Clovis people not the first to arrive in Americas

[Wichita]

There is a pre clovis mammoth kill site about 50 miles west of where I live. The name of it is the Cooperton site.
COOPERTON SITE

[Mojave]

Nice dojr.
Thanks.

[uniface]

Neat ! Thanks !!!!

[mootsman]

Well as a famous radio commentator said "words mean things."

A quote from the article in the link (underlining by me):

Possible stone tools and unusual patterns of bone fracture and distribution provided provocative evidence for human involvement.

I think the word "suggest" would fit a whole lot better than "evidence" after reading the article -- which I enjoyed and appreciate you posting.

One thought that comes to mind is given the sophistication of points of the Paleo period wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that pre-clovis sites would contain evidence of knapping? (FWIW, I quit drinking the "Clovis First" kool aid back in the 90's)


I've got a link to the complete study of the below abstract saved somewhere and will try find it. I'm not not being a contrarian just adding some food for thought. The entire study is well worth the read.

Longitudinal studies of african elephant death and bone deposits a

a Anthropology Department, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, Nevada 89557, U.S.A.

Abstract
Hundreds of non-cultural elephant bone sites have been studied in southern Africa, starting at or before the actual moments of death and continuing through bone burial or destruction. In some sites, dozens of elephants died en masse due to drought. These sites contain spirally fractured limb bones in proportions as high as 62% of counted limb elements. Many naturally broken tusk fragments are similar to specimens that have been interpreted as artifacts in fossil proboscidean collections. Trampling marks on bones closely mimic cut marks made by stone tools. As reported here, numerous attributes of non-cultural assemblages are virtually indistinguishable from attributes that archaeologists have believed to be created by human behaviour alone.

[Massac]

.............

[paleo_joe]

Originally Posted by mootsman

One thought that comes to mind is given the sophistication of points of the Paleo period wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that pre-clovis sites would contain evidence of knapping? (FWIW, I quit drinking the "Clovis First" kool aid back in the 90's)

Or they didn't use stone. I wonder if the reason it's so hard to find pre-clovis is that they used a wood and bone toolkit. One of the reasons for the ultra-rapid spread of the clovis point could have been that it was simply made from stone and a major innovation.

It does beg the question of where the pre-Clovis migrations came from that they didn't have stone points.

I vaguely remember a couple of supposed pre-Clovis stone point types from South America???? Or maybe they were simply paleo.

[mootsman]

Originally Posted by paleo_joe

Or they didn't use stone. I wonder if the reason it's so hard to find pre-clovis is that they used a wood and bone toolkit. One of the reasons for the ultra-rapid spread of the clovis point could have been that it was simply made from stone and a major innovation.

But if we go by current data and assume that Clovis technology spread like a wildfire through existing cultures and died out in 2-300 years then don't we have to assume that these groups knew how to knap first? It seems a stretch to think that a fluted point could be introduced to groups that didn't knap and suddenly they had the skills to both knap and produce a sophisticated point. Given how rare fluted points really are when you exclude all the fakes, I think that possibly pre-clovis sites have been just over looked. Particularly if they are equally rare and have nothing as remarkably diagnostic as a Clovis point.

[Chipolaman]

[...Deleted...]

[Mojave]

Originally Posted by Chipolaman

I suppose a lot depends on what is meant by "Clovis". Did the "Clovis" people get here and immediately cop a squat and start banging out fluted points as soon as they knew they were in America? No, of course not. But Fluted Points ARE an American invention. Even if we go with a Solutrean Connection or predecessor, Clovis points were NOT made anywhere else. It's bizarre to think that the First Americans arrived and left very little sign of their presence until Clovis technology exploded across America...but that seems to be the situation. Sites like Monte Verde do seem to offer a Pre-Clovis presence...but I think the reason that the arch. community has been slow to accept the "Clovis was not first" model is two-fold

Originally Posted by Chipolaman

(1) a lack of replication of Monte Verde type sites...what I mean is that given the wide distribution of Clovis sites and the number of Clovis points (they're actually not THAT rare), it seems like there should also be a lot of Pre-Clovis sites standing by to 'give birth' to Clovis. Sites like Cactus Hill are intriguing but they're not exactly iron-clad.
(2) wild -or at least poorly substantiated- claims at sites like the Topper Site of not just "Pre-Clovis" but 50,000 year old Pre-Clovis....I mean, it's one thing to say "Well, there were people at Monte Verde before Clovis but only 1,000 - 2,000 years before Clovis and the population was still growing slowly and they hadn't spread out that much just yet- so we can see why Pre-Clovis sites are so scarce"...but if there were people running around in North America 40,000 years or so before Clovis, you'd think that 40,000 year later by the time of Clovis, the population would have increased to the point there would be all kinds of Pre-Clovis sites popping up everywhere along with identifiable artifacts and even human remains and so forth to be found. Archaeologists generally like to only make small, gradual changes. Doesn't mean they're always right but here's the rule when dealing with claims that rock the foundations of science:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof...or at least extraordinary evidence.

