The timing of the first human migration into the Americas and its relation to the appearance of the Clovis technological complex in North America at about 11,000 to 10,800 radiocarbon years before ...the present (¹⁴C years B.P.) remains contentious. We establish that humans were present at Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves, in south-central Oregon, by 12,300 ¹⁴C years B.P., through the recovery of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from coprolites, directly dated by accelerator mass spectrometry. The mtDNA corresponds to Native American founding haplogroups A2 and B2. The dates of the coprolites are >1000 ¹⁴C years earlier than currently accepted dates for the Clovis complex.
The Paisley Caves in Oregon record the oldest directly dated human remains (DNA) in the Western Hemisphere. More than 100 high-precision radiocarbon dates show that deposits containing artifacts and ...coprolites ranging in age from 12,450 to 2295 ¹⁴C years ago are well stratified. Western Stemmed projectile points were recovered in deposits dated to 11,070 to 11,340 ¹⁴C years ago, a time contemporaneous with or preceding the Clovis technology. There is no evidence of diagnostic Clovis technology at the site. These two distinct technologies were parallel developments, not the product of a unilinear technological evolution. "Blind testing" analysis of coprolites by an independent laboratory confirms the presence of human DNA in specimens of pre-Clovis age. The colonization of the Americas involved multiple technologically divergent, and possibly genetically divergent, founding groups.
With the recent introduction of handheld instruments for field use, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is emerging as a practical technology for real-time in situ geochemical analysis in the ...field. LIBS is a form of optical emission spectroscopy that is simultaneously sensitive to all elements with a single laser shot so that a broadband LIBS spectrum can be considered a diagnostic geochemical fingerprint. Sets of LIBS spectra were collected for seven obsidian centers across north-central California, with data processed using multivariate statistical analysis and pattern recognition techniques. Although all obsidians exhibit similar bulk compositions, different regional obsidian sources were effectively discriminated via partial least squares discriminant analysis. Obsidian artifacts from seven archaeological sites were matched to their putative sources with a high degree of confidence.
Archaeologists have long subjected Clovis megafauna kill/scavenge sites to the highest level of scrutiny. In 1987, a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) was found in spatial association with a ...small artifact assemblage in Converse County, Wyoming. However, due to the small tool assemblage, limited nature of the excavations, and questions about the security of the association between the artifacts and mammoth remains, the site was never included in summaries of human-killed/scavenged megafauna in North America. Here we present the results of four field seasons of new excavations at the La Prele Mammoth site that confirm the presence of an associated cultural occupation based on geologic context, artifact attributes, spatial distributions, protein residue analysis, and lithic microwear analysis. This new work identified a more extensive cultural occupation including the presence of multiple discrete artifact clusters in close proximity to the mammoth bone bed. This study confirms the presence of a second Clovis mammoth kill/scavenge site in Wyoming and shows the value in revisiting proposed terminal Pleistocene kill/scavenge sites.
Waters and Stafford (Reports, 23 February 2007, p. 1122) provided useful information about the age of some Clovis sites but have not definitively established the temporal span of this cultural ...complex in the Americas. Only a continuing program of radiometric dating and careful stratigraphic correlations can address the lingering ambiguity about the emergence and spread of Clovis culture.
This paper reports the analysis of protein residues from tools recovered in a cache within the city limits of Boulder, Colorado, USA. This cache included a total of 83 artifacts, all of which we ...subjected to cross-over immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP). Four of the 83 produced results, with residues from each of these reacting with antigens from a different taxon: one tool shows evidence of use on sheep, one on bear, one on horse, and one on camel. Varieties of sheep and bear have been present in Colorado throughout human history, but horses and camelids have been in the state either during the Pleistocene or the last 200 years. Several lines of evidence indicate that the cache cannot be recent, and our CIEP results therefore imply that the cache date to the late Pleistocene. Typological aspects of the artifacts in the cache are consistent with artifacts known to be Clovis, and the combination of CIEP and typological data thus indicate that the cache is Clovis as well. These data contribute to an increasing dataset documenting the broad range of animals other than elephants hunted by Clovis groups in North America.
► We present the results of protein residue (CIEP) analysis on stone tools from a cache found in Boulder, Colorado. ► The cache includes 83 artifacts imported from west of the Continental Divide. ► Four of these tools bear traces of animal protein, including sheep, bear, horse, and camel. ► Horse and camel indicate that the cache was deposited during the Late Pleistocene. ► Late Pleistocene/Clovis groups exploited a wider range of animals than is often asserted.
