Archive for June 7th, 2007
Arrows Reveal Native American Origins
Here’s a report on recent research which proposes the spread of the first Americans coming in from Asia via a supposed ice-free corridor ca. 12,000 bp, can be traced through the distribution of Clovis technology across North America, and the way in which it appears to vary at a regional level.
The study included 216 stone arrowheads found in a number of states, including Montana,
New Mexico, Arizona, Maine and Texas.
The researchers analyzed variations in angles, base size, tips, stone flaking and more. They then studied how the differences, and similarities, related to where the arrowheads were excavated.
Researchers Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard propose a model that explains the spread of Clovis through humans arriving from the North, who then quickly inhabited an unpopulated North America; other models suggest there was already a pre-Clovis population present, and that Clovis spread through it, rather than with an expanding population that had only recently arrived. Moreover, other research has been conducted which has prompted suggestions that Clovis spread from the South – which again would indicate an extant population that preceded the purported Beringian intrusion event. For example, the site of Taima-taima in Venzuela, dating to around 13,000 bp, has yielded these El Jobo points with a decidedly leaf-like appearance, itself suggestive of Clovis, and as others have claimed, Solutrean as well. Read the rest of this entry »
