- Yana RHS site, earliest occupation of Siberia
- Late Pleistocene Siberia: Setting the Stage for the Peopling of the Americas
- Three Stage Colonization Model for the Peopling of the Americas
- The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) Cosmic Impact Hypothesis, 12.9 ka: A Review
- Bioarchaeological Biographies of Ancient Americans
- Paisley Caves: 14,500 Years of Human Occupations in the Northern Great Basin
- The Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis: The Mid Wisconsin (OIS 3) Peopling of the Americas
- North America Before Clovis: Variance in Temporal/Spatial Cultural Patterns, 24,000 to 13,000 BP
On the archaeogenetics side, an intriguing abstract of Eske Willerslev's talk:
A Genomic Sequence of a Clovis Individual
Eske Willerslev
The Clovis complex is by some scientists considered being the oldest unequivocal evidence of humans in the Americas, dating between ca. 11,050 to 10,800 14C yr B.P. Only one human skeleton has been directly AMS dated to Clovis age and found associated with Clovis technology namely the Anzick human remains from Montana. We are currently sequencing the nuclear and mitochondrial genome from this human skeleton in order to address the origins and descendents of Clovis. I will present the results obtained by our international consortium.In terms of the "three-migration" model, Clovis ought to be "First American". But, there is evidence that at least archaeologically Clovis had company and predecessors, so it will be interesting to see how closely the sample will match our expectation of what "First American" DNA looked like.
There is also the issue of the Solutrean hypothesis; if early North Americans had European ancestors, and the early population was diluted by subsequent population movements from Asia, this ought to show up. Additionally, there is the hypothesis of a common North Eurasian ancestry affecting both Europe and Amerindians, which would predict that the Clovis individual would be an early descendant possessing that type of ancestry.
In about a year we might know much more about the identity of early New World populations, and, by implication, adapt our views about the settling of the Old World itself.
Very interesting; thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe lingering effects of “Clovis First” paradigm bias is no more evident then in the virtual dearth of available hypotheses propelling scientific explanations for how, when, and from where “pre-Clovis” Amerindians came to rely on simple forager/gatherers behaviors (e.g. “learned economies”). Simply, from what did mid-Pleistocene archaeological signatures evolve? Today, we are finally beginning to accept that there were INDEED Pleistocene Native American ancestors, leaving little, if any, evidence to link them with Old World Upper or Late Paleolithic People (Krieger 1964; Wormington 1957). The key site responsible for the revelation of a behavioral system encompassing pre-Clovis occupation is Monte Verde, having gained truly overwhelming acceptance in 1997 (see Dillehay 1989; 1997).
ReplyDeleteFiedel’s (1999), impassioned resistance to paradigm shift, accentuates the magnitude of the problem(s) “Clovis Firstly” must overcome. Perhaps the first step for them is to refine how Paleo-Indian Traditions fit into the equation since they do not represent this First People of the Americas any-longer. The process could be likened to picking up the pieces and starting over again. Where did the revolution to Paleo-Indian Traditions emanate, northeast Asia, Europe, or in-situ from earlier pre-Clovis strategies? Clovis, as a secondary occupation, must be incorporated into an emerging pre-Clovis paradigm. Could direct migration from UP Europe explain Clovis origins? There seems to be difficulties in determining Clovis precursors in Northeast Asia, despite a considerable effort to prove otherwise, leaving contact with Europe as more and more plausible. What must now be hypothesized is perhaps the cultural diffusion of very similar tool technologies found in Solutrean/Magdalenian Upper Paleolithic Iberia, into pre-existing people already occupying the Americas. Magdalenian Cultures coincide with the first advanced sea-mammal hunting groups of Europe while these technologies overlap with the timing of both river and coastal resource exploitation in Europe. A major criticism of Stanford’s hypothesis is; the advent of Paleo-Indian Traditions in the Americas is later then Solutrean while one could make the argument that later Magdalenian may have condensed aspects of Solutrean it always shared its derivation (Lewis Binford, personal comm. 2000 and 2011).
