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When Were the Americas Populated?

Posted by kdawson on from the clovis-breath dept.

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.

5 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't this just the last gasp of the clovis-first proponents finally dying out? I have seen quite a number of documentaries about some archaeologist or other digging up evidence of 'pre-clovis' people for a number of years now. In each of the documentaries we hear about how the archaeologist is derided by the old guard who keep saying 'no, there couldn't have possibly been anyone here earlier'.

    1. Re:old news by nicklott · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Proving that you don't need to be right to have a populist theory, just better at getting yourself on the History Channel...

      IIRC the pre-Clovis sites are a few ripples spotted here and there and most have controversial dating evidence available, where as the Clovis evidence is like a tsunami of archaeology. While there may well have been pre-Clovis people this dating evidence (and from the article that's all it appears to be) simply confirms the date of the sites and does little to add anything of merit to the debate. The argument that it took a maximum 350 years to spread and this is "too fast" for a settlement is spurious. Why is it inconcievable that it "only" took 350 years to get from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego? As it's about 8000 miles at most you would need to drift south at a leisurely 20-30 miles per year. Now this isn't feasible for an agricultural, settled people, but these were hunter-gatherers (as evidenced by the Clovis points) and could conceivably have done their year's quota in a single hunting trip. I doubt getting that far would have been much of a struggle, especially when most of the fat, stupid and tasty animals were in South America.

      While it seems very likely that there were people in South America before the Clovis people, they were probably only there in very small numbers, whereas the Clovis people were clearly very numerous indeed and seem to be the first meaningful inhabitants.

      BTW, it occcurs to me that if Clovis points were a technology that spread amongst an existing people (rather than the spread of the people with the technology) then neighbouring tribes/families/whatever would have to have been on good terms for it to spread. Anecdotally at least it would seem from what is known of tribes who were recently in this sort of situation that they tend not to be particularly friendly with their neighbours.

  2. Modern humans... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...have been around for 100's of thousands of years and they are not stupid. Who is to say that 60000 years ago somebody from Indonesia could not possibly have seen most of the world in a lifetime, if they had so desired? There wouldn't have been any evidence of small scale migration which modern archeologists could find, yet the written history is based only on mass movements of population.

    TFA ends with I think there's enough evidence now to say that there were pre-Clovis people in the Americas."

    Who is to say that it hadn't been happening for several times the 25000 year time scale they are talking about?

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  3. multiple sources of migration by xjmrufinix · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I went to a conference years at which the head archaeologist of the Mashantucket Pequots in Connecticut spoke. He claimed that recent, casino-funded digs in the area had uncovered skulls which seemed to be much older than the 'land bridge' theory would allow for (about 30,000 years ago). The formation of the skull was also much closer to skulls found in France than anything being found locally. He didn't discount the possibility of people cross the Bering Strait, but suggested that more than one waves of migration had probably populated the Americas.

  4. Re:Everybody knows by Baron_Yam · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I never said "might makes right". I don't personally identify with the Europeans who invaded the Americas.

    "Might wins", well, yeah. And even today, the group with the right combination of the biggest stick and the most will to use it will win.

    I've yet to see any culture master sustainability, except by failure to develop the technology to destroy their environment. Humans are short sighted.

    Reducing our potato varieties to five is a short term advance - it makes mass production of the tubers in question easier. In the long run, yes, we're damaging the soil and getting slightly less nutrition than we might have.

    Diplomacy IS a joke. Look at it... diplomacy is used by weak countries to feel as if they're important by browbeating militarily stronger countries. Diplomacy is otherwise used by most nations as a delay tactic.

    Just because the West recognizes its own (major) flaws doesn't mean it isn't a pretty good civilization overall. The failure of individuals to take advantage of all our opportunities doesn't take away from the fact that this culture has produced more opportunities than any other.