Anthropology
Location:
Academic Resources Center
- ARC
NHB, Main Building, Ground Floor, Room 60A
Speaker:
Dennis Stanford
Dr.
Dennis Stanford is Curator of Archaeology. He
has devoted his career to early American prehistory,
and done field work from Alaska to Monte Verde
in Chile, where the oldest human remains in the
Americas were found. With his Smithsonian colleague
Bruce Bradley, he is working on the possibility
that Clovis points, first found in North America
around 11,000 years ago, derive from similar flaking
techniques developed thousands of years earlier
in Spain. The idea may have been brought here
by an early visitor who travelled by boat. Such
a traveler might have traveled along the edge
of an icecap which rimmed the North Atlantic during
the Ice Age.
Topic:
Who were the
First People in the Americas: Constructing the
Solutrean Solution
Clovis
are thought to be the first people into the New
World, (North America) via Siberia. But when you
look at the archeology of Siberia, which we have
now had ample opportunity to do in the last few
years, there really is not much in Siberia that
is a direct Clovis predecessor. Consequently,
Dr. Stanford's evidence points toward Clovis as
a New World invention and developed from a population
of people that were already in North America.
But if Clovis develop in Southeast North America,
who did Clovis develop from? When did that happen?
And where did those people come from? Was it Siberia
or was it someplace else?
From
looking at the artifactual evidence we now have
from North America and from Northeast Asia as
well as the physical remains, it's very clear
that we are looking at multiple migrations through
a very long time period - of many different peoples
of many different ethnic origins that came in
at different times. Some of these people probably
survived, some of them may have gone back home
and some of them probably did not survive. By
studying recently discovered skeletal remains
particularly the DNA and the morphological differences
and similarities, we'll be able to figure out
how many groups there were and from where they
came.
At
the 1999 Clovis and Beyond Conference held in
Santa Fe, we presented a hypothesis, now known
as the "Solutrean Solution", to explain
the origin of Clovis technology. The hypothesis
is based on the fact that there is little commonality
between Clovis and Northeast Asian technologies
on the one hand, while on the other, there are
many technological traits shared between Clovis
and the Solutrean culture of Paleolithic Europe.
In the past, scholars have rejected the idea of
a historical connection between the two cultures
because they were separated temporally by 5,000
years and geographically by 4,000 miles of North
Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, it is clear that
modern Native Americans are Asian in origin. Hence,
the similarities were considered the result of
independent invention.
We
point out that the idea of independent invention
is an unsupported opinion and not a tested hypothesis.
In contrast, we outline a testable model with
supporting evidence such as the occupation levels
found at the Meadowcroft (Pennsylvania)
and Cactus Hill (Virginia) sites with pre-Clovis
dates that fill the time gap. The pre-Clovis levels
also contained biface and blade/core technologies
that we would expect in an artifact assemblage
transitional between Solutrean and Clovis. We
argue that during the 20,000 years that lapsed
between the beginning of maritime technology in
Southeast Asia and the advent of Solutrean in
Southwest Europe, major developments in sea going
technologies and skills likely spread around the
coastal waters of the inhabited world. We also
point out that during Solutrean times lower sea
levels greatly reduced the distance between the
Celtic and the North American Continental Shelves
and a connecting ice bridge eliminated the necessity
of a 4,000-mile blue voyage between Lisbon and
New York City. The southern margin of this ice
bridge was a relative rich environment inhabited
by migrating sea mammals, birds, and fish attracting
Solutrean people. We reason that generations of
Solutrean hunters learned to cope with ice and
weather conditions to follow rich resources such
as Harp seals and Great Auks that migrated north
and westward along with retreating ice in late
spring. Through such activities they ended up
(by accident and/or design) along the exposed
continental shelf of North America discovering
a new land.
This
lecture will feature research covering the past
six years of intensive research in which we assessed
the available interdisciplinary evidence to see
if the Solutrean Solution Model is supported or
should be rejected. Our conclusion is that there
is strong and compelling supporting data and the
model merits serious consideration. Our evidence
supports the view that Clovis developed out of
an indented base biface tradition that existed
along the Mid-Atlantic continental shelf.
Learn more:
Northern
Clans, Northern Traces
Stone
Age Columbus
Clovis
and Solutrean: Is there a
common Thread?
Clovis:
A primer
Did
the First Americans come from Europe?
