Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1996 - 123

land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska
was exposed when sufficient water was trapped
The in glaciers and ice caps to lower the sea level by
about 155 feet. By 25,000 B.P. this 900-mile-wide expanse, known as Beringia, was above water, and it remained so until about 11,000 B.P. A recent study of
pollen, plant fragments, and insect remains from core
samples by Scott Elias of the University of Colorado
and his colleagues concluded that Beringia was not a
treeless tundra, as had been thought, but was covered
with birch, heath, and shrub willow. The plants and insects indicate that the summer was warmer than today.
Once across the land bridge, one could travel south
either between the coastal mountains and the Rockies
or along the eastern edge of the Rockies. But the Laurentide ice sheet, covering much of northern North
America, and the Cordilleran ice sheet, straddling the
Rockies, blocked the eastern route from 30,000 B.P.and
the coastal route from at least 20,000 B.P. Only after
the ice retreated, about 13,000 B.P., was the way south
clear. Could the first Americans have skirted the ice by
following the coast in boats? Some pockets along the
shore may have been free of ice, affording landing
places, but the Cordilleran ice sheet covered some
2,000 miles of coast, making such a journey virtually
impossible.
Scholars have tried to link particular archaeological
cultures, identified by types of stone tools, with various
groups arriving in the Americas. But the picture is unclear. The familar Paleoindian tradition, generally dated between 11,200 and 8500 B.P., begins with fluted
points called Clovis after their original findspot in New
Mexico. Beyond Clovis are several sites claimed to be
earlier in date, including Meadowcroft (Pennsylvania),
Monte Verde (Chile), and Pedra Furada (Brazil). Various sites in Alaska are contemporary with or even
somewhat earlier than Clovis but lack fluted points.
Do Clovis points mark the entry of the first Americans, or were they developed later? Clovis and other
fluted points have been found throughout the Americas, but Alaskan Clovis points are not among the oldest,
as one might expect if they arrived with the first Americans. South American sites with fluted "fish-tailed"
points are as early as the first Clovis sites, although
most appear to date after 11,000 B.P. Were fluted
points first made to the south, later spreading to Alaska? A fluted point found at Uptar in Siberia, 1,200
miles from Beringia, is provocative, but it is not well
dated; we know only that it was made sometime before
8300 B.P.(see page 14). It could be a Clovis predecessor
or descendant, or a coincidental use of fluting.
Is there solid evidence for a pre-Clovis occupation of
the Americas? A lower level in Meadowcroft, excavated
by James Adovasio, has been dated between 11,300

November/December 1996

and 19,600 B.P.,but some dispute the dates, saying that
coal particles in groundwater contaminated the samples, making them appear older then they are. Critics
also note that the small sample of plant and animal remains suggests a temperate rather than a cold climate,
which is what one would expect if the dates are correct.
Monte Verde, a waterlogged site with excellent preservation, is the strongest pre-Clovis candidate. The remains include stone tools (but no fluted points), bones
of extinct animals, remains of rectangular huts, and
even a human footprint preserved in the damp clay.
Archaeologists await final publication of",the site by excavator Tom Dillehay. The dates from the site's main
level range from 13,565 to about 12,000 B.P., but another level may be even older. At Pedra Furada the debate centers on whether flaked stones from levels dated
to 50,000 B.P. are artifacts or were created naturally
when quartz and quartzite cobbles eroded and fell from
a layer in the 330-foot cliff above the site. The site's excavators, Niède Guidon and Fabio Parenti, say some
are artifacts; others, such as Adovasio, Dillehay, and
Paleoindian specialist David Meitzer, are doubtful. The
two groups argued the matter in recent issues of the
, but the exchange resolved nothing.
journal Antiquity
In Alaska several distinct stone tool assemblages are
known from different sites, but their relationships to
one another are unclear. The so-called Nenana Complex (11,300-8500 B.P.), known from sites in central
Alaska, is marked by bifacial triangular or tear-shaped
points. The Paleoarctic (10,600-6500 B.P.), extending
from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest, has characteristic
wedge-shaped microcores and microblades. Fluted
points appear to be slightly later (10,500-10,000 B.P.).
Complicating the picture are hunting camps Broken
Mammoth, Mead, Swan Point in the Tanana Valley
near Fairbanks, dated to ca. 11,700, that have microblade assemblages. The contemporary Mesa site, on the
North Slope, has lanceolate points with carefully
ground bases. For now it may be best to call these the
Northern Paleoindian Tradition, as the University of
Alaska's Charles Holmes and David Yesner have done,
a "very early, but highly varied, cultural tradition, perhaps the earliest to arrive in the Americas" according
to Brian Fagan (see Archaeology, July/ August 1993).
Paleoindian cultures in South America may also be
more complex than previously thought. Excavations by
Anna Roosevelt at Pedra Pintada in northern Brazil,
dated 11,000 B.P., have yielded artifacts and remains
showing an early adaptation to a tropical "climate (see
Archaeology, July /August 1996).
While recent excavations and discoveries have made
it clear that Paleoindian cultures are far more diverse
than once thought, they offer no conclusive evidence
concerning the arrival of the first Americans. M.R.

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1996

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1996