1979, Color, 52 minutes, Odyssey Series, PBS
Summary:
Beginning and ending at the Lewisville Site in Texas, the video examines the question of whether humans were in North America before 12,000 BP. Lewisville has long intrigued archaeologists with its apparent 40,000 BP date. Excavating the site, Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian favors the idea of pre-Clovis humans, while Vance Haynes of the University of Arizona is more skeptical. In the summer of 1979, they travel over the continent examining excavations that may shed light. The video shows some of the major scholars on the issues of early humans in America: -- George Frison, Rob Bonnichsen, Richard Morlan and others -- as well as important sites such as Natural Trap and Old Crow.
One important element in the video is the interplay of two friends, Stanford and Haynes, and the caution with which they proceed, even thought they have different ideas. They need incontrovertible evidence to demonstrate pre-Clovis.
Also shown in the video is the role of experimentation in archaeology. Though the video does little with the lifeways of these early people, it does dispel the notion that they were only hunters. An excellent segment with Frison shows some of the plants gathered. For 1979, the video shows well the state of evidence and theory for early human habitation in the Americas.
In the end, the Lewisville site is demonstrated to be a Clovis site, but the questions about the date of the first human habitation remain.
Questions:
1. What are the two main competing models and dates for human entry into the New World?
2. How does experimental archaeology help us understand early human life in the New World?
3. How does the interplay between Stanford and Haynes show how science in archaeology works?
4. What reasons are there for why we might not have found the very early, around 40,000 BP sites? 5. What other tool technologies than stone might have been used than the stone tools we usually look for?
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larry-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
University of Iowa Anthropology
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