Pre-Clovis projectile points at the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas—Implications for the Late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas

Abstract

Stemmed projectile points are ~13,500 to ~15,500 years old and lie stratigraphically below ~13,000-year-old Clovis artifacts.

Fladmark + 40: What Have We Learned about a Potential Pacific Coast Peopling of the Americas?

“…Cosmogenic radionuclide ( 10 Be) dating of glacial erratics indicate coalescence of the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets until after ~15,000 cal BP, while OSL dating of sand dunes and Quaternary vertebrates indicate that the corridor began to open between about 14,000 and 15,000 years ago (Froese et al 2019; Margold et al 2019; Munyikwa et al 2017). This chronology, however, leaves little time for human settlement south of the ice sheets at Paisley Caves (~14,000 cal BP; Gilbert et al 2008), Page Ladson (~14,500 cal BP; Halligan et al 2016) and Monte Verde (~14,500 cal BP; Dillehay et al 2008)—and no time at all for the ~15,000 cal BP occupations at the Friedkin (Jennings and Waters 2014; Waters et al 2018; Waters, Forman et al 2011), Gault (Williams et al 2018), and Huaca Prieta sites (Dillehay et al 2012). Continued paleoecological work along the IFC will be critical for understanding the timing and viability of the route for human dispersals (see Potter, Baichtal et al 2018; Potter, Beaudoin et al 2018).…”

“…At Paisley Caves, accessible from the coast via the Klamath and Sprague River corridors (Pitblado 2011), stemmed points are minimally dated to ~13,000–12,700 cal BP—with no evidence of Clovis technology being present—making them at least coeval with Clovis (Jenkins et al 2012), and similar ages are suggested at a few other sites (Davis et al 2014). At the Friedkin and Gault sites in central Texas, stemmed points have been found stratigraphically below Clovis and dated as much as 2,000 years older than Clovis (Waters, Forman et al 2011; Waters et al 2018; Williams et al 2018).…”

“…The “coastal migration theory” remained on the intellectual margins of Paleoindian archaeology until the late 1990s with the widespread acceptance of the ~14,500 cal BP pre-Clovis occupation at the Monte Verde site in southern Chile, which demonstrated that humans were in South America more than 1,000 years before Clovis (Dillehay et al 2008; Meltzer et al 1997). Monte Verde and a handful of other widely accepted pre-Clovis sites (e.g., Gilbert et al 2008; Halligan et al 2016; Waters et al 2018; Waters, Forman et al 2011; Waters, Stafford et al 2011; Williams et al 2018) have reinvigorated the search for the first Americans, as have a series of new genetic studies (e.g., Lindo et al 2017; Llamas et al 2016; Moreno-Mayar, Potter et al 2018; Moreno-Mayar, Vinner et al 2018; Raghavan et al 2015; Scheib et al 2018). Most archaeologists now believe the first Americans traversed the IFC or a pacific coast route (PCR), or both, during the terminal Pleistocene, although alternative hypotheses on routes and chronologies persist (e.g., Holen et al 2017; Stanford and Bradley 2012).…”

Paleoamerican Occupation, Stone Tools from the Cueva del Medio, and Considerations for the Late Pleistocene Archaeology in Southern South America

“…Finally, during the last decades several archaeological sites demonstrated the existence of pre-Clovis and pre-Fell occupations dated at~15 cal. kya in North and South America (e.g., [167][168][169][170][171]) among others. Besides, by~13-11.5 cal.…”

The procurement and use of knappable glassy volcanic raw material from the late Pleistocene Pilauco site, Chilean Northwestern Patagonia

“…year BP, various styles of projectile points and other bifacial instruments from a variety of raw materials became common (Cardich, ; López Mazz, ; Nami, ). It is probable that the broader variety of stone tool industries across multiple regions is related to one or a combination of several factors, including mechanical adjustments in applying the reductive technique to different types of lithic raw materials, technological adaptations to procuring and preparing new resources in different environmental zones, and increased sociocultural diversity in general as human groups settled into new territories (Dillehay, Ardila, Politis, & Beltrao, ; Franco, ; Waters et al, ). Monte Verde is the most important late Pleistocene site in South America and it is located in the Intermediate Depression of northwestern Chilean Patagonia.…”