Findings in Oregon Caves Shed New Light on Early Americans

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Public release date: 12-Jul-2012
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Contact: Professor Eske Willerslev
ewillerslev@gmail.com
45-28-75-13-09
University of Copenhagen
The Clovis First Theory is put to rest at Paisley Caves

Who were the first humans to enter the North American continent? Were they humans who founded what is known as the Clovis culture over 13,000 years ago? Or did other, totally unrelated peoples precede the Clovis immigrants? This issue has been intensely, if not bitterly debated for decades. The Clovis culture has been seen as the cradle of North American indigenous culture. Now new international research shows that people of another culture and technology were present concurrently or even previous to those of Clovis. Scientists have added a new and dramatic chapter to the history of the peopling of the Americas striking a deadly blow to the "Clovis First" theory that has dominated pre-historic American archaeology for so long. The sensational results are published in the international journal Science.

Evidence that a non-Clovis culture was present in North America at least as early as Clovis people themselves and likely before is presented by an international team of researchers from the USA, the UK, and Denmark.

The team

Archeological excavations at the Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon were led by Dr. Dennis Jenkins from the University of Oregon.

Dr. Loren Davis of Oregon State University mapped the stratigraphy and studied the site formation processes.

Dr. Paula Campos and Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, profiled the many DNA finds from the caves.

Dr. Thomas Stafford, Jr., also from Centre of GeoGenetics, was in charge of the radiocarbon geochronology and biogeochemistry.

The evidence

The evidence for a pre-13,000 year old non-Clovis culture in North America includes obsidian and chert artifacts known as Western Stemmed projectile points, and DNA-profiling of dried human excrement — more accurately known as coprolites. Both obsidian projectile points and coprolites were excavated from sediments in the Paisley Caves.

Previous investigations found that human coprolites in the caves predated the Clovis culture by over 1,000 years; however, critics questioned the interpretations by saying that the cave strata had not been sufficiently examined and that no Clovis-age stone tools had been found with the coprolites.

Critics also questioned whether or not younger DNA could have been washed down through the cave's sediments, thereby contaminating non-human coprolites with more recent human DNA. If true, evidence for pre-Clovis human presence would have been bogus.

The new study refutes every one of the critics' arguments and uses overwhelming archaeological, stratigraphic, DNA and radiocarbon evidence to conclusively state that humans — and ones totally unrelated to Clovis peoples — were present at Paisley Caves over a millennium before Clovis.

Rocking the theoretical boat

The new results severely contrast with the "Clovis First" theory for early peopling of the Americas. The Clovis First hypothesis states that no humans existed in the Americas prior to Clovis, which dates from 13,000 years ago, and that the distinct Clovis lithic technology is the mother technology of all other stone artifact types later occurring in the New World.

This theory has been predominant since the first evidence of human presence in America was found in 1932 at the Clovis type locality in Blackwater Draw, just outside the village of Clovis in New Mexico. But now this praised and respected foundation of American prehistory has been overthrown.

Dr. Jenkins says of the paradigm shifting results:

"One of the central questions has been whether the technological evolution of hunting tools such as dart and spearheads can be attributed solely to the Clovis culture and the knowledge that these people brought from the Old World. During our excavations in the Paisley Caves we've found a completely different type of dart points. But these new points are of a completely different construction from those found in the Clovis culture. As our radiocarbon dating shows, the new finds are as old, or possibly older than the Clovis finds, which proves that the Clovis culture cannot have been the 'Mother technology' for all other technologies in America. Our results show that America was colonized by multiple cultures at the same time. And some perhaps even earlier than Clovis."

Human excreta rewrite history

It's not the first time that the partners Dr. Jenkins from the US and Professor Willerslev from Denmark rewrite American prehistory.

In 2008, the two researchers presented a DNA-profiling's and radiocarbon dating of coprolites moving the first human settlements in North America back in time by one thousand years, from 13,000 to 14,340 years ago. As if that was not enough, the team showed through DNA analysis of ancient human excrement that these people originated in Asia and were the probable predecessors of modern indigenous Americans.

With the new results the international team has added an important piece to the puzzle of who peopled the Americas — the final continent on Earth to be colonized by humans.

Professor Willerslev says of the new results:

"Our investigations constitute the final blow to the Clovis First theory. Culturally, biologically and chronologically the theory is no longer viable. The dissimilar stone artefacts, as well as the DNA-profiling of the human excrement, show that humans were present before Clovis and that another culture in North America was at least as old as the Clovis Culture itself. Or to put it differently: Either America was populated several thousand years before Clovis by people who created 'mother' technologies to the two very different styles of Clovis tools and Western Stemmed Tradition tools. Or else there must have been two earlier migrations into North America of which one must have predated the Clovis immigration by at least one thousand years. Both assumptions would explain our findings, but trying to distinguish which is more likely is very premature."

