The Age of Clovis (Waters et al. 2020) does a very good job of showing when some particular sites were used by people who also used Clovis points. It doesn’t really tell us all that much about the Age of Clovis, but it is a solid paper. Rather than the more ambitious and expansive “The…
Review of Becerra-Valdivia and Higham’s (2020) “The timing and effect of the earliest human arrivals in North America”
In their recent Bayesian survey of early archaeological dates from North America in Nature, Becerra-Valdivia and Higham (2020) conclude that “The data obtained show that humans were probably present before, during and immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum (about 26.5–19 thousand years ago), but that more widespread occupation began during a period of abrupt warming,…
Evaluating the claim of Ice Age archaeological material at Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico
The latest claim of surprisingly early archaeological material in the Americas comes from Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico. The paper (Ardelean et al 2020) contains a wealth of excellent information and analysis on (non-human) ancient DNA, paleo-environment, and local geology, but unfortunately, the archaeology component is very underdeveloped. Simply put, the paper as presented does not provide…
Cooper’s Ferry part 2: Battle of the Bayesians
Last year, Davis et al. (2019) made a claim that the Cooper’s Ferry location in Idaho has archaeological remains older than 16 000 years. This would make them by far the oldest securely dated remains in the Americas. Manning (2020) just published a critique of their claim, accompanied by a response from Davis et al.…
Evaluating the claim of 16k year old remains at Cooper’s Ferry: A comment on Davis et al 2019
Sixteen thousand years seems to be the new target for earliest archaeological remains in the Americas. The team at Gault recently made the claim, along with the team at the associated Friedkin site. Now a team working at Cooper’s Ferry in Idaho have joined in. Let me start with my standard disclaimer: I have no…
ArcheoThoughts 