Across Atlantic Ice

by Dennis J. Stanford

  The lanceolate projectile points found at the Mesa Site suggest the possibility of a second technological intrusion into northern Alaska.34 Although similar projectile points are known from surface collections, Mesa is the first site where they are found in a reasonable stratigraphic context and dated by charcoal from associated hearths. The Mesa Site, like the Putu Site, is on the North Slope of the Brooks Range, just ninety miles, not far in Alaskan terms, from the location of the first fluted point finds. The site sits atop a prominent flat-top landform (hence its name) and overlooks the wide expanse of the North Slope in all directions.

  Numerous fire hearths at Mesa provided charcoal, whose radiocarbon dates range from about 14,000 to 12,000 years ago. If the outlier assays are eliminated, there is a strong cluster of dates between 9,900 and 10,200 years RCYBP. The 7,600 years RCYBP date may have been a laboratory error, and redating the same sample placed the hearth in the 10,000 years BP cluster. Mike Kuntz and Rick Reanier, the principle investigators of the site, suggest that the oldest dates represent an earlier occupation by the same group, but the evidence for this is not compelling.35 In a review of early Alaskan archaeological data, Tom Hamilton and Ted Goebel mention the possibility that 1,400-year-old wood was used for fuel in the single earlier-dated hearth.36 This explanation is reasonable because ancient wood is widely preserved in permafrost and commonly found in exposed cut banks and river gravels. These windfall gifts are collected and burned in many parts of northern Alaska, where combustible materials are in short supply.

  Artifacts from the Mesa Site include flake tools, small end scrapers and gravers, large bifaces, and lanceolate projectile points (figure 3.8a–c). There is also a massive collection of waste flakes from tool manufacture and resharpening. In broad outline, the Mesa Site projectile points are similar to Agate Basin Paleo-Indian weapon tips found on the High Plains and Rocky Mountain areas of the mid-continent.37 However, Agate Basin sites date slightly older than the Mesa Site. Moreover, there is a major technological difference. Mesa projectile points are thick relative to their width, a trait they share with other Beringian points. Agate Basin technology, by contrast, strove for weapon tips that were longer, thinner, and flat. A better analogy for the Mesa points is the Intermountain lanceolate point types found in the western Rockies and northern Plateau.38 These weapon tips, like the Mesa ones, have thickened cross sections, slightly indented bases, and ground lower edges.

  FIGURE 3.8.

  Projectile points: (a–c) Mesa Site; (d–f) Sluiceway Site.

  One plausible interpretation is that the Mesa Site represents a hunting overlook occupied by a Paleo-Indian group whose origin was the Plateau or the Rocky Mountains of North America. If this interpretation is correct, at least two of the earliest archaeological cultures in eastern Beringia originated not from western Beringia in eastern Asia but from North America to the southeast. This is compatible with research indicating that the ice-free corridor was not a viable option for human habitation until around 13,000 years ago, or about the time when Paleo-Indian sites appear in eastern Beringia. Also, when the corridor finally opened, it did so from the south, providing ever-increasing opportunities for people and animals living in the mid-latitude areas to move northward.

  Another group of sites just to the west of Mesa produced lanceolate projectile points that are also not associated with microblades. Known as Sluiceway points, they are between 12,000 and 13,000 years old.39 These weapon tips are much more robust than the Mesa points, but like Mesa points they are very thick relative to their width. They are bi-pointed, finished by pressure flaking, and basally ground (figure 3.8d–f). Several of the Sluiceway sites are game overlooks, where weaponry was replaced and repaired, and one is at a chert source, where new projectile point stock was manufactured.

  The Mesa and Sluiceway overlook sites were likely locations of male-dominated activities; campsites that would tell us about group composition and yield tools from the activities of both genders have not been found. If the radiocarbon dates are correct, Sluiceway is slightly older than and may represent a precursor of the Mesa technology, making it unnecessary to search for a plains antecedent for Mesa. If one wants to see their origins as Asian, an argument could be made that the absence of microblades simply reflects the fact that Sluiceway and Mesa are task-specific sites, and both of these groups might have used antler points inset with microblades while hunting different prey or at different times of the year.40 However, we see this as unlikely, as microblades have only occurred with Sluiceway points in surface assemblages.

