Plains Archaeology

PALEOINDIAN: Pre-Clovis and Clovis

The PaloIndian spans the time from 11200 to 8500/8000 RadioCarbon Years Before Present (RCYBP)

Ends 8500 in Southern Plains, 8000 elsewhere  

PaleoIndian Period spans latter part of Late Glacial through the Boreal (Early Holocene)

These were times of great environmental change on the Plains.

In this context there are two things to take note of:

  1. the extinction of many Pleistocene species and
  2. the expansion of grasslands.  

Picture the Great Plains at ca. 15k BP this way:

As Laurentide ice melted, the front retreated north. in turn, the parkland forests retreated north, leaving open grasslands e.g., a pine/spruce parkland existed as far south as Llano Estacado about 17.5k BP.

By end of Late Glacial it had disappeared, leaving the grasslands a spruce/larch parkland existed as far south as Kansas by about 15.5k BP .

As Laurentide ice waned, it retreated through South Dakota during 12.6k to 11k BP, into central North Dakota shortly thereafter, and into southern Saskatchewan by ca. 10.3k BP (Pleistocene and Recent Environments of the Central Great Plains:186)

Incidentally, the spruce forest survives today as a Pleistocene remnant in Black Hills on the Plains.

Parkland forests flourished in a dry, cool climatic regime that featured reduced seasonal temp extremes (compared to today) reduced evaporation supported marshes, swamps and pluvial lakes much like the Canadian Parklands of today

This vegetation and hydraulic regime supported a Plains fauna more varied than today, especially herbivores. fauna included now-extinct species, and species that survive today on the Great Plains

Laurentide ice waned as a result of a warm, moist trend that began in Late Glacial.

As grasslands expanded, pluvial parklands habitats disappeared generally along a south to north cline .

This resulted in part in extinction of species adapted to the pluvial parkland habitats. extinct species - e.g., mammoth, giant sloth, camel, dire wolf, sabre-tooth tiger, horse, pecary, giant bison (antiquus), ???

Some also attribute extinction (in part or whole) to human predation. we'll look at that shortly

Other animals survived, and thrived in the new grassland environment.

Bison are the most salient example.

They lived in Late Glacial, but as text says, they were "preadapted" to a grassland environment.

Early in Holocene they became the dominant large Plains mammal.

This seems to be a result of C4 grasses (drought resistance, more nutritious than Late Glacial C3)

This circumstance, as noted, heavily influenced Plains Indian lifestyles until the Historic period.  

CLOVIS  

The earliest well accepted PaleoIndian Period human occupation of the Plains is the Clovis Culture.

As text identifies, some sites are offered as evidence for pre-Clovis peopling of the Plains.

Hrdlicka set forth three criteria by which antiquity claims must be evaluated

     1) artifacts must be unequivocal. no putative artifacts

     2) site must be stratified, and its stratigraphy must be clear and unambigous

     3) artifact associations must be clear and unambiguous

None of these, however, meet Hrdlicka's criteria as modified by Vance Haynes with a fourth criteria - 4) radiocarbon evidence must be present and unambiguous!    

What is Clovis?

Clovis is defined in two ways - 1) by subsistence, and 2) by technology

Subsistence Clovis

Clovis material remains are most frequently found in association with extinct Pleistocene fauna.

These include camel, giant bear, giant armadillo, sloth, sabre-tooth tiger, mammoth, horse, giant bison.

Where bones are preserved, mammoth is most common some sites have smaller animals - deer, turtle, fish, mountain sheep, antelope, other small game.

Bones of these animals reveal butchering.

There is debate over whether Clovis targeted megafauna, especially mammoth, for hunting, or whether they were scavanged.

Nonetheless, Clovis is usually defined as a big-game hunting culture that survived principally on megafauna.

There are two problems with this definition:

1) What we know of Clovis comes largely from kill, butcher sites.
campsites (residential), which would be expected to reveal a wide range of Clovis activities, are rare.

2) Paucity of campsite data no doubt skews our picture of Clovis lifeways, which probably included plant gathering, collecting.
Most experts agree that Clovis people exploited plants, but there is no direct evidence available.
Strong indirect evidence - e.g., grinding stones - is also absent.

