...Stupid joke...x(

Hey, yeah, I like this new format too. Pretty white, but I like it.

I like it too; it's really simple.
And the banner came out REALLY well! Kudos to whomever made it.

its nice love it...i wished there was like a black line deviding pictures but i love it...and i really really really love love love your default...

Karasu made the banner!

And yeah I am running out of the decent generated formats that forumotion has to offer haha

lol, i like this one alot...its pretty awesome...

adams was totally on the pill that's why hew as always pmsing and going on and on about the mountains at yosemite.
i was all dude chill

talking about pills, i have never tried drugs, but im sure if i did pills would be fun to do...lol jk jk

lmao i smoked weed for the first time this year, i didnt like it