In an article published in Science today, Jon Erlandson and associates report on the extensive work they've done on Paleoindian (Erlandson calls them "paleocoastal") sites on the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California.
Map of the Channel Islands off California. Image by Lencer
The occupation history of the Channel Islands is interesting to scholars, because it may hold answers to questions about one of the ways people may have found their way into the Americas from eastern Siberia: the Pacific Coast Migration Model.
Pacific Coast Migration Theory
The Pacific Coast Migration Model (PCM), along with the Kelp Highway Hypothesis, argues that one of the routes taken by the first colonizers of the Americas was along the Pacific coast of North America, down along what would have been 15,000 years ago an ice-covered Alaska and Canada to the open and wooded shores of Oregon and California. Erlandson and colleagues have argued that these colonists were hunter-fishers who relied on marine mammals living in kelp forests for food and used boats to navigate along the shorelines.
The PCM is a fairly cogent theory: movement along the coast would have been less treacherous and faster than overland between two glacier lobes as argued in the so-called Ice Free Corridor. But, the problem has always been adequate evidence of the use of the route, not to mention evidence of humans relying on marine mammals that long ago. The sea level has risen some 120 meters (about 400 feet) since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum when Alaska and Canada were covered by glacial ice, and many of the coastlines where you would expect to find early sites are underwater and eroded.
Crescents and the Channel Islands
Channel Islands crescent and stemmed point in a hand. Photo courtesy University of Oregon
The sites reported in Science today are paleo-coastal, not preclovis, so they don't represent the first colonists making their way into the New World. But they do represent strong evidence for a coastal-based existence, the use of boats and fishing equipment, and not long after the original colonization. One of the pieces of evidence is a collection of very pretty crescents.
A crescent is a chipped stone tool that scholars have yet to figure out what it was used for. They are found only on Paleoindian (and Paleocoastal) sites in the western United States. I think they're lovely and interesting, and maybe you will too.
Read all about Crescents
Sources and Further Information
Erlandson JM, Rick TC, Braje TJ, Casperson M, Culleton B, Fulfrost B, Garcia T, Guthrie DA, Jew N, Kennett DJ et al. 2011. Paleoindian Seafaring, Maritime Technologies, and Coastal Foraging on California's Channel Islands. Science 331(4):1181-1185.
Comments
In your research have any Chinese artifacts been found? Gavin Kensies book “1421″ documents various locations along the Pacific Coast.