Dr Paula Campos, a former postdoc at Willerslev's lab in Copenhagen, now at Science Museum, University of Coimbra, Portugal, elaborates the point:

"When we published the first DNA results from the Paisley Caves four years ago it caused an outcry. Many archaeologists felt that our results must be wrong. They considered it an established fact that Clovis were the first Americans. People would come up with any number of alternative explanations to our data in order to repudiate our interpretation. Today we demonstrate that our conclusions were right."

Thomas Stafford, also of the Centre for GeoGenetics in Copenhagen, and Loren Davies of Oregon State University agree:

"Critics said that the stratigraphy in the Paisley Caves is diffuse and chaotic and that this explains the finding of human coprolites older that Clovis. This couldn't be more wrong. The stratigraphy is well developed, clear and ordered correctly top to bottom."

Tom Stafford elaborates:

"No other archaeological site in the US has been as thoroughly and exhaustively dated as the Paisley Caves. We've completed more than 141 new radiocarbon measurements on materials ranging from coprolites to wood and plant artefacts, fossil plants and mummified animals, to unique, water soluble chemical fractions from sediments and the coprolites themselves. We have used 14C dating to physically and temporally dissect the Paisley Caves strata at the millimetre l level. At present, we see no evidence that geologically younger, water-borne molecules — DNA in particular — have moved downward and contaminated deeper, older coprolites. The aDNA and 14C data are iterative and corroborate each other. Our conclusion is that humans were present in North America at least one thousand years before Clovis and that these earlier peoples probably had no technological or genetic similarity to the iconic Clovis Culture. The Clovis First debate has ended. The theory is now dead and buried."
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Additional information:

Dennis Jenkins , email: djenkins@uoregon.edu, phone +1 541 3463026

Eske Willerslev, email: ewillerslev@gmail.com, phone +45 28751309

Loren Davis email: loren.davis@oregonstate.edu, phone +1 541 6024142

Tom Stafford email: TWSTAFFORD@stafford-research.com, phone: +1-720-982-9147

Paula Campos email: campos.f.paula@gmail.com, phone : +351 239840288

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/uoc-tcf071112.php

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Findings in Oregon Caves Shed New Light on Early Americans

Thu, Jul 12, 2012



Dating of fossil remains and DNA testing reveals new information about early Native Americans who occupied the Paisley Caves.
Findings in Oregon Caves Shed New Light on Early Americans

Conducting archaeological research in Oregon's Paisley Caves, a team of research scientists led by Dennis L. Jenkins of the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History has found evidence that an early stone implement technology, known as "Western Stemmed" projectile points (darts or thrusting spearheads), were manufactured at least 11,070 to 11,340 radiocarbon years ago, making them concurrent with or possibly earlier than the Clovis culture (dated to 13,000 calendar years ago) in North America. They have also confirmed, through additional DNA testing, that the early occupants of the caves had ancestral Siberia-East Asian origins, and that they were using the caves as far back as at leat 12,450 radiocarbon years ago.

The research results, published In a paper in the July 13 issue of Science, also include substantial new documentation, including "blind-test analysis" by independent labs, confirming that the human DNA extracted in previous research from human coprolites (dried feces) present in the caves were dated to the same time period.

The researchers obtained 190 radiocarbon dates on artifacts, human coprolites (dried feces), bones and sagebrush twigs within layers of silt deposited over thousands of years in the  caves. The broad, concave-based, fluted Clovis projectile points often associated with early Americans who lived about 12,000 - 13,000 years ago were not found in the caves.

The dating of the Western Stemmed projectile points to possibly pre-Clovis times adds new data to digest in the ongoing debate about the starkly different production technologies overlapping in time and whether or not they developed separately. The results even suggest that the Clovis culture may have developed or originated in the Southeastern region of the United States and moved westward, while the Western Stemmed tradition originated, perhaps earlier than the Clovis, in the West and moved eastward.

"From our dating, it appears to be impossible to derive Western Stemmed points from a proto-Clovis tradition," Jenkins said. "It suggests that we may have here in the Western United States a tradition that is at least as old as Clovis, and quite possibly older. We seem to have two different traditions co-existing in the United States that did not blend for a period of hundreds of years."

Western Stemmed points and Clovis points differ mostly in terms of their hafting portions, the part of the stone point that connects to a shaft. Stemmed points are narrower or constricted at their bases, whereas the hafting portions of Clovis points (pictured right) are not narrow, but thinned width-wise through removal of large flakes from their bases.

