ARCHAEOLOGY: Clovis Technology Flowered Briefly and Late, Dates Suggest

For almost 80 years, one of the most enduring puzzles in the archaeology of the Americas has been the "Clovis culture," known for its elegant, distinctively shaped projectile points. Was Clovis the progenitor of all later Native American societies, as many researchers have long maintained, and, if so, how and when did it arrive in the Americas?

On page 1122 of this week's issue, Michael R. Waters of Texas A&M University in College Station and Thomas W. Stafford Jr., proprietor of a private-sector laboratory in Lafayette, Colorado, use new radiocarbon data to argue that Clovis was a kind of brilliant flash in the pan--a movement that may have flourished across North America for as little as 2 centuries around 13,000 years ago. The new dates also put Clovis a bit later than thought, making it harder to accept that it was the first in the Americas.

"What this paper does is reinforce how unusual was the phenomenon we call Clovis," says Michael R. Bever of the University of Texas, Austin. "To have it rise and fall [throughout North America] in as little as 2 centuries" is a phenomenon with few equivalents in the archaeological record.

Waters says that he and Stafford, an expert in the complex art of radiocarbon dating, set out "to nail down the most basic question: When was Clovis?" The heyday of the technology has typically been set between 11,500 and 10,900 radiocarbon years B.P. (The radiocarbon calibration is disputed for this period, but the widely used IntCal04 calibration puts the dates at 13,300 to 12,800 calendar years B.P.). In a controversial move, Waters and Stafford argue that no fewer than 11 of the 22 Clovis sites with radiocarbon dates are "problematic" and should be disregarded--including the type site in Clovis, New Mexico. They argue that the datable samples could have been contaminated by earlier material. Of the remaining 11 sites, Waters and Stafford found that five had been recently dated by higher-precision techniques. The pair decided to redate the others, succeeding in all but one case. The results, Waters says, "were a real surprise." All of the new dates--as well as all of the previous acceptable dates--occurred within, at most, a 450-year band. Indeed, they say, Clovis probably existed for as little as 200 years, between 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B.P.--a cultural flowering both somewhat later and considerably shorter than thought.

The later, more precise dates support the emerging view that Clovis was not the progenitor culture, because it overlaps or occurred after other cultures, including one in Monte Verde, Chile, dated to 1000 years before Clovis.

The real surprise of the paper, according to David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, "is the compressed time frame for Clovis writ large." So fast was its apparent spread that Stafford suggests that Clovis may have been a set of technologies that were picked up by a mosaic of different cultures across North America rather than a single, fast-moving society. "These tight dates, if they hold up, may help us resolve that long-standing debate," says Meltzer, who questions the decision to discard the 11 sites.

Meltzer stresses that the dates used are from a minority of North American sites, most in the west, whereas most Clovis points have been found in the east. Until more data are compiled, he says, researchers "can't know whether this is a real effect or simply a consequence of sampling." In a sense, Stafford agrees. "We need to get more people out in the field," he says. "We hope these dates motivate that."

REPORTS
Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas
Michael R. Waters and Thomas W. Stafford, Jr. (23 February 2007)
Science 315 (5815), 1122. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1137166]

I suggest you read the 3rd item in the post:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1789170/posts

and use the link in that item to:

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8gfbewe7

Where you will find statements like:

"We do not know the age of the Earth because radioactive clocks can be upset by powerful electric discharges."

with explanations on the science behind that statement.

["electric includes magnetic, "xray", "gamma ray" and many other forms and states of energy discharges (electron)].

If the states of energy and the magnetic fields in the universe, and the charged particles they drive, are operating as those authors suggest, many of the differences in our radiocarbon dating could be attributable to large-scale atmospheric electrical and magnetic events, that have, repeatedly, altered the radiocarbon record, locally and/or globally.

If the states of energy and the magnetic fields in the universe, and the charged particles they drive, are operating as those authors suggest, many of the differences in our radiocarbon dating could be attributable to large-scale atmospheric electrical and magnetic events, that have, repeatedly, altered the radiocarbon record, locally and/or globally.

Have you ever done any radiocarbon dating yourself?

I have a hypothesis about the Clovis points: the Clovis points are large spearheads with fluted (concave) sides. They are EXTREMELY TIME CONSUMING TO CREATE. Chipping out flutes along the side of a flint spear head is very hard and requires great skill. So, why did they put such energy into making expensive spearheads when alternative designs were much easier to produce? I hypothesize that the flutes were for poison. The Aleuts killed large whales from a kayak with a poisoned harpoon and atlatl. The Aleuts used aconite from monkshood roots. Tobacco would also work in the New World. The Clovis people could launch a spear with a Clovis point about 100 yards with an atlatl. Herds of megafauna, e.g., mammoths, would be vulnerable to this style of hunting. When the megafauna were wiped out, the natives reverted to cheaper, easier to manufacture spear points.

In answer to your question, No.

Now then, my comments started with "if................", and not "therefore". Also, I offered no scientific critique, yea or nay, of the authors from whom the idea comes; only a link to their material. They offer their own scientific explanations, which, I suggested, you read for yourself.

Am I proposing their idea? No. As I skeptical inquirer of both orthodox and alternative views on the matter (we always know far less than we think we do), I prefaced by statement with "if".

...my comments started with "if................", and not "therefore". Also, I offered no scientific critique, yea or nay, of the authors from whom the idea comes; only a link to their material. They offer their own scientific explanations, which, I suggested, you read for yourself.

Fair enough.

I actually do radiocarbon dating, and have done so for nearly 30 years. As such, I have read a lot of the literature available on the web. I am afraid that an awful lot of it is just nonsense.

Here are some good links on the subject:

ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth Creationists
Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.

Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?

Tree Ring and C14 Dating
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Fine.

And again, I am not arguing for or against any point.

I will say that in spite of all your experience, the methods and the instruments are based on certain scientific expectations of how the "radiocarbon" date is set, together with any scientific expectations of what can affect that setting. The instruments and the methods will always provide results that are "true" to the underlying assumptions built into their design.

The authors of the link I quoted have a view that suggests that there are events (in their view) that are possible in the universe that (in their view) can alter/affect/upset/change the "radiocarbon" setting in atoms. Their argument (not mine) would be not against your instruments or your methods, but the scientific assumption of the process that "events" cannot alter the conditions your instruments and methods seek to measure. They would argue the conditions you measure can be altered by events. (their argument, not mine).

alas:

Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas
yahoo...Reuters | Feb 22 | Will Dunham
Posted on 02/23/2007 12:34:17 PM EST by george76
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1789921/posts

...and clovis is for suckers:

Archaeologist's Find Could Shake Up Science (Topper Site)
SP Times | 1-7-2007 | Heather Urquides
Posted on 01/08/2007 2:14:54 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1764245/posts to comments.

Archaeologists To Return To Allendale Site In May (Topper - 50,000 YO)
Island Packet | 2-17-2007 | Peter Frost
Posted on 02/17/2007 1:59:54 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1786602/posts

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

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