|
2002. Random House, Inc., New York and Toronto, Canada. 329 pp.with 69 b/w
photos, 14 line drawings, 3 maps and tables. Hardcover: ISBN 0-375-50552-0
($26.95 U.S., $39.95 Canada). Reviewed by George Wisner
This is a tale of revolution - the turbulent upheaval in archaeological thought
concerning attempts to answer a deceptively simple question: Who were the
First Americans? At issue is the overthrow of a long accepted notion that
a band of Ice Age hunters armed with specialized stone spear points called
“Clovis points” walked across the frozen Bering Straight some 12,00
years ago to claim the title of the First Americans. Putting the debate into
an easily readable and highly informative package, the book ranges from
presentation of early European fantasies about native American origins to
modern archaeological methods and practices. Along the way, it also provides
an insider's view of the difficulties in debunking scientific dogma, showing
that such challenges often are a noisy and messy business. Readers also get
a photographic glimpse - literally and figuratively - at the cast of characters
involved in what may be one of archaeology’s most fractious riddles.
James M. Adovasio
founded and directs the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute at Mercyhurst
College in Erie, Pa., and is best known for his work at the Paleoindian site
of Meadowcroft Rockshelter in southwestern Pennsylvania (figs.1,2). Initial
radiocarbon dates from that site suggested people had stone hearths there
in 13,000 BC - 4,000 years “before any human being was supposed to have
set foot in this hemisphere.” Exceedingly controversial, those dates
put Adovasio at the churning center of a three-decades-old academic firestorm.
His candid discussion of this infighting dispels any notion that scientists
are necessarily a congenial  lot conducting gentlemanly discussions around
a toasty fire. As Adovasio observes: “The work of lifetimes has been
put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astonishing amount of silliness
and even profound stupidity has been taken as serious thought, and always
lurking in the background of all the argumentation and gnashing of tenants
has been the question of whether the field of archaeology can ever be pursued
as a science.”
Fig.1: Location of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and other sites with Terminal
Pleistocene organic samples near edge of Wisconsin Glacier (Adovasio
2002).
The statement applies well to his own career as one in a long line of
archaeologists to tilt at the so-called “Clovis bar.” This barrier
arose not long after Edgar Billings Howard found the first Clovis points
in 1937 associated with mammoth remains at Blackwater Draw near Clovis, New
Mexico, tools subsequently determined to be about 12,000 years old. The large,
finely crafted, points contained long grooves or “flutes” on their
bases - a unique type of projectile point not previously found anywhere.
(Folsom points - smaller, more finely crafted and also containing flutes
- were found in 1908 near Folsom, New Mexico, but were later found to be
younger than Clovis points). For years, archaeologists found no definitive
evidence putting people in the America's before the so-called “Clovis
man”. Decades of researchers staked their professional reputations on
the Clovis-first paradigm. They refused at times, Adovasio suggests, to let
facts interfere with a good story. But then, who could resist an epic tale
of questing hunters with a “pioneering spirit writ large” who
challenged the harshest of elements with “speed, daring and
inventiveness” to quickly populate a hemisphere. Over the years,
hundreds of suspected pre-Clovis sites have failed to pass academic muster
and helped form a seemingly impenetrable wall against any new theory suggesting
people got here earlier or via any route but the Bering Straight march across
what became known as Beringia. (For an in-depth study of research on the
prehistory and palaeoecology of Beringia, consult American Beginnings. An
anthology of research papers edited by Frederick Hadleigh West, it was published
in 1996 by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.)
But, as Adovasio makes clear, the debate about the First Americans really
began long before Clovis points surfaced. Stereotypes portraying them as
either “treacherous murdering savages” or the “noble savage”
emerged throughout the years from explorations that began in the early sixteenth
century. These images stuck - despite the fact that early explorers such
as Cortez in 1519-20 had encountered the Aztec empire with the vast city
of Tenochtitlan rivaling in grandeur and beauty anything in Europe. More
questions and myths surfaced as North American settlers investigated their
landscape and its indigenous cultures. Giant earthworks dotting the continent
became associated with a culture of “mound builders,” Adovasio
notes. He explores the lively debate associated with the mounds and the possible
cultures who built them were sometimes suspected of being a “higher
race,” a “lost race,” or even a cast-out population of Jews.
With the ease of an accomplished storyteller, Adovasio recounts the efforts
of pioneering archaeologists, such as Thomas Jefferson. to unravel their
mysteries when the discipline was ill-equipped to do so in a world shackled
by biblical dogma stating the earth and everything in it was only 6,000 years
old.