Experts therefore infer plant utilization from ethnographic models.

They note that hunter/gatherers in high diversity environments with poorly defined seasonality tend to range widely, exploiting not only animals, but also plant resources.

Plant exploitation is largely expedient, requiring little preparation.

There is little need for a specialized plant-related technology.

The usual tool inventory serves the purpose.

Temporary campsites of highly mobile peoples tend to stay very briefly at temporary campsites, and leave little behind.

Today no exact analog for the Clovis environment exists.

Nonetheless, Late Glacial environment supported high biotic diversity.

Seasonality was not marked.

Temporary Clovis campsites can be expected to be below the threshhold of archaeological visibility.

There are, however, several aspects of Clovis that support a high-mobility model:

1) quarries - quarry sources for Clovis stone tools are often up to 400 miles distant. Also, some of the major Plains quarries (e.g., KRF, Alibates) show evidence of Clovis utilization

2) cache pits - pits in earth for storing lithic raw materials, typically preforms, bifaces.

Carrying stone reduces mobility. Caching facilitates mobility.

Finally, what we know of Clovis lacks a specialized "plant" technology.  

In fact, site distributions indicate small groups.

Using ethnographic analogy, we can infer bands perhaps with a maximum of 25 individuals.

Examples of BURIALS/CACHES

Powars II site (WY) - a Paleoindian red pigment mine at Powars II site (COA:146). Close to Hell Gap site. At Powars II - stone and bone quarrying tools, projectile pointsts typologically identified as Clovis (also Goshen, Folsom, Hell Gap, Cody, Frederick. etc.) (COA 146-147)

Burials - Anzick site (Wilsall, MT). Young male in association with elaborate stone/bone tools. red ochre other caches.

Ritchie/Roberts (WA) (Natl Geo 174:500-503 [1988]), Simon (ID), Fenn cache (ID), Drake Cache (CO) see COA:2-5.

Chambers Creek cache (said to be heavily used blades. in north-central TX. See www.smu.edu/~anthrop/nativeamerican.html)

Rummells-Maske site (Cedar County, Iowa, 25 miles west of Davenport) - 14 Clovis fluted points (and several midsections) found in agricultural field by farmers. Found in a 20 foot long area. investigators figure a cache (PA 17(55):55ff). No radiometric dates.  

Technological Clovis -

Stone (lithics) tool assemblage:

Many of these types are one-of-a-kind.  

Distinguishing technological characteristics - two main ones.

One is unique three-step biface reduction. a) alternating margin-to-margin flake removal one one side, repeat on other side, producing a biface. b) serial flake removal along one margin then other to thin biface. c) manufacture of tool using percussion/pressure.

The other is basal thinning, or fluting, of proj pt base

DATING CLOVIS

All C14 dates, the text says, are from 11.3 to 10.9k RCYBP.

This is based on Vance Haynes re-analysis of C14 dates, which originally put Clovis in the ca. 11.5 to 10.8k RCYBP range.

It appears Clovis was short-lived, perhaps as little as 300 years (see Frison, Prehistoric Hunters High Plains:25 for dated Plains Clovis sites)

Aubrey site, TX - may push Clovis back by some 400 years. Recently investigated near Denton, TX (few miles north of Dallas).

MamTrump article does not mention a Clovis pt., but Web site says one found (http://www.smu.edu/~anthrop/nativeamerican.html).  

Also at Aubrey:

Aubrey site is a typical Clovis kill/butcher site.

Its location is also not unique, on a relict seasonal spring-fed pond.

This is characteristic of Clovis kill/butcher sites.

All known are on margins and banks of long-gone streams, ponds, pluvial lakes, marshes, springs characteristic of Late Glacial Plains landscape.

Such areas were favorite haunts for Pleistocene mammals, especially mammoth.

Some say this is why scavenging should be considered, rather than hunting (animals trapped in muck, die, scavenged).  

CLOVIS DISTRIBUTION ON THE PLAINS 

C14 dates for Clovis, Goshen, Folsom. (Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains:25)

Found in buried context from west and west-central Texas to as far north as South Dakota, buried sites are mainly on the High Plains.