There seems to be difficulties in determining Clovis precursors in Northeast Asia...
ReplyDeleteUnknown,
How so? There were people living in Siberia at least ~30,000 ya, and sites seem to move from West to East, over time. There are some genetic links to Europeans. And then there was presumably a population in Beringia for which we have lost most artifacts.
Archeologists have been searching for Clovis or Paleoindian Industry precursors in northeast Asia since the dawn of Clovis First theory. They have not found them. James Dixon, Dennis Stanford, and David Meltzer (and other Americanists) would all agree with this assessment. They are specialists in this area of research and spent their lifetimes trying to find archaeological antecedents to Clovis technologies in Alaska and northeast Asia to substantiate the now debunked theory of Clovis First. The movement of Paleoindian (Clovis) Culture into the north compliments with archaeological data the Holocene timing and dispersals of this movement (James Dixon 1993) out of the Americas. As for genetic links between Siberians and native Americans the idea of back-migration from the Americas provides a better explanation for the recent post-Holocene arrival of the bearers of genetic links (mtDNAs A, C, and D into Siberia and northeast Asia. Franz Boas warned us of back migration at the Holocene as drawn from the Jessup Expedition. The main conclusion drawn by the researchers of the Jessup Expedition remain(ed) generally unpublished as Jessup did not like what they found, Native American back-migration and an “Eskimo Wedge” between two Amerindian (ancestral) and Siberian (descendant) Populations.
ReplyDelete"Archeologists have been searching for Clovis or Paleoindian Industry precursors in northeast Asia since the dawn of Clovis First theory. They have not found them. "
ReplyDeleteUnknown, haven't they instead found just about the opposite, some kind of microlith tradtion? Somewhere on Kamchatka, I think it was.
It seems unworkable for scholars to contrast models of Paleoindian (or Clovis-first) settlement when pre-Clovis populations were already here in the Americas. However, an earlier occupation of the area incorporating the 33,000 year dates from MV-I suggests that humans inhabited southern Chile during the Pleistocene. If this should be the case then Clovis would be best explained as a much later adaptation with clearly defined relationships to Old World technologies emanating from the European Upper Paleolithic. Simply, Clovis technologies would have spread through pre-existing populations of pre-Clovis people in both North and South America. The Clovis-first model must find a final resting-place for the current hypothesis must assume that pre-existing populations did not subsist on the hunting of large-game.
ReplyDelete(Kelly and Todd 1988:234) also note that the early Paleoindians “had to move frequently into new territory” to follow large Pleistocene fauna. To date, however, there is no hard evidence to substantiate claims of resource stress anywhere in the Americas. (Dillehay 1997:10)
As a matter of comparison, it seems logical that models of human dispersment often applied to the human colonization of the Americas be applied to scenarios affording the sapient colonization of the Old World. Advocates of “Sudden Replacement” believe there is a single location for our species and that earlier non-sapient hominid groups went extinct without much or any interbreeding with these recent newcomers (however, see Green et. al. 2010). The idea that pre-Clovis Homo sapiens would ignore new technologies brought to the Americas by later Old World colonists equipped with advanced hunting complexes is untenable. Consider the apparent diffusion of Auchulian technologies by Chaltperonian Neandertals. Simply, since there were pre-Clovis groups, the spread of Paleoindian Traditions into them, seems a better explanation for the diffusion of mega-faunal hunting practices. Clovis technology sharing after the onset of the Holocene represents a secondary adaptation defused into an already populated set of American continents.
The observation that pre-Clovis is “first”, and Clovis as no longer first, must accommodate a secondary habitation as the Americas initial Paleolithic stage. In the same vein, (but with only Homo sapiens players), conversion in the new World can be likened to the Mousterian Problem or the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition as applied to the Old World. Certainly, the fact that the pre-Clovis remains constant until nearly the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago requires us to measure the significance of not only a Pleistocene habitation but also, the uniqueness of this remarkably un-Paleolithic behavioral episode encompassing human prehistory. Could the American pre-Clovis depict evidence of human habitation, pre-dating Upper/Late Paleolithic advancements, just beginning to evolve 45,000 years ago in the Old World? What is the significance of “early early man” sites in the Americas if they approach and surpass dates for the initial archaeologically ascertained modern human Paleolithic behavioral signatures of the Old World? Could advancements gained in the colonization of unknown Old World continents have made their way back to the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age? This is where Clovis belongs, a very significant secondary occupation marking the onset of the American Paleolithic.
