Across Atlantic Ice Read online

  ACROSS ATLANTIC ICE

  THE PUBLISHER GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES

  THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THE GENERAL

  ENDOWMENT FUND OF THE UNIVERSITY

  OF CALIFORNIA PRESS FOUNDATION.

  ACROSS ATLANTIC ICE

  The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture

  Dennis J. Stanford

  Bruce A. Bradley

  Foreword by Michael B. Collins

  University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

  University of California Press

  Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

  University of California Press, Ltd.

  London, England

  © 2012 by The Regents of the University of California

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stanford, Dennis J.

  Across Atlantic ice : the origin of America’s Clovis culture / Dennis J. Stanford, Bruce A. Bradley ; foreword by Michael B. Collins.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-520-22783-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

  1. Clovis culture. 2. Human beings—Migrations. 3. Indians of North America—Transatlantic influences. I. Bradley, Bruce A., 1948– II. Title.

  E99.C832S73 2012

  970.01'1—dc23

  2011032212

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations and Tables

  Prehistoric Time Line

  Foreword by Michael B. Collins

  Introduction: The First Americans?

  PART 1 · PALEOLITHIC PEOPLES

  1. Flaked Stone Technology: A Primer

  2. Clovis: The First American Settlers?

  3. Beringia: Out of Asia on Foot

  4. Challenging the Clovis First Model: The Missing Links

  5. The Solutrean: Ice Age Innovators

  PART 2 · THE SOLUTREAN HYPOTHESIS

  6. Quantitative Culture Comparison

  7. Qualitative Culture Comparison

  8. The Solutrean Maritime Adaptation

  9. The Last Glacial Maximum: How Bad Was the Weather?

  10. Living on the Ice Edge: Ethnographic Analogies

  Conclusion

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix: Cluster Analysis

  Notes

  References

  Index

  ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

  FIGURES

  Intro.1.

  Early fluted point finds

  Intro.2.

  Hypothetical route of early migration from Asia through Beringia

  Intro.3.

  Replica of Siberian compound knife

  Intro.4.

  Indented base points

  Intro.5.

  Clovis overshot flaking

  1.1.

  Knapping terminology

  1.2.

  Basic tool forms

  1.3.

  Blade core production initiation options

  1.4.

  Examples of biface flaking options

  1.5.

  Variations in fluting technology

  2.1.

  Locations of major Clovis sites and extent of glaciation, 12,000 BP

  2.2.

  Limestone cobble pavement, Gault, Texas

  2.3.

  Post-Clovis fluted point types

  2.4.

  Density of Clovis finds and raw material movement, 13,000 BP

  2.5.

  Clovis sites with calibrated radiocarbon dates

  2.6.

  Clovis point variations

  2.7.

  Large bifacial flake cores

  2.8.

  Clovis biface thinning methods

  2.9.

  Blade precore initiation methods

  2.10.

  Clovis blade cores and blade

  2.11.

  Clovis flaked stone tools

  2.12.

  Adzes

  2.13.

  Bone, antler, and ivory tools

  2.14.

  Gault Site incised stones

  3.1.

  Map of Beringia

  3.2.

  Early and Late Dyuktai artifacts

  3.3.

  Primorye artifacts

  3.4.

  Akmak artifacts from Ushki Levels VI and VII and Bolshoi Elgakhchan

  3.5.

  Akmak artifacts from Onion Portage and Nogahabara 1

  3.6.

  Pre-Nenana and Denali artifacts

  3.7.

  Slotted antler points and ivory tools

  3.8.

  Projectile points from Mesa and Sluiceway

  3.9.

  Nenana artifacts

  4.1.

  North America during the LGM showing the extent of glaciers, exposed continental shelf, and early Paleo-American sites

  4.2.

  Meadowcroft and Krajacic artifacts

  4.3.

  Cactus Hill artifacts

  4.4.

  Miles Point artifacts

  4.5.

  Miles Point stratigraphy showing in situ quartzite anvil

  4.6.

  Oyster Cove artifacts

  4.7.

  Cinmar laurel leaf biface

  4.8.

  Location of the South Mountain rhyolite source in the Chesapeake Bay region relative to the Cinmar Site

  4.9.

  Post LGM sea level rise over the continental shelf

  4.10.

  Jefferson Island artifacts and Florida pre-Clovis points

  4.11.

  Late stage preforms from the Johnson Site

  4.12.

  Proposed periglacial point progression from the Mid-Atlantic seaboard to the Brooks Range of Alaska

  5.1.

  Aurignacian and Gravettian artifacts

  5.2.

  Magdalenian artifacts

  5.3.

