Word: archaeologist
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...mere 500 years, the span between the time of the presumed land migration and the time by which Clovis spearpoints had been deposited throughout North America. Even more problematic are signs of very early culture in South America. "Humans don't sprint through their environment," says Mercyhurst College archaeologist James Adovasio. "But that's what the Clovis guys would have us believe. There's no analogue for that in archaeological history...
Perhaps the most convincing candidate for a pre-Clovis site is Monte Verde, on the Chinchihuapi Creek in southern Chile. A team led by University of Kentucky archaeologist Tom Dillehay discovered indisputable traces there of a human settlement that was inhabited between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago. Usually all scientists can find from that far back are stones and bones. In this case, thanks to a peat layer that formed during the late Pleistocene era, organic matter was mummified and preserved as well...
...plausible places for early human settlement of the Americas, Pedra Furada, located in a region of dramatic sandstone cliffs in the arid outback of northeastern Brazil, is probably the most exciting -- and most disputed. When archaeologist Niede Guidon of the School for the Advanced Study of Social Sciences in Paris first excavated the site in 1978, she found cave paintings, ash-filled hearths and what she believes are stone tools that are at least 30,000 and perhaps more than 50,000 years old. Says Guidon: "I was the first person to be surprised. I believed the standard theories." Each...
Critics have similar doubts about charcoal Guidon believes came from ancient fireplaces. "Radiocarbon dating is tried and true," explains archaeologist David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University. "The problem is linking the dating of objects to human occupation. How do you know it was a piece of charcoal touched by human hands and not just a piece of burned tree?" Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara is a bit more blunt: "I think Pedra Furada is absolute horse manure...
Those who remain skeptical of pre-Clovis findings are most troubled by the ambiguous nature of many of the artifacts. To make a convincing case for a pre-Clovis culture, says Cornell archaeologist Thomas Lynch, "recognizable artifacts from that period must be dispersed over a broad area, reflecting the movement of primitive peoples from place to place. A Clovis point is just as recognizable as the tail fin on a 1952 Cadillac...