A lifetime of looking has yielded only three complete Clovis points, along with a good assortment of heart breakers.
Posted on 09/29/2010 3:41:46 PM PDT by decimon
New research challenges the controversial theory that an ancient comet impact devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America.
Writing in the October issue of Current Anthropology, archaeologists Vance Holliday (University of Arizona) and David Meltzer (Southern Methodist University) argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations. "Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record," the researchers write. "Insofar as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist."
The comet theory first emerged in 2007 when a team of scientists announced evidence of a large extraterrestrial impact that occurred about 12,900 years ago. The impact was said to have caused a sudden cooling of the North American climate, killing off mammoths and other megafauna. It could also explain the apparent disappearance of the Clovis people, whose characteristic spear points vanish from the archaeological record shortly after the supposed impact.
As evidence for the rapid Clovis depopulation, comet theorists point out that very few Clovis archaeological sites show evidence of human occupation after the Clovis. At the few sites that do, Clovis and post-Clovis artifacts are separated by archaeologically sterile layers of sediments, indicating a time gap between the civilizations. In fact, comet theorists argue, there seems to be a dead zone in the human archaeological record in North America beginning with the comet impact and lasting about 500 years.
But Holliday and Meltzer dispute those claims. They argue that a lack of later human occupation at Clovis sites is no reason to assume a population collapse. "Single-occupation Paleoindian sites—Clovis or post-Clovis—are the norm," Holliday said. That's because many Paleoindian sites are hunting kill sites, and it would be highly unlikely for kills to be made repeatedly in the exact same spot.
"So there is nothing surprising about a Clovis occupation with no other Paleoindian zone above it, and it is no reason to infer a disaster," Holliday said.
In addition, Holliday and Meltzer compiled radiocarbon dates of 44 archaeological sites from across the U.S. and found no evidence of a post-comet gap. "Chronological gaps appear in the sequence only if one ignores standard deviations (a statistically inappropriate procedure), and doing so creates gaps not just around [12,900 years ago] but also at many later points in time," they write.
Sterile layers separating occupation zones at some sites are easily explained by shifting settlement patterns and local geological processes, the researchers say. The separation should not be taken as evidence of an actual time gap between Clovis and post-Clovis cultures.
Holliday and Meltzer believe that the disappearance of Clovis spear points is more likely the result of a cultural choice rather than a population collapse. "There is no compelling data to indicate that North American Paleoindians had to cope with or were affected by a catastrophe, extraterrestrial or otherwise, in the terminal Pleistocene," they conclude.
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Vance T. Holliday and David J. Meltzer, "The 12.9-ka ET Impact Hypothesis and North American Paleoindians." Current Anthropology 51:5 (October 2010).
Current Anthropology is a transnational journal devoted to research on humankind, encompassing the full range of anthropological scholarship on human cultures and on the human and other primate species. The journal is published by The University of Chicago Press and sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU's seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
/bingo
Been hunting them most my life and never found a Clovis, we do find allot of plainviews and similar paleo type points.
A center piece to any collection, very nice!
Check out these points.
I have the same as #3, 6 & 10 of the top row.
#1, 2 & 4 of the second row.
#1, 3, 5 & 9 on the third row.
W
Must have one heck of a “front” yard... :-)
Correted title: No Evidence For Clovis Comet Catastrophe, TWO Archaeologists Say
Man, I hate it when I go looking for my glasses and then realize...I'm wearing them.
I think these reading glasses would work better if they were somehow made part of the monitor — easier to keep clean.
Nice!
Just like trying to find (Honey, where the *&^$ did you hide the (^&*^$#@@*&!!! phone book THIS time!?!) the phone book, when your elbow is resting on it.
And, yes; I also wear glasses. She threatened to get me one of those beeper gizmoes to help me find them, until I pointed out I would then just lose the clicker thing.
OTOH, neither of us have to put up with having to bear this guy's cross:
“(AP) Jackie Woody looks over his flooded kitchen in Carolina Beach, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010”
Thank the Good Lord I didn't have to go through junior high & high school with a name like that, AND glasses!
So there was a sterile space between Clovis and newer cultures. However, how many of these gaps occurred at the same time in widely spaced locations.
What about the Black Mat? What about the directionality of the axes of the eliptical Carolina and other Bays? What caused the Younger Dryas? Why did megafauna and Clovis disappear at the same time?
Yes, if the large animals were gone, it would make sense to use smaller points.
Thanks. I found most of mine in Travis county near Lake Travis, but some are from the farm in Lee county. There is an Indian burial ground on the part of the farm which I inherited and will remain as is.
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