The emerging consensus of an earlier than Clovis occupation of the Americas can be founded in the indisputable archaeological signature recovered from Monte Verde level II in southern Chile, dated to least 12,500 ybp. This site has been painstakingly evaluated from the initial date of its discovery through 1997 when it was last visited by a team of researchers, many adamantly opposed to such a time depth for human settlement of the Americas. In the years following the 1997 National Geographic article describing this visit there has been a renewed effort, throughout the Americas, to examine previously discarded levels predating the end of the last Ice Age. These older levels have long been overlooked in the search for evidence of human habitation as funding and the original consensus has thwarted such efforts. Before Clovis Theory needs to focus on the shared characteristics of previously discovered pre-Clovis sites, newly discovered pre-Clovis sites, and Monte Verde levels I and II. Researchers need to draw into this relationship a new perspective suggesting that Monte Verde level II is in fact not evidence of a recent type of “settlement” but rather, distinct proof of a beautifully detailed pattern of human behavior that is exemplary of other much older pre-Clovis habitations. The basis for reevaluating Monte Verde II as more than just some part of an initial New World “settlement pattern” can be reconditioned when we accept, even theoretically, the significance of the 20,000 years separating it with its older relative, Monte Verde I (at 33,000ybp). Clearly, the time-span separating Monte Verde I and II would eliminate the more recent site’s classification as related to an initial “Peopling of the Americas”. Rather, it could represent an ongoing pattern of habitation distinctly conforming to a prolonged occupation of the area, and the Americas in general (Krieger 1964: Wormington 1957; and others).
ReplyDeleteJust read this old BBC news article from 1999. They reckoned that the first Americans were from Australia maybe 50,000 years ago. Evidence: skulls, artifacts, cave paintings. There are cave paintings in Australia of ocean boats.
ReplyDeleteEvidently the "native Americans" invaded the continent much later and they exterminated the whole lot of them. No 'reservations' for the Austro-Americans. That would seem to turn PC Theory on its head.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/430944.stm
Quote:
The first Americans were descended from Australian aborigines, according to evidence in a new BBC documentary.
The programme, Ancient Voices, shows that the dimensions of prehistoric skulls found in Brazil match those of the aboriginal peoples of Australia and Melanesia. Other evidence suggests that these first Americans were later massacred by invaders from Asia....
However, the new evidence shows that these people did not arrive in an empty wilderness. Stone tools and charcoal from the site in Brazil show evidence of human habitation as long ago as 50,000 years...
Images of giant armadillos, which died out before the last ice age, show the artists who drew them lived before even the natives who greeted the Europeans...
And the crucial detail is the high prow of the boat. This would have been unnecessary for boats used in calm, inland waters. The design suggests it was used on the open ocean.
Hypotheses entailing pre-Clovis habitation beckons researchers to test post-Ice Age assimilation of European populations into these earlier Amerindian Tribal Groups. Untested models for Clovis progenitors have begun to investigate the possibility of “direct links” with Europe and, with this, an Amerindian assimilation of Upper Paleolithic people, and their technologies (Clovis-Second theory). The recognition of a substantial pre-Clovis Population celebrates, as moiety of this Amerindian heritage, the peaceful assimilation of European People and their Upper Paleolithic Industries succeeding generations perfected into fluted-Paleoindian Traditions. There have been plenty of articles (some from scientific journals, some enclosed in mainstream publications like Newsweek) genuinely suggesting that Europeans were the “FIRST” inhabitants of the Americas. This alternative, promoted by a few hardened advocates of the “Clovis First” model, would have the “FIRST” Americans coming from Europe before a later group; today’s Amerindians, arrived and replaced them. But where does full acceptance of pre-Clovis habitation inter into the equation of Paleoindian origins? Since it is now archaeologically sanctioned to formulate hypotheses entailing earlier pre-Clovis Populations living in the Americas during the Pleistocene, new formulas must emerge in order to integrate linguistic, cranial, genetic, Kinship, archaeological, and geographic data (Bradley and Stanford 2004; Dziebel 2007; Rogers et al. 1985b; Rogers 1985a).
