Neolithic Human Habitation in the Americas

originally printed April 2016

It is often considered an accepted fact that human habitation began in America as the two continental ice sheets separated and created a land bridge over the Bering Sea, allowing Neolithic hunters to follow herds of large games into what we now call America. We call these migratory humans Clovis, for the shape of the arrow head technology they almost universally used to survive, we have found them all over the country, dating from not later than 13,000 years before present. This has become the hard cutoff date. However, several sites of interest have arisen in the Americas which have sparked a keen interest in scientists who are not married to the Clovis first hypothesis. Surveying broadly the empirical data generated from Pedra Furada — in the modern state of Brazil in South America, settlements in Topper South Carolina, On Your Knees Cave in Alaska, and Meadowland in the state of Pennsylvania in North America. Evidence generated by archeologists whose data is in contrast with evidence left by the people we call Clovis. Offering some alternate dates and migrations to America by homo sapiens sapiens during the Wisconsin Glacial Episode.

Human beings currently exist in what is termed the Holocene era, Greek for entirely recent, a warm period preceded by the Wisconsin Glacial Episode –which lasted between 85,000 to 11,000 years before present (ybp). The evidence in Northern America is stark, in some places the scratches left by the massive glaciers can still be seen. It occurred as temperatures dropped and the advancement of three major glaciers converged over the American continent. The importance of this period in human migration is evident in the Clovis first theory of human settlement developed in the early thirties. This theory holds that as the massive North American Cordillera Ice sheet and the Innuitian ice sheets blocked and absorbed much water, lowering sea level and creating what is known as Beringia, where the Bering Strait is currently located. The theory proposes that Asiatic haplogroup humans followed game migrations into North America between 17,000 and 12,000 ybp. The standard model holds a vast amount of evidence that a massive migration originated from Beringia, with shared technology (Clovis fluted arrowheads) and DNA, and became the predominant and most successful group in the peopling of America. However, new theories — with supporting in situ evidence, suggesting coastal migrations from Europe and Africa indicate Clovis may not be the only group responsible for human origination in America.

During the last forty years, evidence has been suggesting occupation of America by a pre-Clovis, i.e., non-Mongloid, people in America. The sites which exist and are still being examined using new techniques, not available to scientists whom purported or supported the Clovis theory. Using mitochondrial dna, acid base oxidation-steeped combustion radio carbon dating (an advancement in radio carbon dating developed at Oxford University), and empirical approaches to what is by some considered a gospel theory, scientists have begun to paint a different picture of human peopling in America.

In discussing the Clovis First theory, I turned to a book by Stuart Fiedel of John Milner Associates (a historic preservation and archeological non-profit) called, The Peopling of the New World. He states, “In 1590, the Spanish cleric Jose de Acosta theorized that Native Americans were descended from ancient ‘savage hunters’ who had followed game animals over a hypothetical land bridge from northeastern Asia into northwestern America” (Fiedel 39). This is the first recorded hypothesis for how the Natives got to America. Fiedel points to the origins of the currently accepted model further by summarizing, “Edward Brerewood, an English Scholar, observed in 1614, that the people of America, lacking the civilized arts of China, India, and Japan, ‘resemble the old rude Tartars [i.e., Mongols], above all the nations of the earth’…Ever since these prescient early assessments of the origins of Native Americans, the migration of their northeast Asian ancestors across a land bridge, subsequently inundated by the Bering Sea, has been assumed by most serious scholars” (Fiedel 39–40). The only fact contended, beyond these surface interpretations, are dates of origin and time frames of establishment on the continent according to Fiedel’s analysis of the theory at large. What began to emerge next in this theory occurred first in New Mexico with the discovery of man-made arrow points embedded in mammoth skeletons in strata dated to about 10,000 ybp. This discovery happened near Clovis, New Mexico in the late thirties through the early fifties of last century. Following these discoveries, the time ranges began to change of the people’s emergence who used this Paleolithic technology, the Clovis point, and its descendent stylistic shaped arrowhead points all throughout North and South America (Fiedel 40). Dating the modern form of humanity by the tools they used has been a predominant method for many years. Establishing the migrations of different branches of proto humans from out of Africa, and how humans advanced through the different epochs over millions of years of homo evolution (Fiedel 42). Summarizing the entire scope of the following comparison; he postulates a rather poignant truth, “It is only after about 9500 B.C. that we find entirely convincing evidence of human occupation in North America, although I had to admit that the archaeological record offers tantalizing hints of earlier occupation” (Fiedel 43), it is here in an earlier account that he begins to point at human life below the Wisconsin era ice sheet and the realities of human settlement before Clovis.

