Article2007

Why we're still arguing about the Pleistocene occupation of the Americas

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Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology Archaeology and ancient environmental studies Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory

Abstract

Abstract Although empirical issues surround the when, how, and who questions of New World colonization, much of current debate hinges on theoretical problems because it has become clear that our understanding of New World colonization is not resolute. 1 In fact, the central issues of debate have remained essentially unchanged for the last eighty years. The now classic and probably incorrect story of New World colonization begins in Late Pleistocene Siberia, with small a population of foragers migrating across Beringia (∼13,500 calendar years before present (CYBP) (Box 1) through an ice‐free corridor and traveling through the interior of North America. High mobility and rapid population growth spurred southward expansion into increasingly distant unoccupied regions, culminating in the settlement of the Southern Cone of South America. Armed with the skills and weapons needed to maintain a megafauna‐based subsistence strategy, early colonists necessarily had the adaptive flexibility to colonize a diverse array of Pleistocene landscapes. For a time, this scenario seemed well substantiated. The earliest sites in South America were younger than their northern counterparts, fluted artifacts were found across the Americas within a brief temporal window, and projectile points capable of wounding elephant‐sized prey were commonly found in association with proboscidean remains. The Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia to Alaska and an ice‐free corridor providing passage between the Pleistocene ice masses of Canada seemed to provide a clear route of entry for Clovis colonists. However, recent archeological, paleoenvironmental, biological, and theoretical work largely questions the plausibility of these events.

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References

1985Quaternary Extinctions: a prehistoric revolution, edited by Paul S.Martin and Richard E.Klein. University of Arizona Press, Tucson; pp. 892, 1984. US$65.00, cased.1988Coming into the Country: Early Paleoindian Hunting and Mobility 2001A Multispecies Overkill Simulation of the End-Pleistocene Megafaunal Mass Extinction 1973The Discovery of America 1979Routes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America 2003A requiem for North American overkill 1998Quebrada Jaguay: Early South American Maritime Adaptations 2004The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum

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2014Pre-Clovis Lithic Technology at the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas: Comparisons to Clovis through Site-Level Behavior, Technological Trait-List, and Cladistic Analyses 2013The Brazilian megamastofauna of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and its relationship with the early human settlement of the continent 2015Finding the Paleoindian spearthrower: quantitative evidence for mechanically-assisted propulsion of lithic armatures during the North American Paleoindian Period 2010Techniques for verifying human footprints: reappraisal of pre-Clovis footprints in Central Mexico

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