Thursday, March 27, 2008

First in the Americas?

It'sd an endlessly fascinating debate: who first set foot in North America, and when? A butchered bison bone is the latest evidence, and it puts hunters on what are now islands off Washington state some 14,000 years ago - at least 2,000 years earlier than the "standard" accepted timeline for the arrival of the early Clovis people much further north.
COMMENT: While debates rage about the dating of many apparent pre-Clovis sites, this is one more chip off what used to be a rock-solid theory - "Clovis first." My impression is that, while the Clovis people might prove to be the first "important" colonizers - the first who left present-day descendants in significant numbers - the idea they were here before anyone else is headed for a gradual extinction.

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