  Are there any other possibilities for the origins of Clovis technology in eastern Beringia? An intriguing group of sites in central Alaska, along the Tanana and Nenana Rivers and their tributaries, has drawn the attention of archaeologists searching for Clovis origins. However, there are some critical problems with this interpretation, not the least being that these sites are contemporary with or younger than Clovis. Hence some investigators, including Thomas Hamilton and Ted Goebel, have hypothesized that Clovis and Nenana are historically related through a common, as yet unidentified, ancestor.41 We think they may be correct but look to the southeast, to assemblages that predate Clovis, such as the Miller Complex in Pennsylvania, as probably ancestral, rather than to eastern Asia.

  Nenana sites are located on the tops of alluvial terraces in wind-deposited sediments. A few of them are stratified, with cultural levels in good unmixed contexts. They have yielded some of the earliest dates in eastern Beringia, although as usual there is a wide range of dates. Hamilton and Goebel dismiss the earliest dates and place the Nenana Complex around 13,000 years old.

  Artifacts from Nenana Complex sites consist of bifacial waste flakes, bifacially retouched tools (figure 3.9a), end scrapers (figure 3.9b), gravers (figure 3.9c), side scrapers (figure 3.9d), retouched flakes (figure 3.9e), ovoid bifaces (figure 3.9f), triangular points (figure 3.9g), and retouched bladelike flakes (figure 3.9h). These small bifaces, known as Chindadn points, are slightly retouched thin flakes that have been interpreted as small hafted knives rather than points.42 No large blades, blade cores, or blade-manufacturing debris have been found to verify the existence of a Nenana large-blade technology.

  The few Nenana bone and ivory tools include possible ivory points without basal bevels (figure 3.7g–h), an eyed bone needle, and three poorly preserved mammoth ivory rods that date to around 10,300 years BP. One of these rods is bipointed, and the other two are not complete enough to assess their original forms. None of them has a beveled base like the Clovis rods. Although no formal bone tools were found in the Nenana occupation levels at the Swan Point Site, several pieces of worked mammoth tusk were recovered among the associated faunal remains.

  FIGURE 3.9.

  Nenana artifacts: (a) bifacially retouched tool; (b) end scraper; (c) graver; (d) side scraper; (e) retouched flake; (f) ovoid biface (Chindadn point); (g) triangular bifacial point; (h) retouched bladelike flake.

  A clue about Nenana technology is found at Broken Mammoth, where along with the remains of a few medium-sized ungulates, there are a considerable number of migratory waterfowl bones, suggesting a summer occupation.43 If trapping and netting were the main techniques used to procure these resources, that would explain the absence of large stone projectile points or even slotted bone points. At another site or in a different season, the same people who used these tools may well have used other weaponry systems. For instance, we know that microblades at Trail Creek Cave were fitted into slotted antler projectile points, and later Arctic peoples used similar but unslotted projectile points for hunting caribou. However, since caribou migrate out of central Alaska during the summer, such projectile points are not used at and generally do not appear in the debris of campsites oriented to other economic endeavors such as plant collection and processing and fishing. After additional work at Swan Point, Barbara Crass and Charles Holmes presented a paper indicating that Nenana is clearly related to the Late Dyuktai microblade tradition.44

  Overall,
the archaeological record of eastern Beringia holds together well as representing the wide-ranging continuation of a slow eastward expansion of a generalized, Arctic-adapted Upper Paleolithic microblade tradition. The derivation of the Denali Complex from the western Beringian Dyuktai is evident. This does not, however, explain all of the early assemblages in eastern Beringia. The interesting obstacle to the seemingly straightforward single-Asian-origin explanation is the probability that the early fluted point technology of the northern slope of the Brooks Range ultimately derives from the Paleo-Indian traditions of the subglacial portions of North America, specifically the High Plains and Rocky Mountain regions. There is also the possibility that the Sluiceway-Mesa Complex had its origins in the south as well. The absence of an early microblade tradition in the ice-free corridor east of the northern Rockies, in spite of the apparent use of this corridor for the introduction of southern elements into the north, further erodes the likelihood of the greater Beringian microblade technology being the historical ancestor of Clovis.

