[Aztlan] Pre-Clovis sites in the Americas

[Jeff Baker]

-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org
[mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of David Hixson
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 9:39 AM
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Pre-Clovis sites in the Americas

>Estimados Listeros,


>One of the early proponents of pre-Clovis occupation
>of the Americas (I can't find the original reference
>at the moment, but I will keep looking) proposed a set
>of criteria that still carries a lot of weight today.

>One of the early proponents of pre-Clovis occupation
>of the Americas (I can't find the original reference
>at the moment, but I will keep looking) proposed a set
>of criteria that still carries a lot of weight today.

The reference Dave is referring to is an article by Vance Haynes that
appeared in the journal Science in 1969. 

Haynes, C. Vance
1969	The Earliest Americans. Science 166: 709-715.


>2) Recovery of an adequate sample of unambiguously
>cultural material.

>With regards to an "adequate sample":  A single
>artifact at any site may have migrated to its current
>position through any number of post-depositional
>processes (rodents, roots, etc.).  The term
>"unambiguously cultural" is also important, in that
>some cave "sites" have been proposed with an abundance
>of "artifacts" that have since been proven to be
>naturally fractured lithic debris.  Other "sites" have
>been proposed based upon only bone tools, which may or
>may not have naturally broken to create tool-like
>splinters, or burnt animal bones with no tools, which
>may have been burned through natural processes.

A brief follow-up on this. A single projectile point embedded in the
skeleton of an extinct animal would meet criteria 2 above (this is the
evidence that initially demonstrated that humans were present in the New
World at the end of the Pleistocene). Or finding a human skeleton in a
clear context would also meet this criteria. On the other hand, finding
100's of flake-like rocks in a debris slope does not meet criteria 2. 

Thanks,

Jeff