People and North America

[Jimmy Higgins]

link (shared)

Two years ago, a team of scientists came to the conclusion that human tracks sunk into the mud in White Sands National Park in New Mexico were more than 21,000 years old. The provocative finding threatened the dominant thinking on when and how people migrated into the Americas. Soon afterward, a technical debate erupted about the method used to estimate the age of the tracks, which relied on an analysis of plant seeds embedded with the footprints.

Now, a study published in the journal Science confirms the initial finding with two new lines of evidence: thousands of grains of pollen and an analysis of quartz crystals in the sediments.

“It’s more or less a master class in how you do this,” said Edward Jolie, an anthropological archaeologist at the University of Arizona who has studied the White Sands footprints in the field but was not involved in the new study. “As Carl Sagan said, ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’ They have some extraordinary evidence.”
Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, a fellow at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said that the results support her modeling work, which suggested that people first crossed into present-day North America before 29,000 years ago, possibly traveling via the ocean.

Funny this came out as my daughter recently had an assignment on the ice bridge in the Bering Strait. Being fifth grade, it was a bit lacking in details. I mentioned that one thing to consider regarding people coming to America is that they didn't have to come from the bridge. It was that it was more likely for large numbers to come from the bridge, and that other groups could have come from water, as they did Oceania. But just because they made it, didn't mean they'd make it in the "new world". Or their impact was so small, that it'd be overwhelmed by the larger numbers later.

 

[Jokodo]

I think "come from the water" and "as they did in Oceania" may convey the wrong picture. In all likelihood, we are seeing a population of seal hunters hopping from fjord to fjord and from one icefree offshore island to the other mostly in sight of each other. Even today (or at least until very recently when flying became cheap enough to compete) in the absence of an inland ice sheet, communication among the locals in places like the Norwegian coast of the Alaskan panhandle (settlers out natives alike) is mostly done by boat, which even with primitive means is often more efficient than going the same distance over land. Sure, the seas were surely not to be underestimated, and the journey sure wasn't for the faint of heart , but a far cry from navigating from Samoa to Hawaii it is.

And i believe the ice free corridor was over pretty rough terrain too? So maybe the coastal route was actually more conveniant even after it opened?

 

[Jokodo]

Incidentally, there seems to be anecdotal evidence that even Neanderthals before us reached Greek Islands including Crete, islands which are claimed to never have been connected to the mainland during the Pleistocene. No actual bones so far but fairly convincing tools much like those found associated with neanderthals on the mainland. Now the area is geologically active, with earthquakes a regular occurrence and at least one island that was blown to pieces by a volcanic eruption in historical time so just measuring the depth of the seafloor today is probably insufficient to ascertain that there wasn't a landbridge when the sea was x metres lower. Let's assume they had a geologist on the team who would have cried if this were an actual issue.

Now if neanderthals were capable of island hooping 120k years ago, we should give our own species credit for island hopping even in cold water a full 100k years later.

 

[Jokodo]

The paleolithic is one of my favorite times, right up there with the 7th century. I don't get the fuss about the Roman Empire among kids these days.

 

[Politesse]

It's funny how every time there's a new piece of evidence pushing back the date of American settlement, you'll get think pieces talking about what a monumental revelation it is, as though it were the first time the ice free corridor hypothesis has been challenged. But there are dozens of independent points of data, at this point, and most currently working NA archaeologists I know threw in the towel ages ago. There is no doubt whatsoever that humans lived in and crossed Beringia on multiple occasions, and that there were at least three major pushes into the rest of the continent over the ensuing millennia. But the idea that they could only have reached the rest of the Americas by traversing Alberta during an interregnum between glaciations has long been overruled by a growing preponderance of evidence.

For anyone curious about the current state of evidence concerning early settlements in the Americas, "The Settlement of the American Continents" by Barton et al is a pretty good read with a relatively conservative approach to the data. JM Adovasio's books are also pretty good, though they are more partisan (naturally, since he excavated one of the major sites of controversy).

 

[robnisch]

I am a big fan of the umiak theory. After living in Southeast AK for 40+ years, it is easy to see how island hopping is very possible.

Umiak - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jokodo]

It's funny how every time there's a new piece of evidence pushing back the date of American settlement, you'll get think pieces talking about what a monumental revelation it is, as though it were the first time the ice free corridor hypothesis has been challenged. But there are dozens of independent points of data, at this point, and most currently working NA archaeologists I know threw in the towel ages ago. There is no doubt whatsoever that humans lived in and crossed Beringia on multiple occasions, and that there were at least three major pushes into the rest of the continent over the ensuing millennia. But the idea that they could only have reached the rest of the Americas by traversing Alberta during an interregnum between glaciations has long been overruled by a growing preponderance of evidence.