Just like there's no Clovis points found anywhere else in the world (with the possible exception of Solutrean which has a toolkit that -taken as a whole and disregarding fluted points- does share a very close match to Clovis toolkits), likewise there are no tool assemblages being found below Clovis anywhere that match up to any Old World precedents that are known for the time period that would have just predate Clovis. In other words, if we found a toolkit below the Clovis horizon on a site and that toolkit matches one known in Asia or Europe and dated around 15,000 - 20,000 years old, then we could say "Ah; the so-and-so culture from the Squalidstan region of central Asia migrated here and invented Clovis." and it would 'make sense'. But we don't find any such toolkits below Clovis.

Hooray, one of my favorite subjects,…again.
Sorry I just can’t avoid putting in my three cents. Some of what you said Chipo I agree with, some I don’t. But through it all a few relevant points always seem to roll around in my head:
A. Solutrea refers more to a time period, not a specific projectile point. Roughly 20,000-15,000 rcybp folks of the Solutrea period made many very different point styles. Some with techniques and methods similar to Clovis (first pic,) some were totally different. I’ll get back to how this is relevant.



B. Looking for something that is Clovis-like in Asia or elsewhere as “pre-Clovis” PRESUPPOSES that Clovis was first. I.e. declaring there is no predecessor to Clovis in Asia, automatically ASSUMES there is no pre-Clovis point forms in the Americas. So upon NOT finding what you are looking for in Asia means exactly,…nothing, if you think Clovis was not first. So why do we continue this “pre-Clovis in Asia” search?
C. There is more variability among Clovis in the US (east to west, or west to east, whichever you prefer) than there is among Alaskan Sluiceway, Nevada Haskett, and Chilean El Jobo (north to south, or south to north.) Now that we have pretty much universally accepted that El Jobo is 1000 years older than Clovis, at least at Monte Verde, why haven’t we looked for predecessors to THAT in Asia or Europe???
Well, we have. Back to my first point on Solutrea here is a pic from the Smithsonian of a 19,000 year old point from central Europe followed by a pic of a couple of my Hasketts:





These points are made all over Europe and Asia between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago. Now we have them at 14,500 in South America. These are interchangeable with Sluiceway points from the Arctic North America.
OK so now that I’ve said all that, I am not saying that in the lower-48 I believe Haskett is pre-Clovis. What I AM saying is that it is a much more believable story connecting these thick/narrow Solutrean points across Europe and Asia, over to Alaska, down the far-western US, eventually to Argentina and Chile rather that than connecting outré passé Solutrean points to Clovis. The reason people connect the outré passé Solutrean points to Clovis is based on the very belief that Clovis was first here. Why don’t we try to draw connections between thick/narrow Solutrean points to Sluiceway/Haskett/El Jobo. There is a heck of a lot more evidence for that in terms of technology, point forms, carbon dates, etc.
But then again I never understood why folks didn’t pay any attention when fluted Agate Basin points were noticed by Wormington and Frison from Alberta to Blackwater Draw.
Anyway, back to your first post Chipo, Mesa Verde-like sites do exist. In Alaska they are Sluiceway. In the western US they are Haskett, although they are extremely rare, and in SA they are El Jobo. South American archaeologists don’t have the hang ups with Clovis that we in NA do. They see the stuff everywhere. So do the Russians.

[uniface]

Oh boy -- more fun !

The intense risk-aversion you've outlined is the heart of the matter. Contrary to what you've stated,

there are no tool assemblages being found below Clovis anywhere that match up to any Old World precedents that are known for the time period that would have just predate Clovis.

there is no shortage here of Mousterian assemblages that have come to light, and in considerable numbers. These are not random accidents that look like Levallois, but pure assemblages of nothing else but, and identified as such by professionals with enough first-hand familiarity with these to recognise them.

Reiterating : the problem is not that these don't exist, but the intense risk-aversion of professionals here. The majority of these have been eroded out of context. Since they can't be placed within a sealed, geologically datable horizon, nobody is going to risk going out on a limb by calling a spade a spade, no matter how many of them there are, or how self-evident it is that they are what they are. At least one site where these are found has been on the record for years now. But, if the necessary financial outlay and commitment to excavating it are the criteria of serious interest in the pre-Clovis era by the powers-that-be, despite their protestations to the contrary, there is none. Out of sight, out of mind. That way nobody gets attacked and nobody's "wrong."

Acknowledging these would NOT be "rocking the foundations of science." This is simply the Piled-Higher-and-Deeper establishment's take on it. To them, their opinions comprise what "science" is. Simple fact is, they've been wrong before, and will be again. People are mortal and fallible -- not omniscient and infallible. Archaeologists are people. qed.