This was theorized about 20 years ago but people thought the proponents of it were crazy. I thought it made a lot of sense and now it seems that that's what the establishment is agreeing with.

It's amazing how consensus can change

While fascinating, I think it's a stretch to assume that fighter pilots and astronauts would have similar enough brain structures to be cross-compatible in a study like this.

Yes, they deal with similar things, but Astronauts deal with so much more than fighter pilots do. They also move much faster, experience total weightlessness, and spend extended periods of time away from Earth's gravitational pull.

What can be extrapolated from this study requires a huge asterisk saying "but we can't know for sure since they weren't astronauts and their professions are still markedly different.

Hmm. I thought paleontologists were simply interested in animal fossils, not human fossils.

You learn something new everyday.

And Patchless Joe was accidentally decapitated by a cannon ball the following day.

What do you mean? Isn't it part of the skillset to be an archaeologist? I know certain anthropologists specialize in it. But I had always thought archaeologists also had a cursory knowledge of the subject. Maybe I'm wrong.

I highly doubt the first fossil finders in North America were slaves who came on in 1492 at the earliest. The Native Americans were here for thousands of years before Columbus, and so were the Vikings. It's more likely to believe they were the first to discover fossils.

But, yes, the article points out a much needed aspect of American history that the first archaeologists working for westerners were enslaved.