Why we're still arguing about the Pleistocene occupation of the Americas

Abstract

Although empirical issues surround the when, how, and who questions of New World colonization, much of current debate hinges on theoretical problems because it has become clear that our understanding of New World colonization is not resolute.1 In fact, the central issues of debate have remained essentially unchanged for the last eighty years. The now classic and probably incorrect story of New World colonization begins in Late Pleistocene Siberia, with small a population of foragers migrating across Beringia (13,500 calendar years before present (CYBP) (Box 1) through an ice-free corridor and traveling through the interior of North America. High mobility and rapid population growth spurred southward expansion into increasingly distant unoccupied regions, culminating in the settlement of the Southern Cone of South America. Armed with the skills and weapons needed to maintain a megafauna-based subsistence strategy, early colonists necessarily had the adaptive flexibility to colonize a diverse array of Pleistocene landscapes. For a time, this scenario seemed well substantiated. The earliest sites in South America were younger than their northern counterparts, fluted artifacts were found across the Americas within a brief temporal window, and projectile points capable of wounding elephant-sized prey were commonly found in association with proboscidean remains. The Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia to Alaska and an ice-free corridor providing passage between the Pleistocene ice masses of Canada seemed to provide a clear route of entry for Clovis colonists. However, recent archeological, paleoenvironmental, biological, and theoretical work largely questions the plausibility of these events.

A Tale of Two Migrations: Reconciling Recent Biological and Archaeological Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas

“…Buchanan and Collard (2007) derived similar conclusions from a statistical analysis of fluted points recovered from across North America. Cumulatively, these findings suggest that in some areas Clovis people whose ancestors entered the New World via the IFC were, in fact, first (see Waguespack [2007] for a similar perspective).…”

Design Space and Cultural Transmission: Case Studies from Paleoindian Eastern North America

“…All images from Whitt (2010) unless noted Morrow 2015;Smith et al 2015). It seems highly unlikely, however, that the small sample of radiocarbon dates for the Clovis period has captured the earliest or latest use of Clovis points (Waguespack 2007;O'Brien et al 2014;Prasciunas and Surovell 2015) in either half of the continent, so we use the ranges above as estimates.…”

The Prehistoric Colonization of the Americas: Evidence and Models

“…Evidence concerning the two competing entry routes in the Americas (The Ice Free Corridor and the Coastal Models) were examined by Nicole M. Waguespack (2007), but she does not favor one of these two alternatives. The number of waves was considered by Francisco Rothhammer and Tom D. Dillehay (2009).…”