Today, the journal Science published an article by Ted Goebel, Michael Waters, and Dennis H. O'Rourke, arguing that the Clovis first argument is dead in the water.

Excavation of the Schaefer mammoth in Wisconsin, which is thought by archaeologists to date to about 14,500 years ago.
Photo Credit: Courtesy D. Joyce and Science

I'm not going to argue too strenuously against this--I've thought that was true since the Monte Verde discovery, but the summary in Science is well worth noting, and it will be really interesting to see what the fallout is. Basically, Goebel, Waters and O'Rourke summarize the archaeological and genetic (mtDNA) evidence and conclude that somebody else got here first.

Here's the evidence they summarize:

• Clovis has been recently redated to 12.0-12.8 kya (kya is archaeo-tech speak for 'thousand years ago'), making it centuries younger than the late-glacial complexes of Alaska.
• Fairly secure sites predating Clovis have been found in Chile (Monte Verde, 14.6), Wisconsin (Schaefer and Hebior, 14.8-14.2), Pennsyvlania (Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 15.2-13.4 ka), Florida (Page-Ladson, 14.4 ka), and Oregon (Paisley Cave, 14.1 ka). (The most commonly accepted dates are listed for Monte Verde and Meadowcroft, both of which have older dates associated with them).
• Skeletal analysis indicates uncontroversially that fully modern humans populated the Americas, and fully modern humans arrived in Asia no earlier than 40,000 years ago.
• Molecular evidence implies a single population left Siberia and headed into the Americas between 30 and 13 ka.

Clovis bifaces in place in the excavation of the Gault Clovis site in Texas, dating to about 13,000 years ago.
Photo Credit: Image courtesy of M. Waters and Science

Based on these standing assumptions in the record, Goebel and colleagues argue that colonization of the Americas occurred first about 15,000 years ago, immediately after the Pacific coast became deglaciated. The first Americans were diversified hunter-fishers and used boats, dispersing along the coasts for at least 1,000 years. Clovis, the big-game hunters of mammoths and mastodons, and may be descended from these original Americans, or may represent a second disperal from Beringia.

• Goebel, Ted, Michael R. Waters, and Dennis H. O’Rourke 2008 The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas. Science 319 1497-1502.
• Gault Site information (lots of good photos here
• Monte Verde

I'll keep my eyes open for comments around the blog-o-sphere, science news and in the academic press.