mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Picture *I N T E R V I E W /With Smithsonian Paleo Anthropologist Dennis Stanford/* Picture /The following is taken from a video recorded in March of 1997. /It's been a real exciting time in Paleo Indian studies the last year or two - we've just learned so much about Paleo Indians or the first people in the Americas. And it's totally changed our point of view on the evolution of early cultures in the New World and their ties to the Old World. If you read your textbooks, Clovis are thought to be the first people into the New World, (North America) via Siberia. But when you look at the archeology of Siberia, which we have now had ample opportunity to do in the last few years, there really is not much in Siberia that is a direct Clovis predecessor. Consequently, we've been - or at least, I've been, convinced that Clovis is a New World invention and developed from a population of people that were already in North America. In fact, the Smithsonian has been working along with researchers in Tennesee and in the Southeast in particular where we have the largest (and oldest) concentration of Clovis artifacts anywhere in North America. But if Clovis did develop in the Southeast, who did Clovis develop from? When did that happen? And where did those people come from? Was it Siberia or was it someplace else? These are really exciting questions and what brings that to real immediate attention are the findings that physical anthropologists have been making in the last few years and particularly in the last few months, of human skeletons which have been found from this time period, the Paleo Indian time period. There's less then ten and if you cut off the time period at ten thousand years, there's probably less than four skeletons of that age. But as they began to examine these skeletons, and there's been some really good ones found, they did not appear to be classic Indian. And in fact they have a number of caucasoid traits and if you look at them in a world wide perspective, the physical traits appear to be more in line with an early population that probably spread across Northeastern Europe into Asia and even into the Japanese Islands. And based on the recent discoveries of Kennewick Man in Washington, Spirit Cave and the latest discovery in Southwest Alaska, of a mandible in a cave site up there, this appears to be the case that our first Americans were indeed from this earlier, pre northern Asian population. And it's really critical that we be able to capitalize and study the few very rare remains we have. There are just so many questions that can be resolved on the peopling of the Americas if we have a full scale study of each and every one of these specimens that are found. From looking at the artifactual evidence we now have from North America and from Northeast Asia as well as the physical remains, it's very clear to me, at least, that we are looking at multiple migrations through a very long time period - of many different peoples of many different ethnic origins, if you will, that came in at different times. Some of these people probably survived, some of them may have gone back home and some of them probably did not survive. And by sudying all these skeletons, particularly the DNA and the morphological differences and similarities, we'll be able to - I think eventually, figure out how many groups and from where they came. And it's clear that we have to have a very broad mind about the issue and not ignore some seemingly impossible migration theories. To talk about some of the migration routes that are being considered as plausible now that we wouldn't have even considered several years ago, there's some thought that perhaps Clovis technology came from Europe. We would have been hooted right out of the lecture hall if we had said that a few years ago. The idea is based on several things that are now beginning to emerge from our research in the Southeast where it appears that Clovis may actually have its earliest sites. If we look at Clovis technology, and the Clovis technology of North America is relatively unique in the world, it's a bifacial technology. In bifacial, I'm referring to the fact that the artifact, here you can see that there are flake scars on this side of the specimen and when we turn it over there are flake scars on the opposite side - hence the name bifacial. And this is opposed to artifacts that are unifacial. Most of the classic Upper Paleolithic cultures of Eurasia are unifacial. There are some bifacial manufacturing technologies in that part of the world and one of them is the Solutrean. This is a replica of a Solutrean biface which is commonly found in France and down through the Iberian peninsula. It is older than Clovis but not that much older. This technology is very, very close to the Clovis technology. There are some differences but you do get the bifaces and you get caches. I think caches are important. In Clovis we find a lot of caches of these bifacial artifacts as we do in the Solutrean. The caches are normally associated with red ochre. We don't know the significance of the red ochre but they are both in Solutrean and Clovis. They may well have adapted to a maritime economy and become very familiar with watercraft. It wouldn't take too much for an intelligent person to learn how to handle the ocean and perhaps even get to North America. Now this is really an off the wall kind of idea right now but it's one that I don't think we should ignore. And I think we will see scholars begin to look at that idea. I know that some folks are going to be looking at DNA comparisons between hair found in Solutrean sites versus hair found in Clovis age sites to see if there is any link that way as well as looking at the technology in more detail and depth. In fact there is going to be an exhibit comparing Clovis caches with Solutrean caches at the type site of Solutre in France this coming summer which should be real exciting. We're going to go over with some of our Clovis caches and be able to look at that material first hand and I'm really looking forward to that. Photo © T.W. Timreck * Dr. Dennis Stanford is the chairman of the Anthropology Department at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.* Video <../assets/multimedia/Stanfrd1.mpg> /1 Mb MPEG video/ */There are just so many questions that can be resolved on the peopling of the Americas if we have a full scale study of each and every one of these specimens that are found./* Picture Photo © T.W. Timreck * A bifacial Solutrean point.* Picture Illustration © T.W. Timreck *Did pre-Clovis people arrive in the New World from Europe?* */Click here to Continue.../* <../html/dennis_part_2.html>*//* Home <../index.html> | Northern Traces <../html/ancient.html> | Introduction | <../html/introduction.html> Kennewick Man <../html/kennewick_man.html>| Dennis Stanford <../html/dennis_stanford.html> Copyright © 1997. Smithsonian Institution.