ReplyDeleteCould migrating Tribes of Iberians, employing Solutrean/Magdalenian Industries, have introduced into pre-Clovis Cultures the Upper Paleolithic after crossing the North Atlantic into eastern North America, at or near the end of the Last Ice Age? The north-eastern seaboard origins for “Paleo-Indian Traditions” has genetic correlates with a demic-diffusion by European People - equipped with Paleolithic technologies - into pre-existing Amerindian Populations? European mtDNA lineages are found strikingly in eastern North American Amerind speakers, but not in Aboriginal groups from Central or Southern America. (Nor are any derived genetic links in Aboriginal Australians in ancient or modern samples that would link them to Amerindians.) Were Paleolithic Europeans acculturated by Amerindians where, specifically, the oldest “Paleoindian Traditions” are found?
My name is Alvah Hicks and I approve this discussion... Hello Dienekes, I am having trouble posting other than "unknown" as i can not get past the "open id.." any suggestions, i can check my email for instructions, Thank you Alvah
ReplyDeleteThis is a quick view of MV and what it took to overcome the Clovis First impasse 20 years after MV was discovered.
In Chapter 1 of Monte Verde A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, Volume 2, 1997 author Tom Dillehay and contributors address the possibility that Monte Verde II does not represent the initial “settlement” of the area since the time separating it and the adjacent MV I would remove this profile. The difficulty Dillehay finds in promoting the earlier Monte Verde I as an archaeological component can find parallels when addressing the nature of the debate surrounding pre-Clovis claims throughout the Americas. In Volume I and II the primary goal was to establish the case for MV II, since it offers insuppressible proof of human habitation before Clovis Times.
“Due to the muddy peat layer that developed after the site was occupied by humans, a wide verity of organic remains were preserved, including 38 chunks of animal meat and hide (chapter 18), 11 specimens of the wild potato Solanum maglia (Ugent et al. 1987); appendix IX), at least 4 varieties of exotic seaweed (Ramirez 1989b: 161-170, more than 20,000 plant parts of 55 local taxa, and approximately 180 archaeological elements and tools made of wood. Buried deeper in another area of the site is an older component that is associated with 26 stone tools, 3 clay lined pits and 2 radiocarbon dates reaching back to approximately 33,000 B. P. (Dillehay 1989a:237-238; Dillehay and Collins 1988). Although the younger cultural component is securely human in nature, the older, deeper material is inconclusively related to human activity.” (Dillehay et al. 1997 pg. 2)
There are a number of factors delaying the acceptance of the earlier component at MV I, paralleling factors that have delayed acceptance of other pre-Clovis candidates. Among the factors used to reject Pre-Clovis claims addressed by Dillehay 1997 are biased interpretations affording “instant analysis” which is attributed to a mixture of paradigm conflict, defense of long professional careers in the study of “Early Man” in the Americas, and misconceptions.
“Maybe it is predictable that many good archaeologists, such as Ruth Simpson, Louis Leakey, and Alex Krieger, lost some of their credentials as “objective” scientists over the claim of pre-Clovis finds from a new site. (The credentials of some critics may also be questioned by offering instant analysis of all new sites without studying the data or visiting the site excavations.)” (Dillehay 1997 pg. 4)
Eske Willerslev asks and I quote here from Brown a possible prediction of Hg X in the Clovis individual they plan on sequencing
ReplyDelete"There is also the issue of the Solutrean hypothesis; if early North Americans had European ancestors, and the early population was diluted by subsequent population movements from Asia, this ought to show up. Additionally, there is the hypothesis of a common North Eurasian ancestry affecting both Europe and Amerindians, which would predict that the Clovis individual would be an early descendant possessing that type of ancestry."