  Solutrean site distribution, glaciation, and landforms of northwestern Europe at the Last Glacial Maximum

  5.4.

  Solutrean perishable artifacts

  5.5.

  Solutrean stone tools

  5.6.

  Solutrean projectile points and inset blade for bone projectile point

  5.7.

  Casts of four of the fourteen large Solutrean laurel leaf bifaces from the Volgu Cache

  5.8.

  Solutrean blade core types

  5.9.

  Laurel leaf production phases

  5.10.

  Spanish Solutrean indented base points

  5.11.

  Solutrean rock art figures of riverine and marine animals

  5.12.

  British laurel leaf bifaces

  6.1.

  Dynamic systems analysis chart of Beringian Sluiceway biface, Clovis point, and French Solutrean laurel leaf manufacturing sequences

  6.2.

  Technological reduction comparison of middle phase manufacturing of bifaces showing overshot flake scars

  6.3.

  Cluster analysis dendrogram of selected Beringian, Early Paleo-American, and Late Paleolithic European assemblages by tool type

  6.4.

>   Cluster analysis dendrogram of selected Beringian, Early Paleo-American, and Late Paleolithic European assemblages by technology

  7.1.

  Comparisons of Solutrean, pre-Clovis, and Clovis lithic tools

  7.2.

  Laurel leaf bifaces

  7.3.

  Bladelet and blade cores

  7.4.

  Projectile points made from bone or ivory

  7.5.

  Speculative reconstruction of a Clovis harpoonlike bone weapon system

  7.6.

  Comparison of bone artifacts

  7.7.

  Incised stones thought to show fletched spears

  7.8.

  Oversize Solutrean and Clovis bifaces

  7.9.

  Comparison of structure pebble floors

  7.10.

  Radiocarbon date ranges of the Solutrean, Mid-Atlantic Early Paleo-American, Southeast Early Paleo-American, and Clovis

  8.1.

  Solutrean sites in northern Spain and adjacent southwest France

  8.2.

  Ecological zones where the highest-return resources were available throughout the year

  8.3.

  Seasonal chart of seal and walrus presence on the northern Spanish coasts and La Riera Cave use in Solutrean times

  9.1.

  Reconstruction of primary ocean currents and the North Atlantic sea ice cover during the Last Glacial Maximum

  9.2.

  LGM cooling and warming trends as reflected in the Greenland ice cores

  9.3.

  North American Mid-Atlantic continental shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum, with finds of submerged late Pleistocene mastodons, mammoths, and artifact sites

  9.4.

  Reconstruction of North Atlantic sea ice cover during the Last Glacial Maximum, with hypothesized Solutrean migration routes

  10.1.

  Projectile point made of Ramah Bay chert

  11.1.

  World map showing mtDNA Haplogroup X distributions

  TABLES

  2.1.

  Clovis production and artifact traits

  6.1.

  Occurrence of overshot flaking on bifaces

  8.1.

  Faunal remains from the Solutrean levels of La Riera Cave

  A.1.

  Tool type proportions of U.S. fluted point assemblages

  A.2.

  Tool types, by archaeological culture, compared in cluster analysis

  A.3.

  Technological traits, by archaeological culture, compared in cluster analysis

  PREHISTORIC TIME LINE

  11,700–present years BP

  Holocene

  12,500–11,000 years BP

  Post-Clovis fluted and unfluted (Late Paleo-American) culture

  12,800–11,500 years BP

  Younger Dryas

  13,200–12,500 years BP

  Clovis (Middle Paleo-American) culture

  13,500–11,000 years BP

  Nenana-Denali (Beringian Paleo-American) culture

  14,700–12,700 years BP

  Bølling interstadial

  16,800–13,200 years BP

  Proto-Clovis (Southeast Early Paleo-American) culture

  24,000–16,800 years BP

  Mid-Atlantic Early Paleo-American culture

  24,500–18,000 years BP

  French and Northern Spanish Solutrean culture

  25,000–13,000 years BP

  Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)

  110,000 years ago to present

  Last glacial period

  2.58 million years BP

  Pliocene-Quaternary (current ice age) glaciation began

  FOREWORD

  Across Atlantic Ice is an account of two complex and treacherous journeys, one long ago and the other very recent. One is postulated to have occurred across a perilous mosaic of periglacial environments of the Northern Hemisphere during the peak of the last major glaciation some eighteen or twenty millennia ago. The other is a twenty-year intellectual excursion far outside the academic mainstream by two scholars to explore possible answers to the questions of who first came to the Americas, when, whence, and how.

