Post Pleistocene Adaptations Mesolithic and Archaic - After last glaciation in Europe and New World. Forest Adaptation Desert Adaptation Old World (Mesolithic) Maglemosian 9500-6000BP Natufian 11,000-10,000BP New World (Archaic) Eastern Archaic 9,500BP - domestication Desert Culture 9,500BP - domestication

Early Human Occupation of the New World

Early Human Occupation of the New World Earliest Evidence Now thought to be more recent, date was partly contaminated by lignite. Lewisville Initial radiocarbon dates >27000BP Meadowcroft Shelter 13,500 – 17,500BP Southwestern Pennsylvania Monte Verde Southern Chile Dated over 14,000BP

Early Human Occupation of the New World Paleoindian Period Earliest Well Documented Evidence Clovis Complex Throughout the New World, best known in SW United States. Clovis Fluted Points Mammoth remains Carbon dated at ca. 11,500BP Folsom Complex Folsom Fluted Points Associated with now extinct bison Carbon dated at ca. 10,000 BP

Red jasper Clovis specimen from the Fenn Cache, Red jasper Clovis specimen from the Fenn Cache, (Utah agate, provenience unknown)

CLOVIS POINTS EAST WENATCHEE CLOVIS SITE---WASHINGTON STATE

Excavations at Cactus Hill, which lies along the Nottoway River 45 miles south of Richmond, VA, began in 1993. The upper level, radiocarbon dated to 10,920 years ago, contained Clovis-style spear points. The lower level, radiocarbon dated to 15,070 years ago, yielded stone points and other implements without Clovis features.

Early Human Occupation of the New World Kennewick Man - ???????? On July 28, 1996, two men watching the annual hydro boat races at Columbia Park in Kennewick, Washington, accidentally found part of a human skull on the bottom of the Columbia River about ten feet from shore. Later, deliberate searches turned up a nearly complete male skeleton that is now known as Kennewick Man.

Early Human Occupation of the New World Conventional archeology has held to the Bering theory.   But according to a new theory first proposed by Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley, the continent's first inhabitants may have crossed the Atlantic slightly more than 18,000 years ago from the Iberian Peninsula - the area that encompasses Spain, Portugal and southwestern France. Belonging to a group known as the Solutreans, the pre-modern explorers are believed to have originally settled along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, according to the researchers. Over the next six millennia, their hunting and gathering culture may have spread as far as the American deserts and Canadian tundra, and perhaps into South America.

Evidence suggesting a Solutrean origin of Clovis. http://www. mnh. si Solutrean Laurel-leaf Point Clovis Fluted Point Lithic technology…bifacial flaking, exotic material, caches w/red ochre Possible maritime route Physical characteristics… i.e. Kennewick DNA…?