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First Americans - Homo Erectus in America

Were the first Americans the makers of the Clovis Points or did man arrive here at a much earlier time? This Website is a home for those who believe that Homo Erectus or Archaic Homo Sapiens (pre Homo Sapiens Sapiens) found their way to this continent at a much earlier time than is currently in vogue among archeologists.

It is currently in its planning stages and any suggestions by like minded individuals are welcome. The site will contain at least the following:

A page devoted to the Calico Early Man Site, selected for excavation by Dr. Louis Leakey, which has yield man made artifacts between 100,000 and 200,000 years old.

A discussion of Native American legend and tradition that holds that they did not come over the land bridge from Siberia. What then were their origins? Could they have become a people here, in America, as their traditions tell them by evolving from Homo Erectus already living on this continent just as Chinese evolved from Asian Homo Erectus, and Europeans from Homo Erectus living there, etc.

The Fallacy of Clovis

Those who believe man arrived in the Americas only shortly before leaving proof of his presence in the form of the famous Clovis Points, circa 12,000 years ago, will have serious difficulty in reconciling this theory with discoveries on going in the Eastern Calico Mountains of California’s Mojave Desert. Under the direction of Ruth Dee Simpson and at the urging the century’s foremost Archaeologist, Louis Leakey, a major archaeological dig has been on going there for the last 33 years.

The purpose of this first installment on the Homo Erectus -- The First Americans website is a discussion of surface lithics (stone tools) found in the general area of the Simpson/Leakey dig site and their implications for the Clovis School who believe man only arrived in the Americas within the last twelve or thirteen thousand years. Extensive quotes will be made from Simpson’s newly released “The Lake Manix Lithic Industry” published as the San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly Volume 45, Numbers 3 & 4. Serious students are urged to purchase the entire study. For information concerning purchase E-mail jreynold@co.san-bernardino.ca.us. All passages in quotation marks in this section are from Ms. Simpson’s work and we thank her for the scholarship that makes this section possible.

While the author of this webpage does not believe that Homo Erectus is responsible for the surface lithics found in the Calico Mountains of California, he does believe the presence of these lithics is quite important in establishing the fact that man was on this continent eons before those of the Clovis school are willing to admit. Once the door is thrown open to an earlier arrival date for man on this continent, then serious study will hopefully begin on the many early man sites to be found in both North and South America, but currently ignored because of their threat to the comfortable group of academics who have built careers around Clovis.

As Ruth Simpson points out: "In 1926 the discovery of man-made weapon points in the skeleton of an extinct species of bison near Folsom, New Mexico, ushered in a new era of American archaeological research. Since then, prehistorians and geologists have been searching the North American continent for conclusive evidence relating to human presence during the Pleistocene. Most of the early localities which have aroused the greatest scientific interest in North America are characterized by artifact assemblages that include diagnostic weapon points." These sites have been identified with the sobriquet “Paleo-Indian,” as if it all began there. But does it?

No!

"Behind the Paleo-Indian horizon lies a vast sweep of antiquity. Bits of evidence wrested from the silent sediments and relict landforms of the Pleistocene suggest that humans roamed North America long before 50,000 years ago. A few of the challenging elements of the newly established and newly accredited facet of American archaeology we call Pleistocene prehistory."

"One of the best evidences of this is the Manix Basin situated in eastern San Bernardino County, east of Barstow" California. "The basin is surrounded by the Calico, Lane, Alvord, Cave, Cady, Rodman and Newberry Mountains. During at least the late phases of the Pleistocene, the basin was filled with water furnished in part by the Mojave River which drains the high desert and Transverse Range to the south. This recurring lake was Pleistocene Lake Manix." "During late Pleistocene pluvial stages, four fillings of Manix Basin with water are recognized (Buwalda, 1914; Jefferson, 1968,.1985). Fillings terminated at the end of the last pluvial or wet period and because of downcutting by the Mojave River through the Cave Mountains at the end of Manix Basin. This downcutting developed Afton Canyon. Sequential shorelines left by Lake Manix are present at the 1880', 1840', 1800' and 1780' elevations. Radiocarbon dates on Anodonta shell reported by Bassett and Jefferson (1972) suggest that the major lake stand which left the 1780' shoreline ended prior to 47,000 B.P. and that this shoreline is of Tenaya or earlier age. Dates on Anodonta shell along the 1800' shoreline (Berger and Libby, 1966) correspond well and suggest that a relatively brief stand of the lake at 1800' is of Tioga age and the lake may have drained by 19,000 B.P., briefly occupying the 1780' shoreline again during recession. The modern Mojave River, cutting down through the lake sediments associated with the 1780' stand, has exposed abundant vertebrate fossils that support a Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age coinciding with the 47,000 B.P. date.The two shorelines at 1880' and 1780' elevation are well defined."

The reason the author quotes Ms. Simpson on the dates for the shorelines is the fact that stone tools are found on the surface of the desert in the Manix Basin. However, they are found above the ancient lake’s 1780 foot elevation shoreline. As she points out: "There are several major high beaches and shorelines of Lake Manix. One of these at 1780 feet above sea level has been dated by tufa at ± 19,750 B.P. Above that shoreline there is a marked change in artifact type and distribution. These tools include ovate bifaces, hand-axe like tools, choppers, scrapers, hammerstones, cutting tools, and the like. All imply percussion flaking whereas many of the more recent specimens imply pressure flaking. Radiocarbon dates of circa 19,750 years for the 1780' shoreline and the abrupt change in artifact assemblages at that elevation suggest that artifacts above the 1780' shoreline are related in time to a filling of Lake Manix prior to 20,000 years ago."

More modern, pressure flaked tools are found through out the area, but the primative percussion flaked tools are only found above the shoreline of the now dry lake. The obvious conclusion to draw from this evidence is that at a time when the lake was filled to the extent that its shoreline had an elevation of 1780 foot above sea level, a primative culture existed along its shores. The two most recent times that the lake stood at this level were 19,750 and 47,000 years BP (before present). The more recent date is almost twice the age of the Clovis sites, while the older date approaches four times that of Clovis. The author of this website prefers the more recent date, not out of any fear of the more ancient date, but merely out of practicality. It was at the time of the last filling of Lake Manix to the 1780 foot level that the lake broke through a natural barrier in the area of today’s Afton Canyon and drained into the Colorado River Basin, never to fill again. With the loss of Manix Lake the Pleistocene herds that roamed is shores would have moved on to better pastures and so would the men that hunted them. This seems to best explain the evidence found atop the surface of today’s Mojave Desert.

* * * It seems ironic that scientists seem to have no problem with bison, mastodon, horses, and myrads of other creatures finding their way from Siberia to North America across the land bridge, that existed off and on between the two during periods of high glaciation over the last half million years, yet balk at the idea that man could also have achieved a crossing. Why?

Part of the problem may have its roots in feelings that are not even conscious, but nevertheless influence attitudes and thought processes giving moderns a general feeling of superiority over our ancestors. This viewpoint is constantly bolstered by Hollywood and authors of popular fiction, as they portray early man as a bunch of grunting savages. In consequence there is resistance every time a rogue archaeologist attempts to push back in time some important discovery, be it fire, art, or North America.