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Athena Review
Book Reviews
The First Americans
In Pursuit of
Archaeology's Greatest Mystery
by James M. Adovasio with
Jake Page
2002.
Random House, Inc., New York and Toronto, Canada. 329 pp.with 69 b/w photos,
14 line drawings, 3 maps and tables. Hardcover: ISBN 0-375-50552-0 ($26.95
U.S., $39.95 Canada).
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First Americans
This is a tale of revolution - the turbulent
upheaval in archaeological thought concerning attempts to answer a deceptively
simple question: Who were the First Americans? At issue is the overthrow of a
long accepted notion that a band of Ice Age hunters armed with specialized
stone spear points called “Clovis points” walked across the frozen Bering
Straight some 12,00 years ago to claim the title of the First Americans.
Putting the debate into an easily readable and highly informative package, the
book ranges from presentation of early European fantasies about native
American origins to modern archaeological methods and practices. Along the
way, it also provides an insider's view of the difficulties in debunking
scientific dogma, showing that such challenges often are a noisy and messy
business. Readers also get a photographic glimpse - literally and figuratively
- at the cast of characters involved in what may be one of archaeology’s most
fractious riddles.
 James M.
Adovasio founded and directs the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute at
Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., and is best known for his work at the
Paleo-Indian site of Meadowcroft Rock shelter in southwestern Pennsylvania
(figs.1,2). Initial radiocarbon dates from that site suggested people had
stone hearths there in 13,000 BC - 4,000 years “before any human being was
supposed to have set foot in this hemisphere.” Exceedingly controversial,
those dates put Adovasio at the churning center of a three-decades-old
academic firestorm. His candid discussion of this infighting dispels any
notion that scientists are necessarily a congenial lot conducting gentlemanly
discussions around a toasty fire. As Adovasio observes: “The work of lifetimes
has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astonishing amount of
silliness and even profound stupidity has been taken as serious thought, and
always lurking in the background of all the argumentation and gnashing of
tenants has been the question of whether the field of archaeology can ever be
pursued as a science.”
[Fig.1: Location of Meadowcroft Rock
shelter and other sites with Terminal Pleistocene organic samples near
edge of Wisconsin Glacier (Adovasio 2002).]
The statement applies well to his own career as
one in a long line of archaeologists to tilt at the so-called “Clovis bar.”
This barrier arose not long after Edgar Billings Howard found the first Clovis
points in 1937 associated with mammoth remains at Blackwater Draw near Clovis,
New Mexico, tools subsequently determined to be about 12,000 years old. The
large, finely crafted, points contained long grooves or “flutes” on their
bases - a unique type of projectile point not previously found anywhere.
(Folsom points - smaller, more finely crafted and also containing flutes -
were found in 1908 near Folsom, New Mexico, but were later found to be younger
than Clovis points). For years, archaeologists found no definitive evidence
putting people in the America's before the so-called “Clovis man”. Decades of
researchers staked their professional reputations on the Clovis-first
paradigm. They refused at times, Adovasio suggests, to let facts interfere
with a good story. But then, who could resist an epic tale of questing hunters
with a “pioneering spirit writ large” who challenged the harshest of elements
with “speed, daring and inventiveness” to quickly populate a hemisphere.
Over the years, hundreds of suspected pre-Clovis sites have failed to pass
academic muster and helped form a seemingly impenetrable wall against any new
theory suggesting people got here earlier or via any route but the Bering
Straight march across what became known as Beringia. (For an in-depth study of
research on the prehistory and palaeoecology of Beringia, consult American
Beginnings. An anthology of research papers edited by Frederick Hadleigh West,
it was published in 1996 by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago and
London.)
But, as Adovasio makes clear, the debate about
the First Americans really began long before Clovis points surfaced.
Stereotypes portraying them as either “treacherous murdering savages” or the
“noble savage” emerged throughout the years from explorations that began in
the early sixteenth century. These images stuck - despite the fact that early
explorers such as Cortez in 1519-20 had encountered the Aztec empire with the
vast city of Tenochtitlan rivaling in grandeur and beauty anything in Europe.