With an introductory yet highly detailed and informative test-book-like
presentation of geology and glaciology, Adovasio explores the natural science
base from which later researchers began penetrating the biblical time wall.
Heated academic debate and cries of blasphemy from a clergy feeling threatened
by the fledgling sciences were predictable. The discussion also covers Ice
Age weather and ecosystems containing varieties of flora and megafauna such
as mammoths. Although extinct, the
remains of Ice Age plants and animals were frequently seen in the fossil
record. Adovasio explores competing theories on the Ice Age extinctions of
many of these mammals. The extinctions occurred rapidly between 11,000 and
9,500 years ago. Researchers such as Paul Martin (in 1967) pointed to the
Clovis culture - and its blitzkrieg of a few, but well-armed superpredators
into the Americas - as the culprit in what became highly controversial theory
known as Pleistocene Overkill. Fitting well with Clovis-First evidence, the
hotly debated theory ultimately lost credibility against other evidence
suggesting Martin’s explanation was too simplistic. Competing theories
put factors such as climate change and disease into what is now considered
to be a complex equation. Adovasio notes that rabid “right wingers”
and “sportsmen groups” embraced Martin’s theory. Native Americans,
however, branded it a “politically motivated assault” on their
people. But, as scientific knowledge of Ice Age conditions grew, so did the
list of pre-Clovis supporters who suspected that earlier entry should not
be ruled out.
Fig.2: Cartoon on the "Clovis-first" controversy (Adovasio
2002).
Proponents of pre-Clovis entry to the Americas included legendary names such
as archaeologist and former Golden Gloves champion Richard Stockton "Scotty”
MacNeish and Louis Leakey, the patriarch of human evolution research. Both
men thought they had found human-made tools pointing to very early human
entry to the Americas (35,000 years ago for MacNeish at Pendeho Cave in New
Mexico, and up to 100,000 years ago for Leakey at Calico Hills, Calif.).
Both sites failed close academic scrutiny, a fate shared by many suspected
pre-Clovis sites as the search intensified during the twentieth century. Larger-than-life researchers such as Lewis Binford, Charles R. Harrington,
and Frank Hibben were drawn into the fray. One player rose to became a key
critic in the pre-Clovis debate - and a significant thorn in the side of
Adovasio and other early-man site researchers relying on radiocarbon dating
to establish the age of their sites. C. Vance Haynes is a geologist interested
in what now is known as geoarchaeology, Adovasio notes. While revisiting
a site for the Nevada State Museum at Tule Springs in 1962-63, Haynes initially
accepted radiocarbon dates produced by earlier research showing the site
was occupied some 25,000 years ago. Further research established the dates
came not from firepit charcoal as suspected, but from ancient carbonized
plant material (lignite) that had mimicked the appearance of fire pits -
producing erroneous readings and scuttling dating accuracy. Contamination
of radiocarbon samples and misinterpretation of the age of dates derived
from such samples became points Haynes has raised in repeated efforts to
discredit challenges to the Clovis bar - a bar largely balanced on one class
of artifact, Clovis-style stone tool technology, and accepted radiocarbon
dates. Beginning in 1973, Adovasio started placing new artifacts on the testing
floor from his Meadowcroft Rockshelter research. Finds included bones, shell,
wood, basketry, cordage and unique stone tools (fig.3) not seen before.
Radiocarbon dates put humans there far too early for critics, such as Haynes,
to accept. The carbon samples must be contaminated, he maintained - clouding
the site’s pre-Clovis validity for decades. Meadowcroft has produced
an academic row Adovasio asserts is grounded in petty politics and infighting
by people with too much invested in Clovis-First research to accept any new
story despite its supporting scientific evidence. He spends considerable
book space defending Meadowcroft, the meticulous quality of his work there,
and in lambasting his critics, Haynes among them. The critics, he said, continued
perpetuating their “archaeological farce” that is “either
tragic or comic, but it has never been science"with its inherent give and
take through testing of hypothetical explanations against reality and a
continuing flow of new information. Science, Adovasio asserts early in the
book, “Is less a matter of creating facts than a process for reducing
ignorance, but some people always prefer the bliss of ignorance.” His
Meadowcroft example well illustrates the severity and scope of aca demic
discourse, while providing a detailed view of research methodology, and the problems inherent in challenging firmly held scientific dogma. While considerable
debate has focused on North America, pre-Clovis research does not stop there.