  After decades of research, there are still no well-documented sites that provide evidence that people moved into northeastern Siberia or Alaska much before 12,000 years ago. Moreover, the technologies that were carried from Asia to America were almost exclusively microblade based, with only a minor emphasis on bifacial flaking. Large blade sites are not documented in northeastern Siberia and eastern Beringia until very late after Clovis, with the earliest evidence of their use appearing in the Aleutian Islands around 11,000 years ago.

  The Beringian archaeological record is lacking in the thinned bifacial technology accompanied by large blade manufacturing we see in Clovis. Combined with the fact that humans did not colonize eastern Beringia until the climate became more hospitable, after the ice age ended around 12,000 years ago, Beringian hunters cannot be ancestors of Clovis peoples. In fact, just the reverse might prove to be the answer to the question of the peopling of the American Arctic.

  4

  CHALLENGING THE CLOVIS FIRST MODEL

  The Missing Links

  By the cautious archaeologist all evidences of ancient man in eastern North America—exclusive of true palaeolithic implements—are wisely referred to those Indian tribes that, to within a comparatively recent period, were the sole occupants of the territory named. Perhaps, however, the time has come when it may be asked if all the traces of prehistoric man, gathered along our northern Atlantic seaboard, are of one origin. In other words, have traces of a people later than American palaeolithic man, and earlier than the Indian, been discovered?

  CHARLES C. ABBOTT, “TRACES OF A PRE-INDIAN PEOPLE,” 1889

  Complex cultures such as Clovis do not spring out of thin air. Whenever and wherever people move, they take with them their language, belief and kinship systems, lifestyle, and traditions. Aspects of cultures change through time when people are faced with new or diminished resources, and this is especially true of material cultures. People adapt to changing environments by finding new ways to deal with habitat shifts. This often requires only adjustments to existing technologies, but in more severe cases it may provoke the development of new ones.1 Even then, the new technologies are usually based on the older systems, which are modified by trial and error until they prove effective for coping with new circumstances.2 Alternately, rather than staying in a known territory and adjusting to changes, some groups move along with habitat shifts in order to maintain their traditional lifestyle.

  Changes in technology can also result from social stress, usually in the form of internal population growth or decline or, more commonly, the intrusion of alien groups. The last case can result in the wholesale adoption of alien technology or, more likely, a blend of new and old technologies. It is unclear what mechanisms were operating in the development of Clovis, but some permutation of these factors is likely. Clovis could not have been first; it had to develop out of a previous archaeological culture . . . a missing link.

  Clovis was well established in North America by at least 13,000 years ago. Hence, to identify possible ancestors, we need to look at assemblages that date to an earlier period. Little data has emerged in either Beringia or northwestern North American to clarify Clovis origins.3 This suggests that scholars are looking in the wrong area of the world for Clovis ancestors. In chapter 2 we hypothesized that Clovis technology as we know it originated along and expanded out of the eastern seaboard, eventually spreading westward through exploration and adaptation. This scenario requires evidence that archaeological cultures with biface-thinning and blade-making technologies that would have been precursors to Clovis technology once flourished along the ice age Atlantic coast and the now submerged continental shelf.

  FIGURE 4.1.

  North America during the LGM showing the extent of glaciers, exposed continental shelf, and locations of early Paleo-American sites.