  We long thought that we knew the story of the initial peopling of the Americas: Nomadic mammoth hunters moved out of the Russian steppe, across the ice age Bering land bridge, down an ice-free corridor between the major ice sheets of Canada, and onto the northern Great Plains. This brought them to an American Serengeti of giant bison, mammoth, mastodon, horse, camel, and many other worthy game animals. Once in America some 13,500 years ago, these big game hunters coined a new technology, dubbed Clovis by archaeologists who crafted the romantic notion that these specialized hunters were the first Americans. This story has been dying slowly over the past thirty or so years and is now defunct. However, no consensus theory has replaced “Clovis First” in spite of a large, vigorous, diverse, and sometimes contentious cadre of scholars in many fields of science looking for the evidence to set the story straight.

  This is not a trivial quest, because the Western Hemisphere affords 25 percent of the habitable surface of the earth and was colonized quite late in human history. What people were doing across the entire Northern Hemisphere over the past 50,000 years or so is the focus, along with what the changing terrestrial and marine environments of that expanse of time and space were like.

  Relevant data from archaeology, earth sciences, human DNA, and other fields are cascading in at such a startling pace that almost all of the targets are moving almost all of the time. And it’s not just the data that are changing; the concepts, techniques, and tools scholars use are improving almost daily. This is an exhilarating time in an exciting pursuit.

  Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley draw on ethnography (some of it their own), archaeology (some of it their own), paleoclimatology, oceanography, geology, experimentation (some of it their own), human biology, and more to formulate a hypothesis that accounts for why the Americas seem to have been first peopled during the last glacial period and evidently by way of the harsh artic realm. Since humankind has evolved and thrived in tropical and temperate climes for more than 98 percent of its existence, the circumstances that drove this expansion of range must have been extraordinary.

  Extraordinary they were, with great expanses of the earth falling barren under the advance of glaciation, pushing humans into refugia including the continental margins of southwestern Europe and eastern Asia. From these ocean edges, people were drawn toward enormous populations of marine invertebrates, fish, mammals, and birds, particularly in the northerly latitudes. Boats were needed, tailored clothing that was insulated and waterproof was imperative, ingenuity and new knowledge were essential, and new harvesting technologies were required. So with both a push and a pull, the rich maritime environments of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic increasingly became part of the human niche. As people expanded this niche, it brought them to the shores of North America—the immense human journey across the globe had reached a new continent, whence it continued until the Americas were fully colonized. This new story is at the moment just an outline, and filling it in is the ongoing work of many scholars. Their efforts have been productive because they have approached the peopling of the Americas as a process rather than an event.

  Among this throng of scholars, Dennis and Bruce have tackled the specific question of the origin of Clovis and here formulate a hypothesis that its technological antecedents reached North America from across the North Atlantic and out of Cantabrian Solutrean roots of circa 18,000 years ago. The technology continued developing in eastern North America, ultimately becoming what we call Clovis. This is a hypothesis worthy of full testing.

  Already, in fact, testing is under way. For example, based primarily on nascent accounts of this hypothesis published by Dennis and Bruce in 2004 and 2006 in World Archaeology, Kieran Westley and Justin Dix challenged the “Solutrean Atlantic Hypothesis” in the pages of the first issue of the first volume of the Journ
al of the North Atlantic (2008). They presented a comprehensive review of the status of the ice pack margins of the North Atlantic for the entire duration of the Solutrean (16,000–21,000 years ago) and found that throughout most of that time, it is highly unlikely that conditions along the margin were suitable for sustaining even well-outfitted human mariners. They do note, however, that during a brief interval, conditions may well have been favorable. That interval, near the onset of the Heinrich I event, coincides with that part of the La Riera Cave sequence of northern Spain that Dennis and Bruce identify as the probable time of expanding maritime subsistence by Solutreans.

  This book brings clear focus to the competing notions that America was peopled out of Siberia or out of Iberia. The authors and I agree that, most likely, it was from both and that the early archaeology of the Americas reflects the first heat in the melting pot of the Western Hemisphere. We hold this view in spite of a prevailing interpretation of DNA evidence favoring a Siberian origin of all Native Americans, a view based on modern and recent DNA. But until confirmed by samples of ancient DNA, this is little more than a hypothesis as regards the earliest peoples in America. Asian styles and technology prevail in the early archaeological record along the western parts of North and South America, while a more European Upper Paleolithic flavor—especially Solutrean—is found along the eastern margins of the hemisphere. It is important to note that the geographic extent of submerged archaeological potential is much greater on the Atlantic side of the Western Hemisphere than it is on the Pacific side. This almost surely translates to greater potential for future ice age discoveries on the submerged Atlantic continental shelf than on that of the Pacific.