Some clues from the past.
“Our analysis confirmed that haplogroup X is present in both modern Native Americans and European populations. For the Native Americans, this haplogroup encompasses ~25% of the Ojibwa, 15% of the Sioux, 11 - 13% of the Nu-Chah-Nulth, 7% of the Navajo, and 5% of the Yakima. Thus, with the exception of the Na-Dene-speaking Navajo, the distribution of this haplogroup among the Native Americans appears to be restricted to northern [and eastern Atlantic] Amerindian populations (Brown et al. 1998, pg 1857 emphasis added).”
“Recent European genetic admixture cannot explain the presence of haplogroup X in the Amerindians. First, if the occurrence of haplogroup X were the result of female gene flow from Europeans, then other, more common European mtDNA haplogroups should also be present in the northern Native Americans, and they are not. Second, the Native American and European mtDNAs are very different and are connected only through an ancient common ancestor. Hence, Native American and European haplogroup X mtDNAs diverged long ago (ibid. 1998, pg.1857 emphasis added)”
“A coalescence time of 12,000-17,000 years ago could be interpreted as a rapid reexpansion, or, alternatively, as an independent and late arrival of haplogroup X mtDNAs into the Americas (ibid. 1998 pg. 1859 emphasis added).”
The genetic data would seem to indicate that European Type X mtDNAs represent a later, isolated migration. Moreover, pre-Clovis Amerindian Populations must have been here before the assimilation of Europeans since the European X marker is found exactly where Europeans would have first encountered “pre-Clovis People” already inhabiting the Americas. Conversely, if the “FIRST” Americans were “Europeans”, then one would expect Haplogroup X mtDNAs to have survived in Central and South America, where they (haplogroup X mtDNAs) are implicitly absent. Europeans, accordingly, could not have been the FIRST Native People of the Americas. Rather, the identification of European mtDNA haplogroup X (Stone and Stoneking 1998) hints of a peaceful assimilation into, principally, the northern and eastern-most Amerindians who genetically retain evidence of the point of contact between previously geographically isolated New World pre-Clovis cultures and Old World Upper Paleolithic populations.
I would like to offer a view in concert with an American Wellspring for the behaviors found in the Americas before Clovis... from
ReplyDeleteThe Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways, Robert L. Kelly. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 446 pp. Reviewed in American Anthropologist, Vol. 98, No. 4, December 1996, p. 913
Reviewed by John M. Lindly and Geoffrey A. Clark
"This is an important book, not because of path-breaking original research (there is little new here), but because Kelly presents a current, insightful, and well-written critique of the disparate approaches to research on what are known to anthropology as hunter-gatherers. He adopts the conceptual framework of behavioral ecology, defined by a focus on relationships between behavior and environment, firmly grounded in evolutionary theory, and distinguished from cultural ecology by an explicit concern with process questions. Since this foregrounds the relationships among human subsistence activities, biological reproduction, and learning in a social context, Kelly argues that behavioral ecology can best account for modern humans as biological and cultural animals and can best explain how we came to be the way we are today (p. 913)."
The robust but simplistic archaeological signature uncovered from Chile's "Monte Verde" just 13,800 bp may be typical of the type of human subsistence activities delineating other mid-Pleistocene occupations of the Americas. It can be argued that this kind of behavior is unrelated to Paleolithic occupations from contemporary Old World sites. That these early New World activities do not appear to be descendant of Old World hunter /gatherer societies - 30,000 years in the making - does not require that we dismiss them, (because of the limited evidence supporting mid-Pleistocene occupations), as archaeological sites. As Owen points out in Smith/Spencer (1984), until we can define a theory to help guide us, the meaning and/or verification of pre-Clovis will be difficult to process. By arguing that mid-Pleistocene occupations represent a more simplistic behavior a new relationship can be suggested from these occupations. That relationship could represent an ancestral condition, a kinder/simpler human subsistence activity that remained isolated from specialized hunter/gatherer subsistence activities that we know evolved during mankind's expansion into what was once a new Old World.
