III. Paleoindian Traditions

The origins of Native Americans, has been riddled with controversy from the time of first European colonization and the idea that 'America' was a 'New World'. This is based upon the fact that Europeans were not aware of the Americas in the times of classical Greek and Roman worlds.

Of course American Indian people viewed 'America' as their world with various mythical references like 'Turtle Island'.  American Indians (over 700 groups in North America) held to a variety of myths and legends about their own groups' origins. Some groups agree and some do not agree with current anthropological theory in terms of the where and how with respect to origins. We will look at the current archaeological evidence for origins and the earliest Americans.

Only in the 20th century did irrefutable evidence come to light that demonstrated the presence of people on the American continent back into the end of the last ice age with the discovery of kill sites of ancient Pleistocene mega fauna in the late 1920s-1930s. The human evidence has been sparse, but to date no human or hominid as been found any where in the Americas other than Homo sapiens sapiens; in other words only modern humans.

The basic theories for the origins of any human group needs to be addressed and this would result in the following theoretical premises:

Most textbooks, because of the lack of physical evidence of early hominids (pre H.sapiens) assume Premise #2, yet the inability to connect American Indian languages to the 'Old World' still presents a problem. The Native Americans referred to as Inuit, Yupik and Aleut are linguistically Paleo-Siberian (Eskimo-Aleut) and certainly migrated from NE Asia after the last Ice Age (~6-8,000 years ago). However, the American Indian groups are more problematic. The Athabascan or Dene groups may be linguistically linked to Altaic groups in Central Eurasia, but linguists do not all agree. All of the other American Indian groups from North America to South America have not been linked linguistically to the 'Old World'. Current archaeological theory proposes Premise #2 and postulates that H.s.s. people (called Paleoindian) came 30-10,000 years ago. From a linguistic point of view this should eventually reveal better links and recent genetic data may help in the near future with many such origin questions. Given these theories we now need to address questions of  from where, who, how and when did these migrations take place.

First it is necessary to reconstruct the earth's climate during the last 100,000-150,000 years. Geological and geographical research has shown that the planet had experienced climatic shifts in mean temperature from 20-40 degrees F. based an a relative norm in any given clime. The norm is roughly what we are in now and such warm periods referred to as interglacials. When the earth's temperature decreases we are in a glaciation or glacial advance...thus ice age. From about 1,800,000 to 10,000 years ago there were 7-10 glacial advances called the Pleistocene Epoch during the Quaternary Period. When the mean temperature drops 20 to 40 degrees F. the precipitation did not melt and was retained in the form of large continental glaciers expanding from polar caps and alpine glaciers expanding from some temperate mountain tops. Further, since the earth's water did not melt and run to the sea, the sea level lowered 75- 150 m (160-320 ft.), globally, exposing coastal and peninsular land masses. It is proposed that humans and animals occupied and /or moved over these newly exposed land masses. Also, these massive ice formations, glaciers, had considerable impact on modifying the earth's surface including the modification of  river valleys and causing the formation of huge shallow lakes every time they receded during an warm interglacial period. In North America the Great Lakes were formed by such receding continental glaciers.

The impact on humans during the past 100,000 years must have been dramatic due to the need to adapt to these land mass changes with ecological consequences through culture change and migrations. Specific effects in North America were effected by the multiple advances  and recessions of two large continental glaciers , the Cordilleran in the western Canadian shield and the Laurentide in the eastern areas. Also, a land mass became exposed in the Bering Sea that was 1200 miles wide (called Beringia). It is postulated that humans and animals traveled over this land bridge and /or along exposed coastlines. However, the small number of sites and dating problems has made it difficult to provide a large enough sample with reliable provenance. Very little land mass remains uncompromised by glaciers over the last 50,000+ years. Further, the last 20 -30 years archaeology has been plagued pedantic/overly conservative archaeologists on one hand and over zealous archaeologists with a moronic press generating premature conclusions for a story. In some cases whole careers have been ruined by those that see questioning or challenge as a personal attack. In some ways the academia wars were somewhat parallel to America's political wars. The conservative elements effectively created a pre Clovis 'wall' that rejected the existence of any sites before 12,500 years ago. In the last few years enough pre-Clovis sites have attained enough validity to open the possibility of human migration before the 12,500 years ago Clovis 'wall'. Further, some evidence has renewed theories of coastal migrations along the Pacific and Atlantic side from the north; since during the Pleistocene the central land route was been blocked by huge continental glaciers. Current archaeological theories for the how and when of origins are as follows:

These represent the how and when. The who has also become complicated with new genetic information. The linguistic and genetic evidence is pointing to at least 3-4 groups:

The physical evidence and sites are now divided into the following:

Pre-Clovis

There has always been a handful of these very early sites (<13,500), with many falling into problems with stratigraphy and interpretation of dates. In some cases the presence/evidence of human activity and even artifacts (vs. naturefacts) has been problematic. Here are some current sites that some feel still warrant pre-Clovis status.

