Sarah Polster

 As ice melted in the the Pleistocene 20 to 15 ka, an Ice Free Corridor (IFC) created in central Alberta  Nomadic hunters from Siberia traveled across following mastodon herds  Mega Faunal Overkill hypothesis  This culture traveled 14,000 miles to Tierra del Fuego in SA in 500 years  Geological evidence and archaeological evidence modest at best

 Dated to 11,500 to 11, C BP: these must be the first people in the Americas  Clovis, NM: very unique knife points found. Elaborately fluted  Within aprrox. 200 years, these points found everywhere in Central and North America- so interpreted as Clovis people spread. These knives seen in Venezuela by 10,500 BP  So, did this technology indicate people inhabiting an empty continent or pre- existing populations all discovering new technology more or less simultaneously?  This was excepted for over 50 years, but many of the sites were never dated until recently  Oldest sites in MT, SD, and FL. Youngest in Southwest  No clear movement pattern from the new dates

Genetics, Linguistics, Archaeology, Geology

 All Native Americans (except Inuit) are very closely related to one another  Shovel-shaped incisors  Blood type A is rare, blood type B is not present!  Kennewick Man  Mitochondrial DNA Evidence  Only passed down through mothers  Mutates at a predictable rate, so can ‘measure’ how long groups have been separated .3% every 10,000yrs  Estimated American Indians seperated 22,000 to 29,000 yrs ago  Most American Indians are 1 of 4 groupings of m.DNA  3 from Asia  Last 1, Halpogroup A, not in Siberia at all! Leads to the estimate being 35,000 yrs ago  Also suggest exploring group split up, some went south immediately, some lived on Beregenia and migrated when IFC began to close

 The diversity of Native American languages is too great  Need more than 11,000 years to develop so much complexity  People needed to be in S. America for at least 18,000 yrs to develop

 Earlier and earlier sites keep being found!  Body found on Santa Rosa Island, CA: watercraft of some kind during Clovis  Open water for 30-35km  South American 14 C dates may skew early b/c less initial 14 C in southern hemisphere “Evidence that would clarify the situation remains undiscovered and/or lies beneath the coastal waters of Alaska and the Northwest Coast where it currently is inaccessible; and/or the associations between the radiocarbon dates and the cultural manifestations at the South American sites are in error or, God forbid, people actually were in South America first” -Kunz, M (2011)

Dickinson et al, 2011

 All Pre-Clovis sites intense scrutiny- this is the one that withstands the best  Acceptance partially complicated by Pinochet  “People refused to shake my hand at meetings”  Sea level rise, would have been 100km inland  Was open-air settlement on side of creek surrounded by bogs  60 ft long tent that housed 20 to 30 people  Hearths, animal bones and medicinal herbs inside  Footprints outside!  A separate structure where mastodons butchered  Questions idea of nomadic bands, but crude tools  Possible evidence of 20,000 years before this  4 feet lower!  24 fractured pebbles, some flaked, 4 show polish  3 shallow holes lined with clay and burned wood seeds- radio carbon age of 33,000 BP

 Classic evidence always relied on an IFC between Laurentide and Cordillera  Much of this evidence for the ‘Illinoian’ glaciation was based on relative dating  Using cosmogenic dating, test for its existence  Found that with each glaciation, the IFC migrates west  Migration possible  At LGM, IFC was 1500 km wide  Late Wisconsonian- no IFC!  This unique event could have led to extinctions  Berengia ‘sank’ once sea level rose 50m, approx 11.5 to 10.5 ka  Coprolite containing human DNA in Oregon dated to 14,500 BP  Across Cascades from coast! From Swisher, et al, 2013

By Land  Arrived over Berengia and walked along exposed continental shelf  Evidence for these settlements lost due to sea level rise  This is complicated by the Gulf of California and gap in kelp forests (main food in CA)  Shelf is very narrow in many places  Or along IFC through Alberta  Better constrained dates and evidence for IFC  We have sites in Alaska and south of IFC pre- Clovis. Clovis w/i 200 yrs of the IFC opening  IFC did exist, except during end of Wisconsonian- cause of extinctions? By Sea  Small bands came across the Pacific a la Con Tiki  Southern Asian genetic source  Pollen records show coasts very hospitable to gathering (modern hunter-gatherers)  Coastal environments allow quicker spread because require less specialization  We know people had boats in Clovis  This is purely speculative- no sites ever found because they are underwater  Some site in Queen Charlotte islands in AK

Bednarik, Robert G. (1989). On the Pleistocene settlement of South America. Antiquity,63(238), 101. Dickinson, W. (2011). Geological perspectives on the Monte Verde archeological site in Chile and pre-Clovis coastal migration in the Americas. Quaternary Research, 76(2), Dillehay, T. D. (1997). The battle of Monte Verde. Sciences, 37(1), Retrieved from Jackson, L., Andriashek, L.D., Phillips, F.M. (2011) Limits of Successive Middle and Late Pleistocene Continental Ice Sheets, Interior Plains of Southern and Central Alberta and Adjacent Areas. Developments in Quaternary Science,15(45), Kunz, M. (2011) From Mesa to Monte Verde: A Quick Trip down the West Coast of the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age, in Proceedings, Alaska Anthropological Association, 38 th, Anchorage, Alaska. Mann, C. (2005) : New revelations of the Americas before Columbus (1st ed.). New York: Knopf. Meltzer, D. (1997). Monte Verde and the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas. Science,276(5313), Swisher, M., Jenkins, D., Jackson, l., Phillips, F.M. (2013). A Reassessment of the Role of the Canadian Ice Free Corridor in Light of New Geological Evidence. Current Archaeological Happenings in Oregon, 38(4), Waters, Michael R., and Thomas W. Stafford. "Redefining the age of Clovis: implications for the peopling of the Americas." Science (2007): Wright, Karen. (1999). First Americans.(origins of man). Discover, 20(2), 52.