Not yet. There’ll probably be plenty of challenges, and re-testing and alternate scenarios presented before there’s any general acceptance that these do predate Clovis. If in fact they do. I don’t find it hard to believe personally.
I’m pretty certain that the Monte Verde site in South America (Chile?) has been broadly accepted as being pre-Clovis.
Here’s a cite that talks a bit about Monte Verde:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/clovis/rose2.html
Isn’t there also a site in Pennsylvania or Virginia (I forget) which is supposed to pre-date Clovis?
Would that be Cactus Hill?
Yes, that’s the site in Virginia. There’s also Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania. What’s the current consensus on that site? Anyone know?
I think we will find that mankind has been in the Americas far longer than anyone suspects. I would not be surprised to find humans in S America 100,000 years ago. Take the Tihuanaco ruins in Bolivia…these are so ancient, the Incas didn’t know anything about them.
We may even find that Leaky was right…he dated a site in California tobefore 100,000 BC!
Current genetic evidence indicates modern humans did not leave Africa until about 75k years ago. I think 100k yrs would be WAY to early. 20-30K yrs is probably about right.
And I believe Monte Verde is much more acknowledged as pre-Clovis than either the VA or PA sites.
Um … we don’t know anything about the Norse who settled Greenland and North America, and they did that less than 1000 years ago.
100,000 bp is almost certainly way too early, although I get the distinct impression (from having a general interest in this sort of thing) that the ‘Clovis barrier’ is not going to be considered much of a barrier at all, in the future. It does represent a very significant cultural influx, though - it’s not always who’s first into an area that is the most important, in the long run. It could well be that these various pre-Clovis sites will end up being footnotes (interesting ones, though; I’m not implying that they’re not worthy of lots of study) to the bigger picture of Clovis immigration.
At any rate, I’m sure there are plenty of surprises in store.
Incidentally, the Inca culture emerged pretty late in South American prehistory. I don’t know specifically about the highlands area, where Tihuanaco is, but along the Pacific coast there were numerous pre-Inca cultures, like the Chimu and the Mocha. If recent carbon dates are correct, they (or the older cultures they emerged from) were engaged in monumental construction works as early as 3000 BC.
A lot of the new world cultures that seem very ancient were surprisingly new. And they sometimes had technologies Europeans couldn’t match (though more for the lack of appropriate environments than genius).
I’ve asked a friend to get back to me with some comments on this. He is ABD, studying paleo-indian archaeology, with David Meltzer, who is quoted in the link provided by John Mace.
I can offer some thoughts though. Clovis is generally accepted as being the oldest. There are very good cases against sites in the Eastern US as being older.
Anna C. Roosevelt, Curator of Archaeology at The Field Museum, and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in other words no dummy has run into trouble finding support for dating a site in Brazil that she claims is about 100,000 years BP.
Adam:
Ask your friend about the “respectability” of the Monte Verde finds. In all the reading I’ve done, it seems pretty sound. I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the “Clovis barrier” was not taken very seriously these days in scientific circles with the number of sites that keep popping up.
My sister worked at this dig in Texas a summer or two ago. Seems to me that there are pre-Clovis artifacts being pulled up all over the place.
I subscribe to ‘Discover’ and ‘New Scientist’, and I don’t think 2 months goes by without a discovery being touted as pre-Clovis.
Hi. I’m Adam_Yax’s friend. I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters. However, Adam is correct, it is my area of research. Now that that is out of the way…
Monte Verde is unequivocally, indisputably a pre-Clovis site. It has been accepted by the archaeological community at large, with the exception of one to three (literally) naysayers. Yup, people were in South America at 12,500 years ago–1,000 years earlier than any accepted site in North America.
And then there’s Meadowcroft. They (whoever they are) say that the reason Meadowcroft has not been totally accepted is the final report has not been published. In my humble opinion, Meadowcroft seems good to me. The dates are tight, and there does not seem to be any contamination involving the dated samples.
Meadowcroft was dug by a hero of mine of sorts–James Adovasio. He has recently published a book with Jake Page called either “Searching for” or “The Search for” the Earliest Americans–I don’t remember exactly. If you want the straight dope on the rancorous pre-Clovis debate, this is the source for you.
Cactus Hill? Topper? The jury is still way out on those.
Thanks. I was pretty sure about Monte Verde, but it’s good to hear from someone closer to the source. Did Monte Verde have any human remains, or was it just artifacts?
So where does Kennewick man and the redhead found in Nevada fit in here?
All of which displease the natives!
Monte Verde was (it’s since been washed away) an amazing site. No human remains, but footprint impressions. The list of cultural material found would knock your socks off. Mastodon meat on drying racks. A probable medicine or healer’s hut (based on the wealth of medicinal plants and herbs found within), the basal portions of structures. Places where hides (?) were once staked–the stakes are there and so are the knots of cordage tied to them!! Stone artifacts, including possible bola stones (that’s some great antiquity for bola technology!!). The list goes on and on. Really really spectacular.
As for Kennewick and Spirit Cave (NV)–they are slightly younger than the Monte Verde site–about 9,000 yrs. old. Which is still amazing, I might add.
Many, but not all, Native Americans are upset with the idea that scientists want to study these ancient skeletons. That is true.
As for when these Paleoindians came over-- I think 35-25, 000 years ago is about right. This, like all things, is mutable.