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New findings posit fate of ancient Clovis people

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« on: October 12, 2010, 12:19:42 am »

New findings posit fate of ancient Clovis people

 

New findings posit fate of ancient Clovis people

Tom Beal Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Sunday, October 10, 2010 12:00 am | Comments

Most geologists and archaeologists now believe an asteroid caused the climate change that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Debate rages, however, about whether a comet abruptly killed the mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and other large animals - "megafauna" - that roamed North America much more recently.

One thing is clear, say two prominent archaeologists: The mammoth hunters known as the Clovis people weren't wiped out along with the giant mammals they hunted in a fiery comet crash 12,900 years ago.

When the mammoths disappeared, for whatever reason, the Clovis hunters found other prey, which led to adaptation of their spear tips, say Vance T. Holliday, a professor in the University of Arizona's anthropology and geosciences departments; and David J. Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University.

In a paper published in Current Anthropology, they argue that Clovis populations did not disappear at the beginning of a mini ice age known as the Younger Dryas Period.

The paper, said UA's Holliday, was written in response to a 2007 study that proposed an extraterrestrial cause for abrupt climate change and the extinction of megafauna.

Holliday and Meltzer take issue with the earlier paper's contention that the Clovis population dramatically shrank or disappeared in a "catastrophic demographic collapse."

It doesn't seek to prove or disprove the comet hypothesis. That's a question to be answered with geological research, not anthropology, said Holliday, though he's not fond of the theory. "There are a lot of people who say the evidence is quite flimsy. There are very few archaeologists who embrace it."

Unlike the asteroid, whose 110-mile-diameter impact crater has been identified in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the theoretical comet left no scar.

That's because it hit a glacier field two miles deep, said Richard B. Firestone, lead author of the 2007 report. Firestone believes the impact crater created one of the Great Lakes.

The comet catastrophe was hypothesized from other physical evidence, including a "black mat" of burned material laid down at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, beneath which lay all of the large Clovis spear points associated with mammoth hunting.

Those large spear points did disappear, said Holliday, but the "paleo-Indians" we call Clovis did not.

They moved and developed a new tool kit to hunt smaller animals as the large prey disappeared, something Holliday believes happened over time, not all at once.

The lack of later artifacts at excavated Clovis sites, such as those found in the San Pedro River Valley in Southern Arizona, is no evidence of extinction, said Holliday.

These areas were not inhabited, but were "kill sites" or campsites for groups of nomadic hunters, he said.

"There weren't that many people, and they were mobile. There are some campsites, but they're few and far between, and most are related to kill sites."

Meanwhile, "The environment was changing. Most of the big animals went away - mammoth, mastodon, horse, camel. There is a huge debate as to why, nevertheless, they did go away. The Clovis people evolved into what came next to deal with the environmental conditions, something as simple as dealing with new game sources. There is a change in their tool kit."

Nobody has ever uncovered a human Clovis fossil. Their presence and the description of them as mobile hunters come from discoveries of artifacts from multiple camps and kill sites, including famous ones in Arizona such as Naco, the first to turn up spear points embedded in the bones of a mammoth carcass.

Holliday and Meltzer, both of whom have studied Clovis culture for decades, base their rebuttal of the earlier report on a review of archaeological literature, which, they say, provides plenty of evidence for the continuous existence of the earliest known inhabitants of North America.

Their paper generated comment from 17 archaeologists and related scientists, most of whom questioned the comet theory.

The authors conclude, in their reply to the comments:

"And as to whether there was a Younger Dryas-age ET impact, like many (nearly all) of our commentators, we are dubious. However, we will leave that empirical determination to the geologists. We suspect their verdict will be in soon, for it appears the failure of this hypothesis is near."

Firestone, a nuclear chemist, is not so sure about that. He said he is certain of his theory as debate "rages on."

"A comet hit the Earth at that time," he said. "You can argue about whether that was the final straw, the whole shebang or whatever. We have evidence for the comet."

Contact reporter Tom Beal at tbeal@azstarnet.com or 573-4158.

Copyright 2010 Arizona Daily Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/college/article_491240dc-27b7-568d-a8c0-88e27800d770.html
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