  During the last ice age the western Atlantic shelf was a vast and environmentally rich plain stretching from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to Florida and around the Gulf of Mexico. Most of this region is now submerged under the sea and difficult to access, leading to a paucity of data on early Paleo-American sites that are likely antecedent to Clovis. There are, however, several inland sites that we accept as evidence of a Mid-Atlantic Early Paleo-American occupation (figure 4.1). These include the well-known Meadowcroft Rockshelter, in southwestern Pennsylvania, and Cactus Hill, in southeastern Virginia. Both sites have occupation levels that are earlier than Clovis (confirmed by radiocarbon assays of charcoal recovered from these levels), and their artifact assemblages do contain biface thinning and blade technologies. Miles Point, Cinmar, and Oyster Cove, sites recently discovered on the Chesapeake Bay, provide important data relative to the timing of the early Mid-Atlantic occupations of North America.

  Below, we also compare new finds from Jefferson Island on the Chesapeake Bay to finds from the Page-Ladson Site in Florida, and examine the Johnson and Coats-Hines sites in Tennessee for evidence of technological transitions from the earlier Mid-Atlantic Paleo-Indian assemblages into Proto-Clovis technologies. We do not exclude the possibility that other earlier cultures existed elsewhere in the Americas, but their examination is not relevant for evaluating our hypothesis on the origins of Clovis.4

  THE MID-ATLANTIC EVIDENCE

  Meadowcroft Rockshelter is on the Appalachian Plateau some 50 kilometers southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At 80 meters above sea level, the shelter faces south and overlooks Cross Creek, a small tributary of the Ohio River. Although the Laurentide Glacier approached within 84 kilometers of Meadowcroft at its maximum, by the time of human occupation of the shelter, it had retreated some 223 kilometers to the north.

  The eleven distinct geological strata identified in the 4-meter accumulation here provide a nearly complete sequence of the known archaeological cultures in southwestern Pennsylvania. Stratum IIa was isolated from those above and below by episodes of rocks falling from the ceiling and contained at least fourteen hearths that range in age from 11,300 to 16,175 radiocarbon years before the present (13,200 to 19,200 years ago; see the introduction for information on radiocarbon dating). It also had two main occupation levels with concentrations of flaked stone artifacts and faunal remains. The younger concentration dated to between 11,300 and 12,800 RCYBP (13,200 to 15,100 years ago), the older to between 15,000 and 16,000 RCYBP (18,300 to 19,200 years ago).

  Stratum IIa contained animal bones, wood fragments, mollusk shells, cordage, several small bladelets, several hundred waste flakes, and retouched flakes and bladelets (figure 4.2b–d). There is a single bifacial projectile point from stratum IIa that has convex sides and a more or less straight base (figure 4.2a). It exhibits percussion and pressure flake scars. It is neither thick nor thin and may be considered proportional (see chapter 1 for a discussion of these terms). An impact flake scar on the tip indicates that the point broke after striking a resistant object and was subsequently repaired. Thus, its present shape and proportions do not represent its original configuration
. James Adovasio, the archaeologist who investigated the site, named the projectile point Miller and the occupation assemblage the Miller Complex.5

  Although most of the raw materials used by the Meadowcroft flintknappers were of local origin, exceptions include Flint Ridge chert from eastern Ohio, Kanawha chert from West Virginia, and Onondaga chert from New York. Whether these stones were collected by Meadowcroft flintknappers or obtained by trade is unknown. In either case, however, their presence implies a deep knowledge of a large geographic region, which is not characteristic of a pioneering population.

  Virtually everyone accepts the stratigraphic context of these assemblages. In fact, the excavations conducted by Adovasio and his associates have been judged absolutely meticulous.6 We agree that Meadowcroft may have been occupied as early as 19,200 years ago, and was clearly occupied by around 14,600 years ago by people whose biface and blade technology could be ancestral to Clovis.

  Along with the excavation of the rockshelter, the Meadowcroft project included a survey of the adjacent Cross Creek drainage system, where investigators located a site now known as Krajacic. Here they found a concentration of artifacts on or just below the ground surface that included projectile points reminiscent of the one from stratum IIa at Meadowcroft (figure 4.2e–f), as well as polyhedral/conical bladelet cores (figure 4.2g).7 Although the Krajacic artifacts are undated and possibly from a mixed context, their technological similarity to those from Meadowcroft and the method of the manufacture of the bladelets encouraged Adovasio to conclude that they are part of the Miller Complex.