Finding the first Americans

Science ^ | 03 Nov 2017 | Todd J. Braje, Tom D. Dillehay, Jon M. Erlandson, Richard G. Klein, Torben C. Rick

[kitchen]

Science 03 Nov 2017:
Vol. 358, Issue 6363, pp. 592-594
DOI: 10.1126/science.aao5473

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This article has a correction. Please see:Erratum for the Perspective “Finding the first Americans” by T. J. Braje, T. D. Dillehay, J. M. Erlandson, R. G. Klein, T. C. Rick - November 03, 2017

Summary

For much of the 20th century, most archaeologists believed humans first colonized the Americas ∼13,500 years ago via an overland route that crossed Beringia and followed a long and narrow, mostly ice-free corridor to the vast plains of central North America. There, Clovis people and their descendants hunted large game and spread rapidly through the New World. Twentieth-century discoveries of distinctive Clovis artifacts throughout North America, some associated with mammoth or mastodon kill sites, supported this “Clovis-first” model. North America's coastlines and their rich marine, estuarine, riverine, and terrestrial ecosystems were peripheral to the story of how and when the Americas were first settled by humans. Recent work along the Pacific coastlines of North and South America has revealed that these environments were settled early and continuously provided a rich diversity of subsistence options and technological resources for New World hunter-gatherers.

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[kitchen]

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Also:

Most scientists now reject the idea that the first Americans came by land

More doubt cast on the idea that people took a land route to the Americas

Underwater discovery reveals 14,550 year-old Florida mastodon hunters

Incredible discovery places humans in California 130,000 years ago

[kitchen]

[TXnMA]

Interesting map. Those are all stemmed points -- supposedly preceding un-stemmed and fluted clovis and Folsom...

As a lithic technologist, I've always said that the ultra-difficult fluting process had to be preceded by something simpler and easier.

However, these authors are sandbagging the data by showing only coastal sites -- and by ignoring mid-continent pre-Clovis sites like Gault in central Texas.

~~~~~~

FWIW, I'm on an archaeological listserver where posting this article would start a weeks-long fight. Believe me, the "There warn't no people here pre-Clovis!" cadre is still alive, kicking and vociferous in professional American archaeology. Even the mention of Dillehay's name suffices to set them off...'-)

Thanks for the link; maybe I'll go "rouse some 'stuffed-shirt rabble'" among my colleagues with it... LOL!!

[evets]

I toured the Gault site last month with Dr. Michael Collins. We used to pay the previous owner $10 to dig there all day. When the site was mostly empty of relics and 'bedrock' was hit at 3-5 feet, it was discovered that the 'bedrock' was actually a layer of Travertine and pre-Clovis relics were found below that layer. Dr. Collins said that the relics were 20,000 years old and the people were probably from Europe, arriving by boat south of the Atlantic ice shelf. Here's a reconstruction from one of the skulls.

[SES1066]

The bit about ‘First’ always bugs me as it is so ephemeral, subject to incessant revisions as more data comes to the fore. It is also mostly immaterial to actual effects. So what if the Vikings or the Phoenicians or the Irish or the Chinese were first to ‘discover’ the Americas [after the Amerinds]? Their lasting effect was nil and Columbus / Spain were the ones who made the lasting discovery.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a good endeavor to keep looking for the older sites, especially the ones that pre-date the Clovis theory. Like plate-tectonics, some of these scientifical shibboleths need to have sunlight cast upon them. See Clarke’s 1st law: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

[bgill]

crossed Beringia and followed a long and narrow, mostly ice-free corridor

Ice-free during that time but somehow we're suffering global warming today.

[kitchen]

Oh yeah, do it! Just add a comment about the lack of any inclusion of Solutrean sites. Heart meds territory.

[kitchen]

Fascinating reconstruction. Thank you.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 11/10/2017. Thanks kitchen.