No evidence for ancient comet or Clovis catastrophe, archaeologists say

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No evidence for ancient comet or Clovis catastrophe, archaeologists say
September 29, 2010 No evidence for ancient comet or Clovis catastrophe, archaeologists say



Clovis spear points from the original Clovis site in New Mexico. (Photo: David Meltzer)

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research challenges the controversial theory that the impact of an ancient comet devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America.

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Writing in the October issue of Current Anthropology, archaeologists David Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, and Vance Holliday, University of Arizona, argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations.

"Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record," the researchers write.

"In so far as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist."

Comet theory devised to explain apparent disappearance

The comet theory first emerged in 2007 when a team of scientists announced evidence of a large extraterrestrial impact that occurred about 12,900 years ago.

The impact was said to have caused a sudden cooling of the North American climate, killing off mammoths and other megafauna.

It could also explain the apparent disappearance of the Clovis people, whose characteristic spear points vanish from the archaeological record shortly after the supposed impact. The findings are reported in the article "The 12.9-ka ET Impact Hypothesis and North American Paleoindians."

As evidence for the rapid Clovis depopulation, comet theorists point out that very few Clovis archaeological sites show evidence of human occupation after the Clovis.

At the few sites that do, Clovis and post-Clovis artifacts are separated by archaeologically sterile layers of sediments, indicating a time gap between the civilizations. In fact, comet theorists argue, there seems to be a dead zone in the human archaeological record in North America beginning with the comet impact and lasting about 500 years.
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[size=110pt] UA Archaeologist, Colleagues Find No Evidence of Catastrophic Impact[/size]



Naco spear point

At the center of the photo, a Clovis spear point can be seen lodged in the skeleton of a mammoth excavated by UA archaeologist Emil W. Haury at Naco, Ariz., in 1952. (Photo courtesy Arizona State Museum)
Vance T. Holliday



Vance T. Holliday
Virginia Clovis point

Example of a Clovis fluted blade. (Image courtesy of the Arizona State Museum)
Anthropology professor Vance T. Holliday and others take issue with claims that a comet strike led to the demise of Paleoindian megafauna hunters during the Pleistocene.
By Jeff Harrison, University Communications September 30, 2010

The notion of an object such as a comet or asteroid striking the Earth and wiping out entire species is compelling, and sometimes there's good evidence for it. Most scientists now agree that a very large object from space crashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico 65 million years ago, altering climate patterns sufficiently to end the age of the dinosaurs.

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The theory was backed up by supporting evidence, and while not everyone in the scientific community was on board at first, it's now generally accepted.

For about three years, a similar controversy has been brewing about the end of the Pleistocene, when ice sheets covered large parts of the planet and animal behemoths foraged the landscape. Prehistoric hunters developed sophisticated strategies and tool kits for bringing down mammoths and other megafauna.

Did a comet striking one of those ice fields in North America nearly 13,000 years ago sufficiently alter climate enough to wipe out these animals and collapse the cultures that hunted them?

A new study published in Current Anthropology argues that whether or not such an extraterrestrial event occurred, nothing in the archaeological record indicates that the Clovis hunters suddenly disappeared along with the animals.

Vance T. Holliday, a professor in the University of Arizona School of Anthropology and the department of geosciences, and David J. Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University, studied evidence from a number of archaeological sites and concluded that it was more likely that hunting populations shifted their subsistence patterns to hunting other animals.

The controversy began several years ago when scientists cited evidence of an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago somewhere around the Great Lakes caused the Younger Dryas climate changes, the extinction of several large mammal species and the collapse of the Paleoindians whose large, fluted spear points – first found near Clovis, N.M. – were likely designed for hunting very big game animals.

Supporters of the comet theory point out that few Clovis sites continued to be occupied after their inhabitants stopped making large projectile points. Those few old Clovis sites that are reoccupied by post-Clovis people also show a significant passage of time – as much as five centuries – between them.

Holliday and Meltzer, bolstered by radiocarbon dates from more than 40 sites, counter that most prehistoric sites are kill sites where game was dispatched and butchered, and not likely to be continuously occupied. Gaps across time and the disappearance of Clovis points, they said, were more likely the result of shifting settlement patterns brought about by the nature of a nomadic existence.

"Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record," Holliday writes. "Insofar as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist."
http://uanews.org/node/34499

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Example of a Clovis fluted blade. (Image courtesy of the Arizona State Museum)