More questions and myths surfaced as North American settlers investigated
their landscape and its indigenous cultures. Giant earthworks dotting the
continent became associated with a culture of “mound builders,” Adovasio
notes. He explores the lively debate associated with the mounds and the
possible cultures who built them were sometimes suspected of being a “higher
race,” a “lost race,” or even a cast-out population of Jews. With the ease of
an accomplished storyteller, Adovasio recounts the efforts of pioneering
archaeologists, such as Thomas Jefferson. to unravel their mysteries when the
discipline was ill-equipped to do so in a world shackled by biblical dogma
stating the earth and everything in it was only 6,000 years old.
With an introductory yet highly detailed and
informative test-book-like presentation of geology and glaciology, Adovasio
explores the natural science base from which later researchers began
penetrating the biblical time wall. Heated academic debate and cries of
blasphemy from a clergy feeling threatened by the fledgling sciences were
predictable. The discussion also covers Ice Age weather and ecosystems
containing varieties of flora and megafauna such as mammoths. Although
 extinct, the remains of Ice Age plants
and animals were frequently seen in the fossil record. Adovasio explores
competing theories on the Ice Age extinctions of many of these mammals. The
extinctions occurred rapidly between 11,000 and 9,500 years ago. Researchers
such as Paul Martin (in 1967) pointed to the Clovis culture - and its
blitzkrieg of a few, but well-armed super predators into the Americas - as the
culprit in what became highly controversial theory known as Pleistocene
Overkill. Fitting well with Clovis-First evidence, the hotly debated theory
ultimately lost credibility against other evidence suggesting Martin’s
explanation was too simplistic. Competing theories put factors such as climate
change and disease into what is now considered to be a complex equation.
Adovasio notes that rabid “right wingers” and “sportsmen groups” embraced
Martin’s theory. Native Americans, however, branded it a “politically
motivated assault” on their people. But, as scientific knowledge of Ice Age
conditions grew, so did the list of pre-Clovis supporters who suspected that
earlier entry should not be ruled out.
[Fig.2: Cartoon on the "Clovis-first"
controversy (Adovasio 2002).]
Proponents of pre-Clovis entry to the Americas
included legendary names such as archaeologist and former Golden Gloves
champion Richard Stockton Scotty” MacNeish and Louis Leakey, the patriarch of
human evolution research. Both men thought they had found human-made tools
pointing to very early human entry to the Americas (35,000 years ago for
MacNeish at Pendeho Cave in New Mexico, and up to 100,000 years ago for Leakey
at Calico Hills, Calif.). Both sites failed close academic scrutiny, a fate
shared by many suspected pre-Clovis sites as the search intensified during the
twentieth century. Larger-than-life researchers such as Lewis Binford, Charles
R. Harrington, and Frank Hibben were drawn into the fray. One player rose to
became a key critic in the pre-Clovis debate - and a significant thorn in the
side of Adovasio and other early-man site researchers relying on radiocarbon
dating to establish the age of their sites. C. Vance Haynes is a geologist
interested in what now is known as geoarchaeology, Adovasio notes. While
revisiting a site for the Nevada State Museum at Tule Springs in 1962-63,
Haynes initially accepted radiocarbon dates produced by earlier research
showing the site was occupied some 25,000 years ago. Further research
established the dates came not from firepot charcoal as suspected, but from
ancient carbonized plant material (lignite) that had mimicked the appearance
of fire pits - producing erroneous readings and scuttling dating accuracy.
Contamination of radiocarbon samples and misinterpretation of the age of dates
derived from such samples became points Haynes has raised in repeated efforts
to discredit challenges to the Clovis bar - a bar largely balanced on one
class of artifact, Clovis-style stone tool technology, and accepted
radiocarbon dates. Beginning in 1973, Adovasio started placing new artifacts
on the testing floor from his Meadowcroft Rock shelter research.