The 1960s and 1970s excavations at Owl Cave (10BV30) recovered mammoth bone and Folsom-like points from the same strata, suggesting evidence for a post-Clovis mammoth kill. However, a synthesis of ...the excavation data was never published, and the locality has since been purged from the roster of sites with human/extinct megafauna associations. Here, we present dates on bone from the oldest stratum, review provenience data, conduct a bone-surface modification study, and present the results of a protein-residue analysis. Our study fails to make the case for mammoth hunting by Folsom peoples. Although two of the point fragments tested positive for horse or elephant protein, recent AMS dates indicate that all of the mammoth remains predate Folsom, and horse remains are absent from the Owl Cave collection. Further, no unambiguously cultural surface modifications were identified on any of the mammoth remains. Given the available data, the Owl Cave deposits are most parsimoniously read as containing a Folsom-age occupation in a buried context, the first of its kind in the desert West, but one nonetheless part of a palimpsest of terminal Pleistocene materials. Durante excavaciones de Owl Cave (10BV30) en Idaho en las décadas de 1960 y 1970 fueron recuperados de los mismos estratos huesos de mamut y puntas de proyectil del estilo Folsom, sugiriendo que se tratara de un yacimiento matanza de mamuts de la era post-Clovis. Sin embargo, nunca se publicó una síntesis de los datos de la excavación y la localidad ha sido removida de la lista de sitios con evidencia de actividad humana asociada con megafauna extinta. Aquí presentamos el fechamiento de muestras de hueso del estrato más antiguo de la cueva, revisamos sus datos de procedencia, realizamos un estudio de la superficie de los huesos, y presentamos los resultados de un análisis de residuos proteicos. Nuestro estudio no logra comprobar la evidencia de cacería de mamut por la cultura Folsom. Aunque en dos de los fragmentos de proyectil se detectaron restos de proteína de caballo o elefante, fechados recientes por AMS indican que todos los restos de mamut preceden el yacimiento Folsom y no hay restos de caballo en la colección de Owl Cave. Además, no se identificó ninguna modificación de superficie de claro origen cultural en los restos de mamut. La interpretación más parsimoniosa de los datos disponibles es que los depósitos de Owl Cave contienen una ocupación de la época Folsom en un contexto enterrado, el primero de este tipo en el desierto del Oeste, pero que sin embargo es parte de un palimpsesto de materiales del Pleistoceno terminal.
The arguments of Poinar et al. neither challenge our conclusions nor would contribute to the verification of our data. We counter their questions about the authenticity of our ancient DNA results and ...the reliability of the radiocarbon data and stand by the conclusion that our data provide strong evidence of pre-Clovis Native Americans. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In this article, we report an obsidian hydration dating (OHD) analysis of 32 obsidian artifacts from the Witt Archaeological Locality in Tulare County, California. The artifacts (Western stemmed ...points, concave base points, crescents) were recovered from agricultural contexts, where provenience is indeterminate. Effective hydration temperature (EHT) was computed from local meteorological records. Hydration rates were based on geochemical source and adjusted for EHT, and ages computed based on the square-root-of-time model. Of the mean OHD ages, 80% are in the 7,000-9,000 cal BP range. The probability that the actual ages could be Clovis or earlier (>∼13,200 years) was computed based on the mean and standard deviation of the OHD ages.
The extraordinary record of prehistoric rock art depicting tens of thousands of animal images in the Coso Range of eastern California provides an opportunity to study the relationship between ...aboriginal hunting, forager ecology, bighorn prey population levels, and the production of rock art. We review archaeofaunal evidence that the Coso desert bighorn sheep population was strongly depleted during the Newberry era after 1500 B.C. We discuss the dating of the rock art and show a correlation between bighorn depletion and increased rock art production. These data are consistent with the arrival of Numic foragers ca. A.D. 600 who competed with the Coso Pre-Numics and eventually terminated the Coso rock art tradition. An ecological predator-prey computer simulation of the human populations (Numic and Pre-Numics), the sheep population, and the rock art “population”, demonstrates these proposed interconnections and gives a reasonable fit to the observed rock art production rate.
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