Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas

yahoo...Reuters ^ | Feb 22 | Will Dunham

[george76]

The Clovis people, known for their distinctive spear points, likely were not the first humans in the Americas, according to research placing their presence as more recent than previously believed.

Using advanced radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers writing in the journal Science on Thursday said the Clovis people, hunters of large Ice Age animals like mammoths and mastodons, dated from about 13,100 to 12,900 years ago.

That would make the Clovis culture, known from artifacts discovered at various sites including the town of Clovis, New Mexico, both younger and shorter-lived than previously thought. Previous estimates had dated the culture to about 13,600 years ago.

These people long had been seen as the first humans in the New World, but the new dates suggest their culture thrived at about the same time or after others also in the Americas.

Michael Waters, director of Texas A&M University's Center for the Study of the First Americans, called the research the final nail in the coffin of the so-called "Clovis first" theory of human origins in the New World.

Waters said he thinks the first people probably arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago.

"We've got to stop thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a singular event," Waters said in an interview.

"And we have to start now thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a process, with people coming over here, probably arriving at different times, maybe taking different routes and coming from different places in northeast Asia."

[ASA Vet]

Pingski

[george76]

who were the first people in the Americas if not the Clovis...?

.

[TommyDale]

I was thinking more of Clovis, California.

[george76]

[george76]

evidence for pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas has been mounting for years at archaeological sites from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to Chile.

Now Colorado's Thomas Stafford Jr. and Michael Waters of Texas A&M University report findings that Waters says "puts the final nail in the coffin of the Clovis First model."

New radiocarbon dates from Clovis-site bone, ivory and seeds show that the hunters arrived nearly 500 years later than researchers had thought, at a time when unrelated peoples already lived in North and South America, the researchers conclude.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5372456,00.html

[CottShop]

'advanced radiocarbon dating techniques'- forget that they're only good up to about 7000 years, but by golly- they've radiocarbon dated the material to be 1500 years old- so there you have it- it must be true.

[Verginius Rufus]

Ironic that they're putting this out in 2007, the 1500th anniversary of Clovis' great victory over the Visigoths at the battle of Vouille.

It looks like some people still have "issues" with the Frankish victory.

[george76]

Stafford, who works in Golden, is an authority on the extraction of collagen, the protein used in radiocarbon dating, from fossil remains. Stafford's extraction techniques and modern atomic accelerators allowed the team to date the ancient collagen with much greater precision than past tests.

Combining the new radiocarbon dates with previous ages they considered reliable, Waters and Stafford assembled a new Clovis time range: 13,125 to 12,925 calendar years ago.

[Physicist]

Can they trace the Clovis-point tools to a specific tool tradition in Asia? If not, then it seems entirely likely that the technology was developed here in the Western Hemisphere, which would moot the question of whether the Clovis people "came first".

[MortMan]

That would make the Clovis culture, known from artifacts discovered at various sites including the town of Clovis, New Mexico, both younger and shorter-lived than previously thought.,/I>

Must have been liberals.

[Coyoteman]

'advanced radiocarbon dating techniques'- forget that they're only good up to about 7000 years, but by golly- they've radiocarbon dated the material to be 1500 years old- so there you have it- it must be true.

Don't pollute the thread with ignorance.

[george76]

" Previously, archaeologists thought Clovis arrived in North America about 13,600 years ago and vanished about 12,900 years ago. If Clovis hunters weren't the first Americans, then where did pre-Clovis peoples come from, and when did they arrive? That's one of the most hotly debated topics in archaeology.

Some researchers suggest the earliest American explorers sailed boats from northeastern Asia, then navigated down the West Coast, beginning 20,000 or more years ago."

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5372456,00.html

They have traced a similar type point and made the argument that it is related. That is one of the argument points of the two different scientific camps...depending on which argument you believe.

[Young Werther]

The GEICO gentlemen????

[alloysteel]

The "Clovis" people were almost certainly NOT the first humans to occupy the Americas. There is genealogical evidence that some of the first migrants came to SOUTH America, perhaps of the same racial stock as the Polynesians that had previously spread from New Zealand, and points like Tahiti, over most of the islands of the South Pacific, and may have been the mysterious occupants of Easter Island.

After all, they were excellent navigators, using nothing but the stars and dead reckoning. Sail east, Central and South America are awfully hard to miss.

[george76]

does scott's ex -girl friend have a massage parlor there ?

[Slicksadick]

Blam has some links showing the remarkable similarities of Clovis points to points from the Iberian peninsula.

[Range Rover]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1013315/posts

Always the focus on Asia as the origin of Clovis. Why couldn't this "technology" have come from across the Atlantic instead of the Pacific?

[eyedigress]

New Mexico, obviously......

[PeteB570]

Getting harder and harder to tell who are true "Native Americans". IE: We got here first so we're special.