Clovis pt. surface finds are reported for all Plains states, not just High Plains.

However, on Prairie (as opposed to High Plains), buried Clovis sites are rare.

One buried site with a Clovis-like point is the Vermillion Bluff site in Vermillion, SD

Lange-Ferguson - South Dakota badlands on White River.

Remains of two mammoths, three Clovis pts., bone flakes.
Conventional C14 dates of 11140 + 140, 10730 + 530 RCYBP  (Megafauna and Man:86-99).
Lange-Ferguson - C14 date of 10670 + 300 BP (from organic rich sediment sealing the bone deposit) site believed to be occupied ca. 11000 BP
Adrian Hannus (Augustana College). Found in 1980. Shannon Cty, White River badlands.

  LANGE-FERGUSON SITE video (30 mins)        

CLOVIS ORIGINS    

Clovis validated in 1930s as a Late Pleistocene culture.

It withstood claims for earlier antiquity and came to be seen as the earliest New World culture.

That created the problem of Clovis origins. From where did they come?

Archaeologists from 1960s to 1980s advanced theories ultimately deriving Clovis from the European Upper Paleolithic (ca. 40k to 10kya)

These are called Clovis-First models

Clovis-First Models utilized Beringia and the Ice Free Corridor for entry.

Even at height of Wisconsinan glaciation, most of Beringia not glaciated

Unglaciated Beringia supported various grasses, and other flora which in turn supported a diverse fauna, which we know existed in Alaska during Wisconsin times.

Thus, Beringia, although in a cold, hostile environment, was not a wasteland

Clovis-First Models brought Clovis through the Ice Free Corridor after 12,000 RCYBP  

Clovis First Models has two major proponents, C. Vance Haynes, Jr., and Paul S. Martin

Paul Martin - Blitzkrieg or Overkill or Wave Front hypothesis small band of hunters entered Beringia from Siberia - this about 12000 BP, and into Alaska by 11700 BP.

These were big game hunters using fluted points band of 100 hunters channeled through Ice Free corridor on way south to interior reached Edmonton, Alberta ca. 11500

This band represented a wave front, with very few people remaining behind it.

It doubled in size every 20 years.

After 17 generations, or 345 years, at a population increase of 1.4% yearly, they were able to reach Gulf of Mexico - ca. 11155 BP.

Reached SW US by 11200, accounting for Classic

Clovis front reached Panama at 10930 BPand reached Tierra del Fuego at 10500 BP, or 1000 years after leaving Edmonton.

These hunters decimated 33 Pleistocene genera in North America, or about 70% of the big game animals new and innocent prey exposed to a new and thoroughly superior predator.

Thus blitzkrieg model accounts for extinction.

The problem of extinctions is actually an issue marginal to origins.

Suffice it to say that many archaeologists and most paleontologists never accepted Martin's overkill hypothesis.

They thought environmental change was the culprit (including diseases).

This is the prevailing viewpoint today, and certainly, many American Indians reject it. Deloria attacks it directly in Red Earth, White Lies, but his motivations are more political than based on scientific evidence.

To the extent humans were involved, if at all, they only administered the coup de grace.

If so, they did so on Pleistocene species that had already fallen below population size thresholds for species viability.

Clovis-First models

Vance Haynes - Haynes now believes Clovis had its origins in America, but had its antecedents in upper Paleolithic of eastern Europe and central Asia

Clovis culture came directly from Asia Clovis antecedents in European upper Paleolithic (Gravettian, Aurignacian)

These late Paleolithic mammoth hunters migrate eastward (Afontova Gora II, Malta) between 25000 - 15000 BP

Malta-Afontova descendants entered Beringia ca. 20000-15000 BP

They brought bifaces, blades, cylindrical bone points, ivory points, etc.

They were cold-adapted .

Beringia reaches maximum extent ca. 20000-15000 BP

By 15000 BP inundation of Bering St. underway as ice melts.

By 14000 BP Alaska separated from NE Asia

By 13500 mammoths extinct in Alaska.