The basic distinctions found in theory contrary or complimentary to the Clovis First hypothesis are these; that homo sapiens were in the Americas before Baring straight migration — of what became the Clovis arrow people — with DNA linked to Siberia or Asia, and that they arrived 30,000 ybp. In Fiedel’s research, he sites Alan Bryan from 1978, “biological evolution probably occurred within America from a paleoanthropine ancestor to explain at least some of the highly diverse populations of modern American Indians” (44). He expands on Bryan further, explaining, “Bryan has theorized that, in several areas, generalized foragers carrying a simple core/flake lithic tradition independently innovated specialized hunting and a number of regionally distinct bifacial spearpoints (Clovis east of Rockies, stemmed points in the West, fishtails in southern South America, tanged points in Brazil, and leaf-shaped El Jobo points in Northern South America)” (Fiedel 44). Using the Clovis spear/arrow point against itself, these findings offer a distinct possibility of another picture emerging regarding our topic.

Techniques used on artifacts recovered at Pedra Furada in Serra de Capiucra, by Brazilian doctor of Natural History from Sorbonne in France Niedi Guidon published findings from 1986–2002. The oldest samples of charcoal found in what are thought to be Paleolithic era hearths which predate Clovis significantly were found near rock art, as well as human skeletal remains. Guidon and her team relied on new techniques for dating charcoal with radiocarbon from 35,000–48,000 ybp. Their findings under the Pedra Furada rock shelter deep in strata beneath settlements in the 12,000–6,000 ybp, have been challenged but not disproven. Also comparing the morphology of teeth found in situ has yielded similarities closely resembling Neanderthal and other archaic remains found in Australia and Indonesia. An interview published in the archaeological magazine, Athena Review with Guidon, where she explains the difficulty modern American Clovis First theorists are having with evidence and interpretation of said findings and techniques, “Perhaps because when you are the first to discover something, people want to kill you because you disturbed the placid waters of the lake. The theories on the peopling of America are only theories, and in prehistory, it is not possible to say that something does not exist only because we do not find them. A theory is not a law, but may and must be changed each time new facts are discovered” (Athena 3). Ms. Guidon is a distinguished scientist, and her Brazilian team’s techniques use the same as those used to determine Clovis as well as newer accepted methods. Perhaps time will again be the determining factor in updating what has been found throughout the Americas.

A multinational team of ecologist’s, natural historians, anthropologists, and marine scientists presented a fascinating study on a non-terrestrial migration inspired by the biodiverse animal and plant concentrations around kelp. The article is titled, The Kelp Highway Hypothesis, published in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology in 2007. The methods used by this team yield what seems an intuitive solution regarding the peopling of America. Their findings discuss the role kelp forests may have played in supporting migrations into America. One of the fascinating ideas behind this is congruent with the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis of human evolution, which was developed by Alistair Hardy, a marine biologist in the late 1800’s. This idea that human beings branched off from a distant relative by adapting to a semi aquatic period. One issue with proving these theories regarding coastal habitation is that sea levels have risen since these ancestors would have habituated these environments, leaving any remains lost underwater. However as stated Erlandson et al. in Kelp Highway, “Evidence for even earlier maritime voyaging by anatomically modern humans (earlier than sites in Baja and Alta which prove Paleoindians had seaworthy boats circa 13,000–11,500 ybp.) has emerged from islands of the western Pacific Rim, including the colonization of Australia roughly 50,000 years ago” (Erlandson 163). Using computer reconstructions of geography provided by satellite data of the area around Beringia between 25,000–15,000 years ago, scientists in this study proved a coastal environment with many opportunities for a successful migration all the way to Southern America. These techniques are very intriguing to support an Atlantic migration and suggests similar studies done between Brazil and Africa could prove a similar hypothesis if one were to emerge.

All of these techniques have come about providing evidence for the alternate hypothesis, and enough data has been generated to dispel the Clovis First hypothesis. It is my conclusion based on all of the data I have read that it is time to re-write history. We do not know exactly what happened in the arhelogical record; we do know that the Beringia migration was not the only explanation. This is enough to open the field for more research and an accurate hypothesis.

Works Cited

“Athena Review, Peopling of the Americas: Pedra Furada, Brazil: Paleoindians, Paintings, and Paradoxes.” Athena Review, Peopling of the Americas: Pedra Furada, Brazil: Paleoindians, Paintings, and Paradoxes. Athena Publications Inc. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. <http://www.athenapub.com/10pfurad.htm>.

Erlandson, Jon M., Michael Graham, Bruce Bourque, Debra Corbett, James Estes, and Robert Steneck. “The Kelp Highway Hypothesis: Marine Ecology, the Coastal Migration Theory, and the Peopling of the Americas.” The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2.2 (2007): 161–74. Web.

Fiedel, Stuart J. “Peopling of the New World.” Journal of Archaeological Research 8.1 (2000): 39–103. University of Oregon. Web. 26 Apr. 2016. <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~gsayre/peopling of the americas.pdf>.