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| Clovis Point found in Milan, PA |
Who were the first humans to enter the North American continent?
Were they humans who founded what is known as the Clovis culture over
13,000 years ago? Or did other, totally unrelated peoples precede the
Clovis immigrants? This issue has been intensely, if not bitterly
debated for decades. The Clovis culture has been seen as the cradle of
North American indigenous culture. Now new international research shows
that people of another culture and technology were present concurrently
or even previous to those of Clovis. Scientists have added a new and
dramatic chapter to the history of the peopling of the Americas striking
a deadly blow to the "Clovis First" theory that has dominated
pre-historic American archaeology for so long. The sensational results
are published in the international journal
Science.
Evidence that a non-Clovis culture was present in North America at
least as early as Clovis people themselves and likely before is
presented by an international team of researchers from the USA, the UK,
and Denmark.
The team
Archeological excavations at the Paisley Caves in south-central
Oregon were led by Dr. Dennis Jenkins from the University of Oregon.
Dr. Loren Davis of Oregon State University mapped the stratigraphy and studied the site formation processes.
Dr. Paula Campos and Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for
GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, profiled the many
DNA finds from the caves.
Dr. Thomas Stafford, Jr., also from Centre of GeoGenetics, was in charge of the radiocarbon geochronology and biogeochemistry.
The evidence
The evidence for a pre-13,000 year old non-Clovis culture in
North America includes obsidian and chert artifacts known as Western
Stemmed projectile points, and DNA-profiling of dried human excrement —
more accurately known as coprolites. Both obsidian projectile points and
coprolites were excavated from sediments in the Paisley Caves.
Previous investigations found that human coprolites in the caves
predated the Clovis culture by over 1,000 years; however, critics
questioned the interpretations by saying that the cave strata had not
been sufficiently examined and that no Clovis-age stone tools had been
found with the coprolites.
Critics also questioned whether or not younger DNA could have been
washed down through the cave's sediments, thereby contaminating
non-human coprolites with more recent human DNA. If true, evidence for
pre-Clovis human presence would have been bogus.
The new study refutes every one of the critics' arguments and uses
overwhelming archaeological, stratigraphic, DNA and radiocarbon evidence
to conclusively state that humans — and ones totally unrelated to
Clovis peoples — were present at Paisley Caves over a millennium before
Clovis.
Rocking the theoretical boat
The new results severely contrast with the "Clovis First" theory
for early peopling of the Americas. The Clovis First hypothesis states
that no humans existed in the Americas prior to Clovis, which dates from
13,000 years ago, and that the distinct Clovis lithic technology is the
mother technology of all other stone artifact types later occurring in
the New World.
This theory has been predominant since the first evidence of human
presence in America was found in 1932 at the Clovis type locality in
Blackwater Draw, just outside the village of Clovis in New Mexico. But
now this praised and respected foundation of American prehistory has
been overthrown.
Dr. Jenkins says of the paradigm shifting results:
"One of the central questions has been whether the technological
evolution of hunting tools such as dart and spearheads can be attributed
solely to the Clovis culture and the knowledge that these people
brought from the Old World. During our excavations in the Paisley Caves
we've found a completely different type of dart points. But these new
points are of a completely different construction from those found in
the Clovis culture. As our radiocarbon dating shows, the new finds are
as old, or possibly older than the Clovis finds, which proves that the
Clovis culture cannot have been the 'Mother technology' for all other
technologies in America. Our results show that America was colonized by
multiple cultures at the same time. And some perhaps even earlier than
Clovis."
Human excreta rewrite history
It's not the first time that the partners Dr. Jenkins from the
US and Professor Willerslev from Denmark rewrite American prehistory.
In 2008, the two researchers presented a DNA-profiling's and
radiocarbon dating of coprolites moving the first human settlements in
North America back in time by one thousand years, from 13,000 to 14,340
years ago. As if that was not enough, the team showed through DNA
analysis of ancient human excrement that these people originated in Asia
and were the probable predecessors of modern indigenous Americans.
With the new results the international team has added an important
piece to the puzzle of who peopled the Americas — the final continent on
Earth to be colonized by humans.
Professor Willerslev says of the new results:
"Our investigations constitute the final blow to the Clovis First
theory. Culturally, biologically and chronologically the theory is no
longer viable. The dissimilar stone artifacts, as well as the
DNA-profiling of the human excrement, show that humans were present
before Clovis and that another culture in North America was at least as
old as the Clovis Culture itself. Or to put it differently: Either
America was populated several thousand years before Clovis by people who
created 'mother' technologies to the two very different styles of
Clovis tools and Western Stemmed Tradition tools. Or else there must
have been two earlier migrations into North America of which one must
have predated the Clovis immigration by at least one thousand years.
Both assumptions would explain our findings, but trying to distinguish
which is more likely is very premature."
Dr Paula Campos, a former postdoc at Willerslev's lab in Copenhagen,
now at Science Museum, University of Coimbra, Portugal, elaborates the
point:
"When we published the first DNA results from the Paisley Caves four
years ago it caused an outcry. Many archaeologists felt that our
results must be wrong. They considered it an established fact that
Clovis were the first Americans. People would come up with any number of
alternative explanations to our data in order to repudiate our
interpretation. Today we demonstrate that our conclusions were right."
Thomas Stafford, also of the Centre for GeoGenetics in Copenhagen, and Loren Davies of Oregon State University agree:
"Critics said that the stratigraphy in the Paisley Caves is diffuse
and chaotic and that this explains the finding of human coprolites older
that Clovis. This couldn't be more wrong. The stratigraphy is well
developed, clear and ordered correctly top to bottom."
Tom Stafford elaborates:
"No other archaeological site in the US has been as thoroughly and
exhaustively dated as the Paisley Caves. We've completed more than 141
new radiocarbon measurements on materials ranging from coprolites to
wood and plant artefacts, fossil plants and mummified animals, to
unique, water soluble chemical fractions from sediments and the
coprolites themselves. We have used 14C dating to physically and
temporally dissect the Paisley Caves strata at the millimetre l level.
At present, we see no evidence that geologically younger, water-borne
molecules — DNA in particular — have moved downward and contaminated
deeper, older coprolites. The aDNA and 14C data are iterative and
corroborate each other. Our conclusion is that humans were present in
North America at least one thousand years before Clovis and that these
earlier peoples probably had no technological or genetic similarity to
the iconic Clovis Culture. The Clovis First debate has ended. The theory
is now dead and buried."
Contact: Professor Eske Willerslev
ewillerslev@gmail.com
(45) 28-75-13-09
University of Copenhagen
