Last week, more news broke about Paisley Caves, a collection of rockshelters in south central Oregon where evidence of Pre-Clovis occupations, including human DNA, has been discovered. The presence of Western Stemmed point fragments in the earliest levels at Paisley has reopened a recent debate in American archaeology: what was the first projectile point type in the Americas?
Clovis Point from the Gault site (Texas). Gault School for Archaeological Research and Idaho State University
Beginning in the 1920s, scholars believed the original colonists of the American continents were Clovis "big game" hunters. Clovis people, at least the theory went, used a particular spear point, like the one above, to hunt now-extinct mammoth and horse. Clovis, we believed, entered the American continents chasing megafauna some 12,000 years ago through an "Ice-Free Corridor", supposedly opened up between the massive glaciers which at the time covered what is today Canada and into the United States.
Many problems with this scenario have been posed: the "Ice-Free Corridor" was not opened until much later than Clovis; although Clovis points are found throughout the eastern and central parts of North America, they were only used for some 300 years; and it is clear today that Clovis people did more than hunt large animals. But the real Clovis-First killer was the identification of people who came before Clovis, called "pre-Clovis" for want of a better term.
Pre-Clovis appear to have been more broadly-based hunter-gatherers, and it is hypothesized that they entered the continents along the Pacific coastline some 15,000 years ago. One of the problems with pre-Clovis is there hasn't been a recognizable lithic technology that looks much different than non-Clovis Paleoindian and American Archaic. What the discovery of Western Stemmed at Paisley means is, maybe that's because Pre-Clovis wasn't really that much different from American Archaic, and maybe that's because Pre-Clovis is ancestral to American Archaic, and non-Clovis Paleoindian, and (oops) Clovis Paleoindian, too.
Displayed in the hand of University of Oregon Dennis Jenkins are three bases for Western Stemmed projectiles from the Paisley Caves in Oregon. The bases date to some 13,000 years ago. Photo by Jim Barlow, ©Science
What this does for Clovis, despite the howls you might hear from some places, is make it more interesting. The people who used Clovis points appear to have followed a short-term, intensive American-created lifestyle based on hunting the last of the big game. They were, based on the DNA reports from last week, likely descended from the original colonists, some of whom continued their hunter-gatherer-fisher lifestyle. But the beautiful points made by Clovis did not survive the disappearance of big game from the continents.
And that is pretty interesting.
- Read more about Paisley Caves
- Western Stemmed Tradition
- Read more about Clovis
- American Archaic
Comments
More proof that all people of the Americas are immigrants. The question may well always loom as to who settled the land first.
No recognizable lithic technology?
This is so very true with the sites that are claiming pre-clovis dates, and as we can see from the photo of the alleged “western stemmed” projectile point fragments, Paisley is no exception. It is quite a stretch to assume any specific tool technology with such scant evidence as the 3 fragments shown as those fragments clearly could be parts of many, many different tools from many bifacially knapped tools made by any culture culture from clovis and later. The strongerst case for the age in this instance is the level where it was found. This is just another example of how morphology of a stone tool can be used to “generally date” a site as Kris has said in the past, and obviously you dont have to have a complete projectile point to assume it’s “typeology” and tell others as if it is a undisputed fact. How anyone could look at those fragments of tools and claim they know what they are for sure is beyond me. But then that is precisely how archaeological “evidence” is used to support ones personal “findings” and beliefs about their own work apparrently.
As far as a recognizable lithic technology being recognized which pre-dates clovis, I have to differ with Kris’s statement. Although not yet dated in this country, there is a recognizable lithic industry being revealed in several states that technologically pre-dates clovis. The same technology when found abroad has always pre-dated the clovis makers as well as the Paisley Cave visitors bya long shot. Now there are those that might say that the Levallois tool technology that has been assembled over the last decade is not what we claim it is. BUT with hundreds of cores and thousands of unambiguous flake and blade tools, the artifactual evidence of a known and recognizable pre-clovis tool technology and visible demonstrable “industry” makes for a much stronger case than 3 bifacial tool fragments of ambiguous origin………..rick d.