While we will never know the precise day the first hunter-gatherer set foot in the Americas, the idea of initial entry by 30 000 to 40 000 years ago is considered possible by some archaeologists. One serious impediment to verification is the fact that the earliest human skeletal remains so far recovered from New World archaeological sites are no more than
13 000 calendar years old. Given the paucity of skeletal evidence the dating of earliest migration relies primarily on artifactual material. Until recently the oldest such evidence fully endorsed by the archaeological community was a widespread distribution of North American sites associated with the Clovis projectile point technology, the earliest of which date
Figure 2 Map of possible Pleistocene migration routes.
C.11000-12 000 years bp. Named after the locale in New Mexico where in 1932 it was first identified, the bifacially flaked, lanceolate-shaped Clovis point is distinguished by a flute or channel at its base, probably used to facilitate fastening to the tip of a thrusting spear or atlatl (spear thrower) dart.
The longstanding claim by ‘Clovis first’ proponents that it was the New World mother culture has been quashed by the recent dating of archaeological sites with unequivocal evidence of earlier human occupation. In addition to the early coastal habitation noted above, prominent among the pre-Clovis sites is Monte Verde, located about 20 km inland from the Pacific Ocean in southern Chile. Settlement at Monte Verde by 13 000 14Cyears bp (11500-10 500BQ is well documented, with wood, bone, ivory, cordage, and simple stone artifacts, along with food remains and the vestiges of timber structures, all recovered in good archaeological context from waterlogged deposits that inhibited organic decay. Lower stratigraphic levels of the Monte Verde excavations, provisionally assigned a date of 33 000 years bp, are still under investigation. At the far end of the age spectrum, but treated with a degree of skepticism by most archaeologists, is the Topper site in South Carolina, where artifact-bearing sediments are claimed to be at least 50 000 years old.
World History