Ice Free corridor was open and hospitable - people pass to interior easily in order to hunt megafauna where they are not yet extinct

Mammoth were available elsewhere to about 11000 BP by 11500, and the distinctive Clovis point developed.

Then with extinction of megafauna, varying regional developments occurred thereafter.

This view differs from Martin insofar as Haynes lacks wave front.

In addition to the advance, Clovis people fan out and fill the continent.  

Martin and Haynes theorized at a time when good candidates for pre-Clovis occupations in the Americas did not exist.

That being the case, the problem of origins centered on the nature of Clovis culture.

It seemed to appear suddenly in the continental interior as a sophisticated, full-blown culture.

There were no evolutionary antecedents in the New World archaeological record

Upper Paleolithic parallels therefore led to Martin's and Haynes's theories Old World Upper Paleolithic parallels (bone/ivory foreshafts, blade technology, shaft wrenches (baton de commandements in Europe), semifabricates, ivory cylinders, bone flake technology, megafauna hunting)

Even as Martin and Haynes theorized, critics pointed out what they saw as problems.

  1. Ice Free Corridor - critics said at 11.7k RCYBP would have inhospitable to man and beast alike. It was a virtual wind tunnel and  an unlikely migration route. In any case, no sites of that age
  2. Asia/Siberia - critics said the fluted point tradition was absent which is why Haynes modified his ideas to reflect a NA origin for fluting
  3. Archaeological record - critics said we should find oldest PaleoIndian cultures in Alaska (eastern Beringia). But they saw nothing in Alaska earlier than Plains Clovis
  4. Pre-Clovis sites - critics touted some New World sites as evidence for pre-Clovis. Your text mentions those on the Plains   What do we find in Alaska? Nothing older than Plains Clovis.

Three traditions are identified, either equal in age, or slightly younger than Plains Clovis. These are:

a) fluted - mostly surface finds, so undated

Putu site fluted point once thought to be 11.47k +/- 500 RCYBP but it is now known that date is on a humic layer unassociated with the assemblage, which therefore remains undated (Arctic Anthropology 32(1):31-50. 1995)

Blood residue analysis on 15 Northern PaleoIndian fluted points suggests hunting mammoth, bison, sheep, bear, musk ox, caribou

b) unfluted lanceolate - Mesa, Bedwell and Hilltop sites.

Essentially lacks blades.

At Mesa, a bifacial flake industry (maybe one blade fragment), including lanceolate points.

Mesa dates on 13 hearths range 11.7k to 9.7k RCYBP  

Nenana roughly same age as Plains Clovis, but technologically is not a good ancestor.

American Paleoarctic is too young, and in any case is technologically dissimilar.

Fluted Northern PaleoIndian could be either ancestral to or descended from Plains Clovis.

Until Northern fluted dating is resolved, we won't know.

E. James Dixon thinks fluted Northern PaleoIndian is a Clovis descendant. He says:

1) most Northern fluted more like Folsom.

2) Ice-Free corridor not open early enough to be ancestral.

3) Temporal cline in well-dated fluted point sites seems to be from south (older) to north (younger. e.g., Charlie Lake in northern BC)

Unfluted Northern PaleoIndian could be old enough, although most experts see it as same age.

If it is ancestral to Plains Clovis, fluting developed in the south (perhaps spreading back north, depending on Northern fluted age)    

Uptar site (Science [1996] 273:634-636) - until recently, fluting technology had not been found in Asia.

But now (1996) there is one specimen, from Uptar site, NE Siberia, some 1200 miles from the Bering Strait. fluted point (One side only, fluted nearly entire length of 4.5 cm.). Flute would have carried to tip if not for hinge fracture. More like Folsom than Clovis)

It is from a cultural layer below tephra dated to 8260 +/-330 (on charcoal in tephra).

Assemblage includes debitage, 30 bifaces on flakes, 6 lanceolate points, 4 cores, 7 worked flakes, 10 blades, 2 microblades.

Investigators endorse conservative date >8300 RCYBP.

Without direct dating of assemblage, Uptar could be older than Clovis, or could be younger, indicating migration out of New World, or diffusion of fluting into Asia.

