Even mentioning "pre-clovis" where I'm from is cause for debate and ridicule.

It cuased ridicule in poonchang palace? Well, that is your 'location' ain't it?

Originally posted by Nygdan
It cuased ridicule in poonchang palace? Well, that is your 'location' ain't it?

Yeah West Coast U.S. as opposed to East coast, where I've met plenty of people open to the idea of preclovis

Huh. Not only do people accept the idea of Pre-Clovis where I'm at, my anthropology proffessors at my college teach about it.

I haven't had a chance to check for any sites that had information, but since Pre-Clovis was from 30,000-15,000 years ago I know of several sites that you could look for information on:
Tlapacoya-Zohapilco (Basin of Mexico, deposits from 24,000-21,000 years ago w/possible tools)
Valsequillo region, Puebla (21,000 years ago with possible cultural evidence)
Monte Verde, Chile

Personally, I think that there was a pre-clovis, or how else would people have just shown up several thousand miles from the baring strait 15,000 years ago?

I'm definately of the "pre-Clovis" mindset, here.

By the time the Europeans got here, the Americas had been settled by the Native American tribes... and well settled. The route from the coast of Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego is well over 10,000 miles and the width of the continents are up to 3,000 miles.

Now, I'm not one for doing population modeling, but it seems as if to match that 12,000 year cutoff date, the AmerInds have to come into the Americas, RUN down to Tierra del Fuego and spread rapidly across the continents, breeding like rabbits and having a high infant survival rate. We know that they didn't have an unusually high infant survival rate.

They'd have to drop off small groups and start small villages along the way (moving southward at a rate of about a mile a year. I have no problem with that migration pattern if they're following a resource, but as you go further south, the resources get thinner.) Along the way, they have to stop and reinvent culture or reacquire it as others are driven into the area.

And you have to get through some pretty challenging territories (like the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies.)

I think it makes sense for a much older group to have come in and spread to the warmer areas where they are eventually forced southward by the Clovis peoples. The Dikus of the Costa Rican area never developed much in the way of permanent technology (living in a rainforest)... I don't know how much support there would be for them being remnants of a still oder group than the Clovis peoples.

But I'm just a grad student. The model makes more sense to me if we presume an earlier entry into the Americas.

A book called Uriels Machine talks about ancient civilisations and clovis; pre clovis colonies in americas.

Is written by two british freemasons, so depends on how you view the masons as too your take on the book

Originally posted by Byrd
I'm definately of the "pre-Clovis" mindset, here.

By the time the Europeans got here, the Americas had been settled by the Native American tribes... and well settled. The route from the coast of Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego is well over 10,000 miles and the width of the continents are up to 3,000 miles.

Now, I'm not one for doing population modeling, but it seems as if to match that 12,000 year cutoff date, the AmerInds have to come into the Americas, RUN down to Tierra del Fuego and spread rapidly across the continents, breeding like rabbits and having a high infant survival rate. We know that they didn't have an unusually high infant survival rate.

They'd have to drop off small groups and start small villages along the way (moving southward at a rate of about a mile a year. I have no problem with that migration pattern if they're following a resource, but as you go further south, the resources get thinner.) Along the way, they have to stop and reinvent culture or reacquire it as others are driven into the area.

And you have to get through some pretty challenging territories (like the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies.)

I think it makes sense for a much older group to have come in and spread to the warmer areas where they are eventually forced southward by the Clovis peoples. The Dikus of the Costa Rican area never developed much in the way of permanent technology (living in a rainforest)... I don't know how much support there would be for them being remnants of a still oder group than the Clovis peoples.

But I'm just a grad student. The model makes more sense to me if we presume an earlier entry into the Americas.

I originally was schooled in the Clovis First perspective, but had never researched the topic in depth. Currently...I just don't know. There is not enough evidence to break the Clovis First Model. To invoke Lepper, "It is axiomatic that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." However, I keep finding more and more evidence supporting pre-Clovis perspectives; just not the proverbial "smoking gun."