These sites include evidence of a general hunting, fishing, and gathering (foraging) subsistence lifestyle with fire hearths, lithics (mostly small blades, flakes, some unfluted bifacials, cores), animal bone and some wood/fiber. Many of the sites occupied rock shelters, but some are in open areas near water.

Big-Game Hunting:

Clovis

Around 13, 500 years ago (11, 500 BC) a definitive emphasis of big-game hunting with kill sites and distinctive fluted projective points swept through the entire continent in a mere 500 +/- years. Whether this was a migration of new people or a revolution of technological innovation is not clear, but it appeared very rapidly throughout the continent. The emphasis of big-game hunting is a distortion due to the nature of the preservation of kill sites involving large game. The people hunted all sorts of game and did some foraging. The Clovis activities included the killing of mammoths, mastodons, bison, camels, and giant ground sloth; but also included deer, rodents and smaller game. In the big -game kill sites the major innovation involved highly specialized fluted projectile points mounted on spear throwers or atlatls. These points were 3-9 inches in length and designed to penetrate these larger Pleistocene megafauna. The atlatl gave increased leverage to launch a compound dart such that once the foreshaft went into the animal the fletched dart could be recovered and reloaded.

The Pleistocene mega fauna that existed at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch became extinct with the huge elephants first. They included the mammoth (a grazer) and the mastodon (a browser) with a variety of species throughout the continent and world.

Additional mega fauna included:

SITES: Naco, AZ; Site #1: Blackwater Draw; Murray Springs, AZ; Lehner Ranch,AZ

Folsom

By about 10, 900 BC the ancient bison became the primary game animal hunted and killed. The projectile points became smaller, but were still fluted. This big-game hunting tradition was limited to N. Mexico, the American Southwest and the Plains. In other areas the shift to exclusively smaller game and wild plant gathering (referred to as Archaic) began to take place.

Bison latifrons

Bison antiquus

SITES: Lindenmeier, CO; Hell Gap, WY; Folsom, NM

Plano

Around 8,500 BC the innovation of knapping a flute on these atlatl points disappeared and Pleistocene megafauna became extinct in most areas. Some emphasis of big-game hunting persisted on the North American Plains and bison survived and evolved into the modern form. These cultures are generally referred to as Plano with specific lithic traditions/ points called Eden, Scottsbluff, Cody, etc. The projectile points were long bifacials that were pressure flaked/knapped, but without the fluting like seen in the Clovis and Folsom bifacials. Again, in other areas the Archaic tradition replaced big-game hunting.

Bison bison

SITES: Eden, WY; Scotts Bluff, NE; Head-Smashed-In, Alberta, Canada

Archaic

From 13,500 years ago to 8,500 years ago the entire continent  became increasingly arid, humans became increasingly more efficient at hunting the big game, and populations of humans slowly increased. Actually, this is a world wide phenomenon. These factors brought about a world wide extinction of 'Ice Age' mammals and in America it is referred to as Pleistocene Extinction. The result was that humans did not become extinct, but changed their hunting and gathering (H&G) or foraging patterns to emphasize smaller game and wild plant gathering. Certain variations arose along lakes, river or sea coasts. In general these changes are referred to as the Archaic tradition and began to happen as early as 10,900 years ago and finally in the N. American Plains about 5,000 years ago. Projectile points became smaller and stemmed, but were still used on atlatl darts (we do not know when or where the bow and arrow was invented/ possibly 3- 5,000 years ago) . However, grinding implements like the mano/metate and pestle/mortar are increasingly present in the Archaic along with polished stone, bone and a greater variety tools.

For the rest of the course we will go to each of the North American culture areas and basically begin with the Archaic and follow subsequent culture changes to the time of  contact with Europeans, e.g. 9,000 to 500 years ago. In some of these culture geographic areas the Native Americans refined or modified the Archaic H&G traditions, but in some areas the people adopted some form of  CBS (Corn (maize), Beans, Squash) horticulture/agriculture traditions.

PaleoIndian Photo Gallery

Next Lecture: IV. Plains

Links:

Pleistocene

NOAA Paleoclimatology Program

Paleo-Indian Traditions

Updated 8/2009

Copyright © S. J. Crouthamel