For anyone curious about the current state of evidence concerning early settlements in the Americas, "The Settlement of the American Continents" by Barton et al is a pretty good read with a relatively conservative approach to the data. JM Adovasio's books are also pretty good, though they are more partisan (naturally, since he excavated one of the major sites of controversy).

My impression is that Clovis First has been a zombie hypothesis that no one in the field has taken serious for the better part of 25 years, but that's still alive enough in the minds of the general public to be used as a reference point in the popular press whenever yet another pre-clovis find its discussed, and possibly still taught in many schools.

My impression is that a settlement by 16-19ky BP is pretty uncontroversial nowadays, but older alleged finds in the 24-33k range are still treated with scepticism by most in the community, though some of those are hard to discard out of hand too.

How far am I off?

 

[Jokodo]

Also I find out kind of weird the idea there *must* have been a land corridor for humans to reach the Americas ever took hold in the first place. We've known for quite some time humans reached Australia at least 45ky ago and more likely 65ky, and in the old world paleontologists are taking serious the possibility that the out of Africa migration 80-100ky ago happened not via the Sinai but by crossing the Red Sea into Southern Arabia were there would have been a more hospitable climate - while the Red Sea was sure narrower and its islands larger, it wasn't gone, contrary to popular belief.

So why the special treatment? Is Beringia too cold to boat? Or is anyone actually suggesting folks *swam* to Sahul and across the Red Sea?

 

[Politesse]

It's funny how every time there's a new piece of evidence pushing back the date of American settlement, you'll get think pieces talking about what a monumental revelation it is, as though it were the first time the ice free corridor hypothesis has been challenged. But there are dozens of independent points of data, at this point, and most currently working NA archaeologists I know threw in the towel ages ago. There is no doubt whatsoever that humans lived in and crossed Beringia on multiple occasions, and that there were at least three major pushes into the rest of the continent over the ensuing millennia. But the idea that they could only have reached the rest of the Americas by traversing Alberta during an interregnum between glaciations has long been overruled by a growing preponderance of evidence.

For anyone curious about the current state of evidence concerning early settlements in the Americas, "The Settlement of the American Continents" by Barton et al is a pretty good read with a relatively conservative approach to the data. JM Adovasio's books are also pretty good, though they are more partisan (naturally, since he excavated one of the major sites of controversy).

My impression is that Clovis First has been a zombie hypothesis that no one in the field has taken serious for the better part of 25 years, but that's still alive enough in the minds of the general public to be used as a reference point in the popular press whenever yet another pre-clovis find its discussed, and possibly still taught in many schools.

My impression is that a settlement by 16-19ky BP is pretty uncontroversial nowadays, but older alleged finds in the 24-33k range are still treated with scepticism by most in the community, though some of those are hard to discard out of hand too.

How far am I off?

There are still a few oldsters who will pound Clovis First out of sheer stubbornness, so I'm not surprised if I meet a professor emeritus at a conference who still thinks all this new archeology is rubbish. It's human nature. But yeah, the consensus of the field has largely moved on, and more than any particular site, the thing that tipped the rest of us over was that there was just more general coherence between different types of data as more sites and methods entered the pile. The Coastal Hypothesis is good at predicting where we'll find more early sites, yeah, but also doesn't create any contradictions to the genetic and linguistic evidence that have also entered the discussion.

As for older sites being treated with higher skepticism, that is most certainly true, but I would remark, also not specific to this debate. When it comes down to it, much older sites are just much more difficult to pin to an absolute date. Both because of the limitations of our various dating strategies, and also the practical reality that humans before 15,000 years ago tended to leave very scant material footprints. But very old sites are exciting things to tell the press about and make a name for yourself at your university. Both good reasons to lift an eyebrow when a young academic proposes a very early date for something like a rockshelter debitage site or parietal art that are stereotypically difficult to assign good dates to in any case.

 

[Politesse]

So why the special treatment? Is Beringia too cold to boat?

It was and is not, though before paleoecology was much developed as a subfield, this was an argument that many were making. The other reason for the insistence on the corridor was, I think, that the dominant model of how Pleistocene humans survived at all was that they were all following herds of megafauna on their migrations and drawing most of their nutrition and economy from hunting said megafauna. Humans may boat, but mammoths don't swim, you know? It took a new generation of archeologists, more attuned to the diversity of forager diets and more familiar with the findings of experimental archeologists in this respect, to more seriously entertain the idea of a Pleistocene people with a maritime economy.

 

[robnisch]

Is this the wrong place to bring up renaming Columbus Day? First People Day or Viking Day.

 

[Politesse]

Is this the wrong place to bring up renaming Columbus Day? First People Day or Viking Day.

"Indigenous People's Day" has been catching on in my native state of California, but has not gained broad acceptance in the United States as a whole. Suposedly, calling it anything other than "Columbus Day" is a racist attack on Italians according to many on the East Coast and in the Midwest where the festival has a longer history and various associated local customs.