For the most part, critics did not offer explanations for when and how pre-Clovis people got here.

That changed with Knut Fladmark's argument for a coastal entry route.

In 1979 he argued that coastline (during Duvanny Yar and Birch intervals) consisted of a series of refugia.

Entrants could have refugium hopped, maybe using watercraft.

As new evidence for pre-Clovis sites surfaced, the coastal hypothesis gathered steam.

Today there is a small but growing consensus that some early migrants were marine adapted.

They entered Beringia, and followed the coast into North America. reaching Panama, they went two ways.

1) they crossed over to the Atlantic side, and then moved north up the Atlantic coast, and

2) they continued down the South American Pacific coast.

These coasts, of course, were further out on the continental shelf during the Late Wisconsinan, some a little ways, others over a 100 miles.

Since these early migrants were marine adapted, they seldom if ever ventured inland.

Instead, they colonized coastal areas.

Most early sites were then inundated as glacial meltwater raised sea levels.

Only later did groups ancestral to the original migrants move inland.

It is worth noting that coastal hypothesis has spurred recent underwater archaeological research on British Columbia continental shelf.

Results are few, but Daryl Fedje (Parks Canada) found a biface 50 meters deep a half mile off BC coast.

Artifact came from a plateau dated geologically to 10.2k calendar years BP

Also, Tim Heaton's skeleton in On-Your-Knees Cave, Prince of Wales Island.

One bone date, 9880 +/-50. Dietary analysis confirms a marine diet, indicating he was a member of a coastal adapted population

Neither of these are Clovis age, but do show submerged coast occupation, and/or early water travel.  

When did this pre-Clovis entry (or entries) happen?

The new theorists are not in agreement.  

Some claim more than 30kya BP. e.g., Neide Guidon's Pedra Furada in Brazil at 32k RCYBP

Another claim is made for Meadowcroft Rockshelter in SW Pennsylvania.

James Adavasio claims Stratum IIa dates to about 17k RCYBP there are other similar claims.

Most pre-Clovis proponents, however, seem to adopt a conservative approach, trying not to push the pre-Clovis envelope too far or  too fast.

Conservative claims include several Florida sites, where a handful of C14 dates exceed 12k RCYBP.

Gaining adherents is Monte Verde  

Monte Verde - southern Chile close to present coastline. ca. 12.5k RCYBP.

An odd mix of wood, stone artifacts at an alleged permanent village  

Pre-Clovis proponents also point to a growing body of evidence for Clovis contemporaries.

Evidence comes from diverse areas in the New World, especially South America

1. Pedra Pintada Cave - said to be a Plains Clovis contemporary from Brazilian Amazon region.

The cave has rock art.

There are two PaleoIndian strata (there are also later components).

From these two strata, 56 carbonized plant dates (49 AMS, 7 conv) range from 11.2k to 10.0k RCYBP (one sigma). 4 bifacial points, 2 bifacial preforms, one flake biface, one retouched blade, 2 plaques, 14 unifacial blades and flakes, >30,000 flakes. 100s of red pigment lumps, floral/faunal remains show tropical forest and floodplain foraging.

PaleoIndian cultural remains are named Monte Allegro Culture (Science 272:373-384: 1996)

2. Quebrada Jaquay - said to be a Plains Clovis contemparary on modern coast, southern Peru.

Faunal remains indicate marine adaptation.

13 charcoal dates show 11.1k +/-260 to 9850 +/-150 RCYBP range for PaleoIndian (there are two later components).

Debitage and bifaces, but no proj pts (Science 281:1830-1832. 1998)

3. Quebrada Tacahuay - slightly later than Plains Clovis.

On modern coast, southern Peru.

Faunal remains indicate marine adaptation.

Only 3 unifacial tools and 17 flakes.

Two hearth charcoal dates - 10.77k +/-150, 10.75k +/-80 RCYBP, one non-hearth charcoal at 10.53k +/-140 (also later dated components) (Science 281:1833-1835. 1998)  

At Jaquay and Tacahuay, sea bed slopes rapidly from coast. Late Pleistocene coast would have been very close  

4) Goshen Complex - first identified at Hell Gap site, SE Wyoming (near Torrington). best defined at Mill Iron site, SE Montana (Carter County, about a mile from South Dakota border)

Goshen projectile points - lanceolate, transverse flaked, slightly concave base, uneared and eared, with no fluting, but some basal thinning.