I thought Clovis was not the first American??? Weren't Kennewick Man's remains identified as the oldest in the US? Werent't they already shown to have Eurasian mtDNA?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Alvah Hicks and I approve this discussion... Hello Dienekes, I am having trouble posting other than "unknown" as i can not get past the "open id.." any suggestions, i can check my email for instructions, Thank you Alvah
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/newworldanthropogenesis#!/newworldanthropogenesis
The Evolution of Archaeological Perceptions of the First Americas:
Historical Implications and Paradigms Lost
By Alvah M. Hicks
(Abstract) The significance of a pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas is greater time depth accommodating extensive genetic and linguistic diversity detected in populations native to the Americas. This paper will discuss the implication of the development of Paleoindian Industries by focusing on the greater question; the origins of pre-Clovis Amerindians.
Archaeologically based skepticism surrounding “pre-Clovis” occupation of the Americas confounded the development of novel theories, including the paradigm of Holocene back-migration identified by Boas and his colleagues, long before the identification of a Terminal Pleistocene human occupation in 1927. The “Clovis First” paradigm began with the earliest evidence of an American Paleolithic stage, i.e. “Paleoindian Traditions”. Since “Fluted Points” are unique to the Americas, with no other evidence of refined “Paleolithic” tools predating them, archaeologists have long hypothesized that Eurasians equipped with Upper Paleolithic (UP) Industries were the First Americans. Moreover, since these distinctive tool types first begin to appear in the Americas at the end of the Last Ice Age, an archaeological consensus had (or has, since there is still disagreement) categorically refuted any earlier evidence inasmuch as all reputed pre-Clovis sites lack evidence of refined stone tools).
Anthropologists should remain cautious when relying solely on archaeological based chronologies. The Clovis First model has long undermined anthropological observations that would compliment a substantial mid-Pleistocene occupation of the Americas. For example, J. H. Greenberg (1987) remained “cautious” when he dated “Amerind”, and its 11 language stocks found in North and South America, basing the arrival of his first of three Native American language groups, on a chronological generation that conformed to the archaeological consensus of the time (i.e. Clovis First being < 12,000 y.b.p).
"It may plausibly be connected with the Paleo-Indian (Clovis) culture, which dates back at least 11,000 to 12,000 years. Although we have presented linguistic criteria to establish a relative chronology of the three migrations, we have considered only archaeological correlations as a source for an absolute chronology (Greenberg 1987)."
As far as I know the mtDNA status for Kennewick Man remains unknown and if it were it might never be published. I Co-chaired a session on Holocene Back Migration into Siberia in 1998 (or so) at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Seattle and James Chatters was on of our presenters. He contacted us about participating and, so, we also invited members of the Umatilla Tribe to participate, and they unfortunately declined. Wikipedia offers some interesting information on the links Chatters’ has tried to establish, that of a European relationship based on recreations of what Kennewick Man might resemble. Found it odd that Kennewick Man was depicted as bald, something very rare in Native Americans… Skull types are very diverse in the Americas while this is one of the reasons so many scenarios have been drawn to include “Amerindian peopling events” from as far afield as Australia. An American Wellspring counters that; as with language and genetics; a greater diversity in ancestral Amerindians, (think “‘ancient’ modern humans” not “’archaic’ modern humans”), compliments them as a highly diverse basal group (with 26 mtDNA Eves as Rebecca Cann once reported). This likeness can be seen as evidence of the derivation of Old World Peoples from the Americas if we but adopt (or contemplate) what many Umatilla and other Native thinkers accept as factual. Regional adaptations and behavioral customs confer a better set of “founding effects” in the Old World than in the greater Native American Populace.