I recently attended at brown bag lunch lecture in which Stuart Fiedel discussed "Peopling of the Americas." Note that Fiedel is a strong proponent of the Clovis First prespective and the lecture was presented to a predominantly Clovis First audience. Fiedel proposed that Clovis could have used domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris...I think) to help hunt and carry things (infants being one of them). He was leading up to a very shocking hypothesis: migration from Beringia to Tierra del Fuego could have happened in as little as 7 years. The crowd went silent. I don't believe he has published this yet, but it will definately add a whole lot of fuel to the controversy. Linguists hold that it would have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years for people to populate the New World. The archaeological data I have seen suggests otherwise. PaleoIndians were moving...hauling arse, in fact. Some PaleoIndian sites I have seen have had obsidian from literally hundreds of miles away. These sites are not villages, either (I'm not sure there is even such a thing as a village to people constantly on the move); they are temporary camp grounds. In other words, I'm tying to say that it did not take as long as linguists would have you believe, but I think 7 years is too short of a period to explore two continents. So, somewhere between 7 and 1000+ years

Also at this lecture, Fiedel fielded questions from the audience, "what about Monte Verde and all the other preClovis sites?" He went through a list of some of the more well known sites and dismissed...no, destroyed them one after the other. I'm no expert, but most of the preClovis sites have something "wrong" with them: bad methods, disturbed stratigraphy, or questionable artifacts. One of the things Fiedel is known for is trashing Dillehay's Monte Verde site, just google "Stuart Fiedel"

Anyway, there are a lot of preClovis sites and I am beginning to wonder why the idea of preClovis is not considered more seriously. Then again, careers and reputations are on the line. I just don't know anymore, "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence," though.

Thanks for the great posts guys.

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but Im very interested in this subject. Has any new evidence come forth?

Don't be sorry for "digging up" this thread when it concerns archeology; seems appropriate actually.

I haven't kept up on new ideas in Early Man/PaleoIndian archeology.

But even back in my digging days at Blackwater Draw in New Mexico; my mentor Dr.George Agagino thought there might be pre Clovis.

I think there must be pre Clovis like Byrd mentioned. On thing, the fluted Clovis Points certainly are napping art.

I have the pleasure of watching Charles Eaton work his majic with stone quite often as he is one of my friends and neighbors. Popping out a nice long flute is probably not very exciting to anyone other than anthro geeks.
His fauxClovis work is beautiful as is his Folsum and Eden.

welcome lurch

[edit on 14-2-2008 by whaaa]

What a interesting conversation. I'm admittedly under-informed in this area, but does anyone know of any research perspectives that involve a possible seaward migration to the Pacific Coast of the Americas from Japan/Pacific Islands? Of course the "Bering Strait Hiking Club" possibly walked here from Asia, but I believe there is strong evidence of "island hopping" on seaworthy crafts throughout the Pacific Islands; is there a sea current or something that would've prevented them from coming all the way to, say, South America? I guess a time frame outlining when the Pacific Islands were known to have been first peopled would have some bearing on the strength of this idea. I will do some studying on this, if anyone can point me to some resources or known theories that might help me support or refute this idea, it would be wonderful.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Upon looking into this, I found it interesting that skulls found in Baja and Brazil that challenge the "Clovis first" theory have the morphological characteristics of Australian Aborigines.

"Stone tools and charcoal from the site [Serra Da Capivara] in Brazil show evidence of human habitation as long ago as 50,000 years."

"The skull dimensions and facial features match most closely the native people of Australia and Melanesia. These people date back to about 60,000 years, and were themselves descended from the first humans, who left Africa about 100,000 years ago.

Fascinating details in that news report you linked! I'd have dismissed it, but it's BBC and they tend to be pretty stringent fact checkers. I'll have to go looking and see what else I can find out about the site. It's not one of those that's discussed by the pre-Clovis group, which makes me wonder if all the material is in Portugese (can't imagine that... someone would have surely translated it) or what.

Anyway, you've piqued my curiosity. I'll go look.