Somewhat Clovis-like but without flutes.  

Relationship with Clovis is not understood, but Goshen consistently occurs below Folsom deposits  

Mill Iron site consists of a camp/processing area and bone bed bone bed - MNI 30 bison only.

But there are also two mammoth bones, one mammoth rib section as well as the possible end of a spear main shaft.

Tooth eruption studies suggest animals killed late fall or early winter.

Camp/processing area accelerator dates 11340/120, 11010/140, 11320/130, 10760/130, 11360/130 BP average 11158 + 130 BP  

Bone Bed accelerator dates 10990/170, 11560/920, 11570/170, 10770/85 BP, average 11223 + 336 BP  

Mill Iron overall C14 average - 11191 + 233 BP

Three of the oldest dates listed above are from charcoal next to a surface hearth.

Younger ones are from charcoal also, but may be from post-occupational burning

If older dates are correct, Mill Iron is probably contemporary with Plains Clovis.

If younger dates are correct, then it is more likely contemporary with Folsom (but note dates on Clovis/Folsom boundary)

Goshen proj pts also very similar to Plainview, found on Southern Plains. Plainview where assemblages date to ca. 10k RCYBP.

This is shortly after Folsom, and 1000 years later than Goshen.

George Frison cannot see how Goshen style and technology survived for 1ky with Folsom in between (The Mill Iron Site:66)  

In one pre-Clovis theory version, Plains Clovis is accounted for by treating it as one of various PaleoIndian descendant groups that ended up inland.

There are two variations to this theory

1. some elements of Clovis material culture suggest a marine adaptation - ivory foreshafts in particular.

So Plains Clovis is seen as a descendant of original marine adapted migrants, perhaps from Pacific coast. so far there is no evidence in support

2. Some argue that PaleoIndian in southeastern US is older than Plains Clovis.

Supporting evidence includes:

a) dated sites without fluted points,

b) a dated site with fluted points, and

c) fluted point quantities  

Dated Sites Without Fluted Points:

a) Page-Ladson site (FL panhandle) - five carbon dates bracket 12.5k to 12.0k RCYBP. dated level had mastadon tusk said to exhibit cut marks  

b) Little Salt Springs (west FL) - giant tortoise impaled with a wooden spear. association dated to 12.03k RCYBP. this a submerged site

c) Cactus Hill site (southern VA. 45 miles south of Richmond) - assemblage containing bladlets, conical cores, pentagonal bifaces. Assemblage appears to be stratified below a Clovis horizon.

A "hearth associated with Clovis artifacts" dated 10920+240 RCYBP. below that, assemblage of bladelets, conical cores, pentagonal bifaces associated with date of 15070+70 from "scattered charcoal" said to be a hearth, and date of 16670+730 on "fine carbon particles" (AmAnt 64:109. MamTrump 11(4) 1996. 13(3) 1998)

d) Big Pine Tree site (SC) - not dated as of 1996. part of the Allendale chert quarries. Scrapers, gravers on flakes, prismatic blades and cores, and microblades, all associated with fluted bifaces/pre-forms in an early Clovis assemblage (AmAnt 64:109. MamTrump 11(1)1996)  

Dated Site With Fluted Points

There are many fluted varieties throughout the SE (and eastern US).

Most are thought to date to Folsom times and after (e.g., Dalton, Simpson, Clovis Variant, Cumberland).

Others, though undated, are assigned to the Southeast's Early PaleoIndian Period - from 12.5k to 10.8 RCYBP.

These however are undated radiometrically. They are tenuously assigned on technological attributes similar to Plains Clovis but, Johnson site (TN) yielded fluted points with hearth dates of 12.66k +/-970, 11.98k +/-110, 11.7k +/-980.

Large sigmas would allow site to date before, during or after Plains Clovis, so not too helpful  

Fluted Point Quantities

Fluted points in SE outnumber by 1000s fluted specimens from the west.