Personally, I'd rather add more holidays than attempt, implausibly, to limit people's ability to celebrate the ones they have. I don't think this has much to do with the historical foundations of human settlements in the Americas, though. "Who was here first" has a clear and obvious answer, and it isn't what we're really fighting about. The question is about who is here now, and whose narrative of history is enshrined in public ritual and performative obesience.

The sociologist Robert Bellah had much to say about the role of mythologized "founding fathers" in constructing a mythological narrative for (and therefore supernaturally justifying) the existence of the American colonial empires. The historical Columbus did very few of the things the things mythological Columbus is said to have done, and the two men, the real and the constructed, are markedly different in character. The bold, divinely inspired pioneer and the self-aggrandizing genocidal pirate struggle to meet at the middle. But the holiday, the rituals, and the performative obedience of the public, are attached to the mythological figure, not the real man. Trying to infuse the conversation with historical facts is admirable, but likely a doomed endeavor.

Personally, I celebrate the holiday with a public reading of the Columbus Letter. As regards the settlement of Hispaniola and Columbus' intentions toward the East Indies islands he thought he was colonizing, his words make those intentions abundantly, painfully clear.

 

[Swammerdami]

AFAIK the only Y-haplogroup known to be implied for pre-Columbian South America is Q-M1107. The mutation rate of the Y-chromosome is rather well calibrated by now; and it was about 16,000 years ago that Q-M1107 diverged from a sibling clade (Q-L330) found in present-day males from Hungary and Central Asia. (Most of Q-M1107 is in the Q-M3 subclade dated to 14,000 years ago. The second largest subclade is Q-Z780, found among Creek tribesmen and in the Anzick-1 skeleton.)

This does not preclude earlier settlements, of course, but implies that the early settlers -- or at least their agnatic line -- went extinct.

OTOH, many Native Americans refuse to allow their DNA to be tested, so other Native haplogroup(s) may remain undiscovered.

 

[Jokodo]

So why the special treatment? Is Beringia too cold to boat?

It was and is not, though before paleoecology was much developed as a subfield, this was an argument that many were making. The other reason for the insistence on the corridor was, I think, that the dominant model of how Pleistocene humans survived at all was that they were all following herds of megafauna on their migrations and drawing most of their nutrition and economy from hunting said megafauna. Humans may boat, but mammoths don't swim, you know? It took a new generation of archeologists, more attuned to the diversity of forager diets and more familiar with the findings of experimental archeologists in this respect, to more seriously entertain the idea of a Pleistocene people with a maritime economy.

Do we know mammoths don't swim? I have yet to meet a living breathing mammoth that *doesn't*.

 

[lpetrich]

Elephants can swim, so I'm sure that mammoths could swim.

 

[Politesse]

So why the special treatment? Is Beringia too cold to boat?

It was and is not, though before paleoecology was much developed as a subfield, this was an argument that many were making. The other reason for the insistence on the corridor was, I think, that the dominant model of how Pleistocene humans survived at all was that they were all following herds of megafauna on their migrations and drawing most of their nutrition and economy from hunting said megafauna. Humans may boat, but mammoths don't swim, you know? It took a new generation of archeologists, more attuned to the diversity of forager diets and more familiar with the findings of experimental archeologists in this respect, to more seriously entertain the idea of a Pleistocene people with a maritime economy.

Do we know mammoths don't swim? I have yet to meet a living breathing mammoth that *doesn't*.

Well, there is that. Did you know there were pygmy mammoths on California's Channel Islands until surprisingly recent times? Barely taller than humans. Their ancestors must have swum at least six miles to get out there, which is not as strange as it sounds, as their Asian elephant cousins will do the same in extremis, following smells to populate islands far from the coasts of Southeast Asia.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

One of my history profs was fond of suggesting that the first people to cross into north america were following large herds of animals and subsisting as dung eaters. I can still see him lifting his hand toward his mouth when he made the suggestion, kinda like he was holding a burger. I never encountered the idea elsewhere but he was sure fond of the suggestion. The problem is I never heard of any human population subsisting on dung. We've burned the stuff, but have we ever eaten the stuff?

 

[Politesse]

One of my history profs was fond of suggesting that the first people to cross into north america were following large herds of animals and subsisting as dung eaters. I can still see him lifting his hand toward his mouth when he made the suggestion, kinda like he was holding a burger. I never encountered the idea elsewhere but he was sure fond of the suggestion. The problem is I never heard of any human population subsisting on dung. We've burned the stuff, but have we ever eaten the stuff?

Yes, actually. It's rare though, and usually restricted to insect, bird, and bat leavings, which have medicinal uses in various cultures. We cannot easily digest larger droppings, so it would be counter-productive. Like eating grass or soil. I suspect your history professor was motivated more by racist assumptions than evidence.

 

[lpetrich]

Much better to eat the animals themselves, though that will require killing them.

 

[bilby]

Much better to eat the animals themselves, though that will require killing them.

No shit.