Evaluating claims for an early peopling of the Americas: experimental design and the Cerutti Mastodon site (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Archaeological Research, 2011
This paper synthesizes primarily 2000s-era “peopling of the Americas” data drawn from the fields of molecular biology, osteology, and archaeology. Collectively, they suggest that colonization proceeded in two pulses, both originating in Western Beringia and before that, south-central and southeastern Siberia. The first occurred ca. 16k – 15k cal. B.P. by watercraft along the coast of Beringia and western North and South America. The second took place 1,000 years later and involved proto-Clovis hunter-gatherers who used the ice-free corridor (IFC) as a conduit south. In addition, at least eight North American sites dating back as far as the last glacial maximum (LGM) suggest that the peopling picture may eventually need to change to accommodate an earlier-than-previously thought IFC migration. For now, the data are not strong enough to support this scenario, but they are tantalizingly close.
2017
The original peopling of the Americas has puzzled researchers for decades. While some evidence points to a single wave of migration, still other data suggests two or more waves. Their reasonable estimated arrival dates range from 14,500 to over 20,000 BP, although some scholars push back their arrival even farther. Drawing from archaeology, genetics, historical linguistics, and physical anthropology, the peopling of the Americas debate encompasses research from a wide range of experts. In this study, craniometric data is examined through the means of the cranial index, defined as the ratio calculated by multiplying the maximum width (XCB) of the head by 100, then dividing by the maximum length of the head (GOL). Cranial indices are known to vary between different regions of the world, suggesting that different ratios represent different geographic affinities of peoples. I examine cranial indices from 112 individuals dating from the Terminal Pleistocene to the Early Holocene found throughout the Americas. These indices are then compared to the 2,524 indices from 30 populations examined in the Howells Craniometric Data Set using basic statistical functions. Results of these tests suggest morphological affinities between certain ancient and modern groups, offering insight into possible links between the two populations.
PaleoAmerica, 2021
Various chronologies of the earliest Native American occupations have been proposed with varying levels of empirical support and conceptual rigor, yet none is widely accepted. A recent survey of pre-Clovis dated sites (Becerra-Valdivia and Higham 2020) concludes a pre-Last Glacial Maximum (>26,500-19,000 cal yr BP) entry of humans in the Americas, in part based on recent work at Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico. We evaluate the evidence used to develop this inference. To provide clarity, we present three explicit dispersal models for the earliest human dispersals to the Americas: Strict Clovis-First (13,050 cal yr BP), Paleoindian (<16,000 cal yr BP), and Pre-Paleoindian (>16,000 cal yr BP, encompassing pre-LGM, preferred by Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020)), and we summarize the current genetic and archaeological evidence bearing on each. We regard all purported Pre-Paleoindian sites as equivocal and the Strict Clovis-First model to be equally unsupported at present. We conclude that current data strongly support the Paleoindian Dispersal model, with Native American ancestors expanding into the Americas sometime after 16,000 cal yr BP (and perhaps after 14,800 cal yr BP), consistent with well-dated archaeological sites and with genetic data throughout the western hemisphere. Models of the Americas' peopling that incorporate Chiquihuite or other claimed Pre-Paleoindian sites remain unsubstantiated.