Fig.3: Paleoindian artifacts from Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Adovasio
2002). From Meadowcroft,
Adovasio discusses South American pre-Clovis research, exploring the differences
in flora, fauna and Ice Age glacial impact that would have produced a much
different settlement scenario than in North America. Here the cast of characters
include Alan Bryan and Ruth Gruhn from the University of Calgary in Canada,
who remain staunch pre-Clovis advocates despite a long string of failed pre-Clovis sites they dug or investigated from Baja Mexico to the tip of South America. And his description of contested sites there includes Taima Taima in Venezuela and Pedra Furada rockshelter in Brazil where unique stone
tools were found. The South American trail eventually leads to Monte Verde,
a complex 14,500 year old site in south-central Chile that has all but buried
the Clovis First paradigm.
Adovasio details the range of meticulous site research at Monte Verde conducted
by Archaeologist and Principal Investigator Tom D. Dillehay, and a
multi-disciplinary team of sixty specialists. With thoughtful insight, Adovasio
provides an abbreviated overview of the thousands of artifacts within that
site. Artifacts included wood, bone, basketry, cordage and a collection of
stone tools- part of an exhaustive study detailed in millions of words contained
in pounds of reports written over a period of 15 years. Taken overall, Adovasio
asserts, the site gives a picture of Ice Age life far more varied than the
gathering of super-hunters armed with large spear points generally presented
as the family portrait for Clovis man. He also details the fractious debate
over acceptance of the site - a face-off culminating in 1997 with the infamous
“Showdown at La Caverna,” a saloon near Monte Verde. Something
less than genteel, this verbal shoot with Adovasio at its core produced some
unique theatrics, more than a few bruised egos and damaged friendships. A
panel of researchers embroiled in the fight, including Haynes, finally accepted
the site’s validity and age. But the rancor and in-fighting continued
well into 1999 when Dillehay and Adovasio again blasted Haynes and the rest
of their critics on the floor of the Clovis and Beyond conference in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. During that conference, pre-Clovis voices pronounced the
Clovis First movement officially dead and welcomed the opening of more fertile
research possibilities. (For further reading see The Settlement of the
Americas: A New Prehistory, by Tom D. Dillehay. New York, Basic Books,
2000).
The quest to determine who the First Americans were and how and when they
came here continues, Adovasio assures us, with possible new pre-Clovis sites
popping up across the land (Cactus Hill and Saltville in Virginia, Topper
in South Carolina, the Gault
Site in central Texas). There is also lots of new theories about the
peopling of the Americas that need to be explored. These include the possibility
that people migrated here by boat down the north Pacific Ocean from Asia
or across the Atlantic from Europe. In addition to more reliance on basic
hard science such as geology, scientific subfields such as glacial geology,
linguistics, molecular biology, soils analysis, climatology and palynology
will provide key evidence supporting future research, Adovasio suggests.
Researchers are using much of this science while unearthing the new
pre-Clovis-age sites across the United States, research Adovasio cheers and
briefly explores. Reliance on a broader range of artifacts, including basketry
and other woven goods, may wind up telling us more about the human behavior
and social organization than we realize, asserts Adovasio, a specialist in
analyzing these so-called “soft” goods. The ability to use plant
fibers to make such goods, he states, may have been “one of the first
major steps in the development of modern humanity as we know it.”
So, when did the First Americans get here? The jury’s still out on that
question. But from all the available evidence collected on the subject to
date, Adovasio tells us, it appears “more than one group of people
showed up here a long time ago and populated the entire hemisphere.”
The Clovis people may have only been one such group. Some might see
Adovasio’s presentation of continued and sometimes caustic complaints
about pre-Clovis critics in general, and Meadowcroft critics in particular,
as merely a convenient crying towel distraction. Others might view it as
opening the window on the reality of serious scientific debate. Judge for
yourself while reading this frank, detailed and wide-ranging exploration
into the scientific swamp. Adovasio’s use of mug-shot photos, despite
their postage stamp size in some cases, provides a useful and enlightening
view of the players who move across the archaeological stage. Overall, the
book is undeniably a valuable contribution to the literature on one of
archaeology’s landmark subjects.
References:
Dillehay, Tom D. 2000. The Settlement of the
Americas: A New Prehistory. New York, Basic Books.
This article appears in Vol.3 No.4 of Athena
Review.
.
|
|