The First Americans: A Review of the Evidence for the Late-Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas Chapter uri icon

abstract

  • Archaeological evidence from North America shows that Clovis complex sites date between 13,000 and 12,600 cal yr BP. The evidence for the Clovis complex pre-dating 13,000 cal yr BP is equivocal. Artifact assemblages are found at a number of sites in South America that date to 13,000 cal yr BP that have no affinity to Clovis. These data show that both continents were contemporaneously occupied at 13,000 cal yr BP. The absence of Clovis artifacts in Beringia and the geographic concentration of the Clovis complex in North America south of the continental ice sheets indicate that Clovis likely originated somewhere in the continental United States from an antecedent group. Several archaeological sites in North and South America provide credible evidence for the occupation of the Americas before Clovis, and these sites date back to ca. 15,000 cal yr BP, some 2000 calendar years before Clovis. Artifacts from these sites show that these early people made and utilized bifaces, blades, bladelets, and osseous tools. A migration of people into the Americas, a few thousand years prior to Clovis, is supported by the modern genetic evidence. The presence of people in the Americas prior to Clovis also correlates with the initial decline in megafaunal populations during the fifteenth and fourteenth millennia. We propose the term Exploration Period to encompass the sites predating the emergence of the recognizable hallmarks of the Clovis complex.

author list (cited authors)

  • Waters, M. R., & Stafford, T.

complete list of authors

  • Waters, MR||Stafford, TWQ

editor list (cited editors)

  • Graf, K., Ketron, C., & Waters, M.

Book Title

  • Paleoamerican Odyssey

publication date

  • August 2014