ReplyDeleteThe uniquely Amerindian development of “Fluted Stone Tools” (Clovis and related “Paleoindian Traditions”) could be evidence in support of Smithsonian archaeologist’ Dennis Stanford’s “working hypothesis” incorporating a separate independent “European” migration bearing witness to a post-Ice Age diffusion of Iberian’ Solutrean/Magdalenian Technology into pre-existing pre-Clovis Populations. Since, little, if any, archaeological components defining the Old World “Paleolithic” are found at Monte Verde (or any other pre-Clovis sites) it should be assumed that an outside (Old World) influence contributed to “Paleoindian Traditions” and the increased production of archaeological signatures accompanying the use of Paleolithic tools (Muller-Beck 1966).
ReplyDeleteThe source for the limited archaeological production associated with pre-Clovis behavior in Pleistocene America is undetermined. It remains a culture virtually devoid of Old World Paleolithic Industries (Wormington 1957; Krieger 1964, and others), and has been, in the least, identified as a “Learned Economy” (Fagan, 1987). Could this behavior be “basal” to what later evolved into Upper/Late Paleolithic Cultures?
Out of the Americas remains an untested hypothesis while researchers may be aware of this theory one good friend reminded me in 2000 that as an “outsider” “You have your work cut out for you (geneticist Theodore G. Schurr personal correspondence April 24, 2000).” Dr. Schurr warns: “I don’t consider this a hopeless effort, but you have to understand that these are the circumstances under which you are working. Remember, that, if ít has taken over fifty years to finally force many Clovis-first archaeologists to admit that there really is a pre-Clovis substratum in the Americas (except Fidel, of course), then think how long it will take to sway their opinion towards an “Out of the Americas” interpretation of modern human origins (ibid 2000).” I, for one, am optimistic that scholars do not want to wait another 50 years as Out of America does not compromise “the scientific method.” Researchers must first agree to test its merits. Human evolution is in debate mode and still unresolved. Let’s cut to the chase and accept that we have yet to find the most basic truths as to why one species was replaced by another. Looking only in the Eastern Hemisphere for explanations for the origins of our own species may be the problem.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, at what point in history did it become academic to release Native Americans from the search for our human origins? Was it when Acosta developed the Bering Land Bridge theory; or when Darwin suggested that living apes were our closest relatives; or when the British School acquiesced to Piltdown Man; or when Florentino Ameghino (Argentinean author and paleontologist died in 1912 and Ales Hldricka (Founder of the American Association for Anthropology), decided to threaten the careers of those supporting a greater antiquity then his meager 2,000 year antiquity; or was it the discovery of Clovis Fluted Paleoindian Industries in 1926 and Hrldricka’s later (1936) reluctant acceptance of a Terminal Pleistocene arrival that set in motion (now debunked) Clovis First Theory. I ask when???? Do we restart the equation of modern Human Origins with the advent of C14 dating in 1952 establishing that Piltdown Man was a hoax and that the Paleolithic of Europe and the Old World was older then Clovis. Archeologically speaking, when “Clovis First” became the undisputed choice for an archaeological signature of humans in the Americas, any doubts that the America’s was “Peopled” were fully set aside.
'By the way, at what point in history did it become academic to release Native Americans from the search for our human origins?'
ReplyDeleteAnyone!
The only academic study that drew as it's fist priority the determination of Native American origins was the Jesup Expedition. Contrary to what was expected the Researchers determined that the origins of the Amerindians could not be found in northeast Asia, only back migration from the Americas.
ReplyDeleteAdherence to the “Clovis First Model” has delayed the integration of hypothesis entailing pre-Clovis habitation. The Clovis First paradigm itself took so long to appropriate that earlier paradigms were drowned long before they could climb aboard. Hldricka’s conservative opinion set back Boas’s identification of alternative routes for migrations, specifically “out of the Back Door” of the Americas at the end of the Last Ice Age. The genetic links between Northeast Asians and Amerindians must incorporate lost paradigms including “back-migration” into Siberia as most every member of the Jesup Expedition compellingly identified in science’s first “ethnographic” exploration into culture. The Jesup paradigm identified two Holocene migrations out of the Americas; the first leaving descendents of Dene speakers in Northeast Asia and the second attributed to Circumarctic Cultures, Boas’s “Eskimo Wedge” theory.