When Were the Americas Populated?

evil agent passes along an article in Scientific American reporting that new radiocarbon dating techniques have cast doubt on the accepted story of how the Americas were populated. In the traditional view, "[M]igrants out of northeast Asia slipped into the Americas bearing finely shaped stone projectiles, so-called 'Clovis points,' after the town in New Mexico where they were first uncovered. This Clovis culture rapidly spread throughout the empty continents and by 1,000 years after their arrival had reached the southernmost tip of what is now South America, making them the original ancestors of indigenous Americans." The new dating of Clovis sites suggests that "Clovis" was not a people, but rather a technology. That is, a new and more efficient method of making arrowheads for hunting spread rapidly through a pre-existing population in both North and South America, over at most 350 years.

Comments

Re:Everybody knows

[Baron_Yam]

I tend to think that the Americas didn't matter much before Columbus. Face it, European culture is currently the most advanced. As a result, for people raised in European-descended cultures, only cultures directly linked to their current position actually matter.

We didn't learn much from American and South American cultures... though we eventually discovered they knew a few things we hadn't expected them to have figured out.

The Americas were DISCOVERED by the current leading culture about 500 years ago, and for the members of that culture, that's enough.