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"These two approaches to making projectile points were really quite different," Davis said, "and the fact that Western Stemmed point-makers fully overlap, or even pre-date Clovis point makers likely means that Clovis peoples were not the sole founding population of the Americas."

It is interesting to note in this context that Clovis technology has only been found in the New World, whereas Western Stemmed technology is similar to stone technology seen in northeastern Asia.

At least three other Western sites, including Cooper's Ferry in Idaho, Smith Creek Cave in Nevada, and Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, also in Nevada, also contain only Western Stemmed points in deposits of this early time period.

Dating

Past studies of the Paisley Caves have also reported very early dates from human coprolites with ancient DNA, but questions arose about whether those samples could have been contaminated, and whether they were found in true context with artifacts from the same era. So the researchers did an exhaustive examination of the stratigraphy, which is one of Davis' specialties.

"We continued to excavate Paisley Caves from 2009 through 2011," the authors wrote in Science. "To resolve the question of stratigraphic integrity, we acquired 121 new AMS [accelerator mass spectrometry] radiocarbon dates on samples of terrestrial plants, macrofossils from coprolites, bone collagen and water soluble extracts recovered from each of these categories. To date, a total of 190 radiocarbon dates have been produced from the Paisley Caves."

Davis conducted microscopic analysis of the soil using a "petrographic" microscope, to eliminate any indications that liquid – such as water or urine from humans or animals -  may have moved down from higher layers into the lower layers, thus "contaminating" or compromising the integrity of the dating of the soil. They also analyzed the silt where the stem points were found and bracketed above and below those layers to determine if the radiocarbon dates synchronized.

The result: "The stemmed points were in great context," Davis said. "There is no doubt that they were in primary context, associated with excellent radiocarbon dates." The new dating was valid.

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Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, holds a human coprolite (dried feces) taken from Oregon's Paisley Caves. The sample dates to about 13,000 years ago. [Photo by Jim Barlow]

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Re-Modeling Origins

The origin of humans in the Americas has long been thought by many scientists to be connected to early migration out of Siberia and eastern Asia, likely across the temporary land bridge (Beringia) between present-day Russia and Alaska, a corridor that existed across the present-day Bering Strait during the last Ice Age. In recent years, however, Jon Erlandson, also of the University of Oregon, has advanced a theory of Late Pleistocene sea-going people following a "kelp highway" from Japan to Kamchatka, along the south coast of Beringia and Alaska, and then moving southward down the Northwest Coast to California. This would be a natural path to take as Kelp forests are rich in such food resources as fish, shellfish, seals, sea otters, and seabirds.

Moreover, the additional new evidence from the coprolite DNA continues to support Siberia-East Asian origins.  As was suggested in the earlier 2008 research, the human DNA was identified with haplogroup A, which is common to Siberia and found, along with haplogroup B, in Native Americans today. But the traditional model of origins, which advances the notion of a single migration with a singular technology, may be challenged. It cannot explain the presence of two separate and distinct stone tool technologies at the end of the last glacial period.

"Given these recent results from Paisley Caves, it's clear that we need to come up with some better models," Davis said.

The details of the study report can be found in the July 13, 2012 issue of Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a non-profit organization.

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Displayed in the hand of University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins are three bases for Western Stemmed projectiles from the Paisley Caves in Oregon. The bases date to some 13,000 years ago. [Photo by Jim Barlow]

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The National Science Foundation (grant 0924606), Danish Research Foundation, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, UO archaeological field school, UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Oregon State University Keystone Archaeological Research Fund, Bernice Peltier Huber Charitable Trust and University of Nevada, Reno, Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit were primary funders of the fieldwork.

The 18 co-authors with Jenkins and Davis on the study were: Thomas W. Stafford of University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Stafford Research Laboratories in Colorado; Paula F. Campos of the University of Copenhagen and the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra in Portugal; Bryan Hockett of the Bureau of Land Management, Nevada; George T. Jones of Hamilton College in New York; Linda Scott Cummings and Chad Yost of the PaleoResearch Institute in Colorado; Thomas J. Connolly of the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History; Robert M. Yohe II and Summer C. Gibbons of California State University; Johanna L.A. Paijmans and Michael Hofreiter of the University of York in the United Kingdom; Brian M. Kemp of Washington State University; Jodi Lynn Barta of WSU and Madonna University in Michigan; Cara Monroe of WSU and the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Maanasa Raghaven, Morten Rasmussen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert and Eske Willerslev of the Center for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

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Photo, Second from top, right: Classical Clovis point. Locutus Borg, Wikimedia Commons.

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