Early Immigrants and the Politics of Archaeology

For the past century, one of the most fascinating questions in archaeology, especially American archaeology, has been that surrounding the first human migrations into North and South America.  For most of the last half of the 20th Century, most archaeologists agreed that the first settlement happened around 12,000 years ago and that the first residents were the Clovis culture, distinctive by their fluted spear points.  During the past 30 years, however, that model has come under sustained attack by new data.  The archaeological consensus has now shifted to an earlier occupation of the hemisphere and that the Clovis people were not first and not alone.


Just last week, really cool new findings on a cave in Oregon, Paisley Caves, suggests that a different cultural tradition was at least as early as Clovis and different.  The Western Stemmed tradition (I know, exciting name) has been proposed for this early western culture.  For those interested, you should take a look at this piece.  And for those of you who take Ant 103 in the fall, you'll hear more about it then.

Along with the artifactual and radiocarbon evidence, another important set of data was the recovery of genetic sequences from coprolites found at the site.  This genetic evidence can help to shed light on the relationships between ancient American populations and others around the world at the time.

To those new to archaeology, a surprising twist to this research is that it highlights the continuing tension between the discipline of archaeology and living Native American communities (I've posted on this before http://sunyorangeanthropology.blogspot.com/2012/03/archaeological-politics.html).  Only two US Native groups agreed to have their DNA used in the study (studies of ancient DNA rely on comparisons with genetic patterns among living peoples).  Some in the scientific community think that such lack of participation holds back the progress of science (Dienekes' Anthropology Blog and Gene Expression), while others feel that living groups have every right to refuse participation (Living Anthropologically and Torso and Oblong).  This blog is not the place for me to weigh in, and definitely not answer, but the links in the preceding sentence can give you some sense of the argument.