Clovis/Preclovis- From Mesa to Monte Verde (Alaska to Chile)

[joshuaream]

Tony Baker has uploaded a new presentation on his site. For those lovers of all things paleo it is a great summary on thick bodied points that existed along the west coast of North and South America before, during and after the Clovis period.

This info was originally presented by Mike Kunz at the Alaska Anthropological Association meeting in March.

From Mesa to Monte Verde

[uniface]

Thanks for the heads-up !

[SmokyHill]

Originally Posted by joshuaream

For those lovers of all things paleo it is a great summary on thick bodied points that existed along the west coast of North and South America before, during and after the Clovis period.

This info was originally presented by Mike Kunz at the Alaska Anthropological Association meeting in March.

Mike Kunz gave a very interesting presentation with excellent site photos and point photos.

Thanks for the link Joshua.

SH

[uniface]

But what happened to the stemmed fishtails ????????????????????????????

[joshuaream]

Originally Posted by uniface

But what happened to the stemmed fishtails ????????????????????????????

The point of the paper was to illustrate a range of similar points stretching from Alaska down to Chile, all with early dates.

Stemmed fishtails are still out there, but from El Inga, Fell's Cave, Turrialba and a couple of other sites in Central America, they seem to be post- Younger-Dryas (like Simpson, San Patrice, Pelican, Dalton, etc. from the US.)
That doesn't make them less interesting to me.

[uniface]

Thank You, Joshua

I had been reading speculation (maybe superceeded now by better information) that they were possibly in the Pleistocene ballpark.

Appreciate the clarification

[rokdok]

The Cactus Hill site points (thin) predate all of these thick-bodied point sites by THOUSANDS of years. Anyone care to elucidate on that?

[joshuaream]

Originally Posted by rokdok

The Cactus Hill site points (thin) predate all of these thick-bodied point sites by THOUSANDS of years. Anyone care to elucidate on that?

Rok,

I'll have to check the dates again, I know the really early dates at cactus hill are uniface blade tools that not everyone agrees are tools.

Personally, the only conclusion that I draw from this is that a group making thick bodied points entered the Americas from Siberia, and made it all the way to Chile in pre-Clovis times. I doubt they were the only ones to come to the party.

The oldest sites are in South America, so we don't have the earliest date yet for North America.

Joshua

[uniface]

Kindly bear with a possible misconception from superficial reading here : if (since ?) the oldest dates of the thick jobs (Hasket &c.) seem to be (are ?) in South America, it would seem that they more likely came from Africa (African fishermen -- some of them still alive -- are blown across the Atlantic to South America every year by the trade winds) and percolated North then, rather than came across the Beringian connection.

(?)

[paleo_joe]

One of the benefits of this site is getting to read things like this. Thanks for sharing it.