The (dubious) idea is that quantity equates with temporal priority (The PaleoIndian and Early Archaic Southeast:30)  

It is interesting to note that (undated) ivory foreshafts also occur in Florida.  

On these bases, a few argue that fluting originated in SE and spread to Plains Clovis (migration or diffusion not clear).

That, of course, would overturn Clovis First models.

The Coastal model is attractive to SE origins advocates because it allows early migrants to descend the Pacific coast, cross to the Atlantic at Panama, and move up the Atlantic coast into the SE.

A Late Pleistocene human/mammoth association in SE US appears certain.

However, a SE US origin for Clovis is not a widely accepted idea for several reasons:

  1. Human associations at the FL sites are not clear.
  2. Cactus Hill pre-Clovis stratigraphy and origins of charcoal are not clear and artifacts are very crude.  
  3. Johnson site sigmas are large. They could put site in the post-Clovis period .
  4. Arguments made on quantity are dubious for assuming pre-Clovis.
  5. If pre-Clovis people in SE US were inland by 16k to 12k RCYBP, they should have been inland along the migration route. Today's submerged coastlines would not hide these sites. Yet there is so far no convincing evidence elsewhere
  6. There are claims for a pre-Clovis presence on the Plains equal to and earlier than SE US claims. LaSena, Jensen mammoth sites (both sw NE) - on the Plains.
    Steve Holen notes that both are natural death sites, but allegedly green mammoth bone was mined for flakes.
    No stone tools or debitage. Collagen and humate dates from Jensen range 15k-14k RCYBP.
    At LaSena 16860+360 and 16730+490 RCYBP on humates, and 18000+190 RCYBP on mammoth collagen.

 

Similar situation is said to obtain at Lovewell (KS) mammoth site (ca 18k RCYBP) (MamTrump 10(1)1995. 12(3)1997)  

Your text mentions LaSena, and two other candidates for pre-Clovis based on bone modification claims - Cooperton and Burnham (both OK)

To date there are only a handful of proponents for "bone modification" sites.

This is mainly because natural agents (weathering, trampling, gnawing) can mimic bone flaking. y

Yet Lange-Ferguson says "bone modification" sites are worth investigating.

Your text mentions other controversial pre-Clovis Plains sites - Selby, Dutton, Lamb Springs (all CO), each of which has contextual problems (see text)  

In another pre-Clovis theory version, Clovis is accounted for by adapting Clovis First models to pre-Clovis ideas.

This says that Clovis left Asia, and entered Beringia after the initial pre-Clovis migration(s).

Clovis moved rapidly through the now open Ice Free Corridor.

They brought with them the Upper Paleolithic-like material culture.

They either carried fluting technology, or invented it after reaching NA

This argument is prompted by the same that prompted Clovis First models - namely the uniqueness of Clovis material culture.

When Clovis First models were first devised, there was little in the alleged pre-Clovis record that could account for Clovis evolution in N.A.

Currently there is little - the claims we just examined not withstanding - that can account for in situ Clovis evolution.

Specifically, pre-Clovis proponents argue that early migrants adapted in generalized ways, none of which can account for Clovis specialized big-game hunting technology.  

The argument states further that once established in the SW and Southern Plains, Clovis technology spread rapidly to descendants of pre-Clovis people living throughout North America at the same time as Clovis.

The argument says this spread resulted from technological advances, especially fluting, that conferred adaptive advantages superior to generalized subsistence strategies.  

Many are dissatisfied with the idea that fluting confers a functional advantage in hunting.

They point out later PaleoIndians got along quite well without it.

So fluting may be ritual in nature, associated with hunting magic, etc.)  

Either technology itself diffused, or populations using it spread.

This is a "Clovis radiation" model, an interesting twist on Clovis First radiation model.

Clovis First models (e.g., Martin, Haynes) propose rapid population growth.

Once in the interior, populations spread rapidly throughout pristine, resource-rich North America. growth and spread resulted from highly adaptive Clovis culture, including material culture

Lecture prepared by Richard A. Fox, Jr. with minor modifications and markup by Larry J. Zimmerman.