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THE PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS by Jim Leslie, FMES, Columbus, Ohio

The Archaeological Society of Ohio (ASO) sponsored it’s first Peopling of the Americas Conference on May 22, 2004 in Columbus, Ohio, with some of the most prominent Paleoindian researchers, including Dennis Stanford, Thomas Dillehay, Douglas Owsley, James Chatters and J.M.Adovasio, presenting current and ongoing research on the first Americans. No new discoveries were revealed. Presentations were summaries of the past decade, but with more emphasis on certainty of facts and conclusions. Dr. Dale Gnidovec, Curator and Collections manager of the Orton Biological Museum, Department of Geological Sciences, The Ohio State University started the conference with a presentation of the causes and characteristics of the Ice Age that was the prevailing climate of the Paleo period, particularly with evidence from Ohio’s Sheriden Cave. Archaeologist and paleoecologist Dr. James Chatters, the first scientist to investigate and realize the profound importance of the skeleton that became known as Kennewick Man discussed the overall health of these early Paleoamericans, especially the females, as an explanation why human populations are not at all archaeologically visible in North America until the end of the Pleistocene. In a separate, special presentation the next day Dr. Chatters detailed the life of Kennewick Man, as told by skeletal remains. Simply put, Kennewick Man is not Mongolian but Caucasoid, an Ainu-Polynesian human who probably looked much like a modern-day Pakistani. In a magazine article published soon after the symposium, dog bones found previously in the vicinity of Kennewick’s burial were DNA analyzed, revealing their origin were not dogs domesticated from Mongolian wolves but from wolves native to only central Asia. Ironically, Indian groups had not thought to prohibit animal bones from scientific analysis as they did the human remains. If early humans had Clovis points, or its precursor, as they chased large mammals across the land bridge and down the theoretical glacial-free corridor just east of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, then broken Clovis points should abound in this area like fast-food wrappers litter modern highways. Dr. Dennis Stanford, Director of the Smithsonian’s Paleoindian/Paleoecology Program and advisor to the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University (among his duties) personally searched and found none. Perhaps an alternate entry somewhere along the Pacific coastline? Difficult to fine when the evidence is now under 300 feet of seawater. Meanwhile, the closest pre-Clovis prototype exists only on the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and part of France) - a tool of the Solutrean Culture. "Iberian, not Siberian," he says. Supporting evidence is strong, such as the ancestral walrus dredged near Chesapeake Bay with an embedded Solutrean point and interestingly, the oldest Clovis point found in the Americas is on the Atlantic coast near Richmond Virginia, not in the northwest. Stanford believes Solutreans routinely followed the rich hunting along the oceanic glacial edge that extended all the way from Europe to America. After finding richness in America, perhaps many settled. One should think of "the Atlantic not as a barrier but a highway". Both Drs Dillehay and Adovasio have been diligently contested by their peers and have survived very well thank you. Adovasio has invited those who doubted his dating of the Meadowcroft rock shelter to come and dig their own samples for their own C14 testing. He smiles saintly when the results substantiate his own. Paleoindian researchers and the public in general are now gradually distancing themselves from the oversimplified traditional viewpoints of the archaic age and accepting the idea of multiple migrations of many different people and ethnic origins through long periods of time to the Americas. This will take time and is to be expected. Its not easy to risk ones professional standing. Another traditional viewpoint just beginning to fade is the exclusive attention upon stone tools and mastodons hunting in understanding the Paleoindian. Smaller game, fish, fowl and a wide variety of flora were as important in their life as was the rarely successful megafauna kill. Regrettably, the importance of weaving, basketry and pottery were scarcely mentioned and researchers have yet to realize the role language, writing and religion may play in determining the origins of these early Americans. Its much easier to hold a Clovis point in your hand as proof of something rather than accept the origin of a word such as Navajo as coming from the Tarim Basin in ancient Hsi-Hsia. But this too will change.