Finds included
bones, shell, wood, basketry, cordage and unique stone tools (fig.3) not seen
before. Radiocarbon dates put humans there far too early for critics, such as
Haynes, to accept. The carbon samples must be contaminated, he maintained -
clouding the site’s pre-Clovis validity for decades. Meadowcroft has produced
an academic row Adovasio asserts is grounded in petty politics and infighting
by people with too much invested in Clovis-First research to accept any new
story despite its supporting scientific evidence. He spends considerable book
space defending Meadowcroft, the meticulous quality of his work there, and in
lambasting his critics, Haynes among them. The critics, he said, continued
perpetuating their “archaeological farce” that is “either tragic or comic, but
it has never been science" with its inherent give and take through testing of
hypothetical explanations against reality and a continuing flow of new
information. Science, Adovasio asserts early in the book, “Is less a matter of
creating facts than a process for reducing ignorance, but some people always
prefer the bliss of ignorance.” His Meadowcroft example well illustrates the
severity and scope of academic discourse, while providing a detailed view of
research methodology, and the problems inherent in challenging firmly held
scientific dogma. While considerable debate has focused on North America,
pre-Clovis research does not stop there.
 From
Meadowcroft, Adovasio discusses South American pre-Clovis research, exploring
the differences in flora, fauna and Ice Age glacial impact that would have
produced a much different settlement scenario than in North America. Here the
cast of characters include Alan Bryan and Ruth Gruhn from the University of
Calgary in Canada, who remain staunch pre-Clovis advocates despite a long
string of failed pre-Clovis sites they dug or investigated from Baja Mexico to
the tip of South America. And his description of contested sites there
includes Taima Taima in Venezuela and Pedra Furada rockshelter in Brazil where
unique stone tools were found. The South American trail eventually leads to
Monte Verde, a complex 14,500 year old site in south-central Chile that has
all but buried the Clovis First paradigm.
[Fig.3: Paleo-Indian artifacts from
Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Adovasio 2002).]
Adovasio details the range of meticulous site
research at Monte Verde conducted by Archaeologist and Principal Investigator
Tom D. Dillehay, and a multi-disciplinary team of sixty specialists. With
thoughtful insight, Adovasio provides an abbreviated overview of the thousands
of artifacts within that site. Artifacts included wood, bone, basketry,
cordage and a collection of stone tools- part of an exhaustive study detailed
in millions of words contained in pounds of reports written over a period of
15 years. Taken overall, Adovasio asserts, the site gives a picture of Ice Age
life far more varied than the gathering of super-hunters armed with large
spear points generally presented as the family portrait for Clovis man. He
also details the fractious debate over acceptance of the site - a face-off
culminating in 1997 with the infamous “Showdown at La Caverna,” a saloon near
Monte Verde. Something less than genteel, this verbal shoot with Adovasio at
its core produced some unique theatrics, more than a few bruised egos and
damaged friendships. A panel of researchers embroiled in the fight, including
Haynes, finally accepted the site’s validity and age. But the rancor and
in-fighting continued well into 1999 when Dillehay and Adovasio again blasted
Haynes and the rest of their critics on the floor of the Clovis and Beyond
conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. During that conference, pre-Clovis voices
pronounced the Clovis First movement officially dead and welcomed the opening
of more fertile research possibilities. (For further reading see The
Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory, by Tom D. Dillehay. New
York, Basic Books, 2000).
The quest to determine who the First Americans
were and how and when they came here continues, Adovasio assures us, with
possible new pre-Clovis sites popping up across the land (Cactus Hill and
Saltville in Virginia, Topper in South Carolina, the
Gault Site in central
Texas). There is also lots of new theories about the peopling of the Americas
that need to be explored. These include the possibility that people migrated
here by boat down the north Pacific Ocean from Asia or across the Atlantic
from Europe. In addition to more reliance on basic hard science such as
geology, scientific subfields such as glacial geology, linguistics, molecular
biology, soils analysis, climatology and palynology will provide key evidence
supporting future research, Adovasio suggests. Researchers are using much of
this science while unearthing the new pre-Clovis-age sites across the United
States, research Adovasio cheers and briefly explores. Reliance on a broader
range of artifacts, including basketry and other woven goods, may wind up
telling us more about the human behavior and social organization than we
realize, asserts Adovasio, a specialist in analyzing these so-called “soft”
goods. The ability to use plant fibers to make such goods, he states, may have
been “one of the first major steps in the development of modern humanity as we
know it.”
So, when did the First Americans get here? The
jury’s still out on that question. But from all the available evidence
collected on the subject to date, Adovasio tells us, it appears “more than
one group of people showed up here a long time ago and populated the entire
hemisphere.” The Clovis people may have only been one such group. Some might
see Adovasio’s presentation of continued and sometimes caustic complaints
about pre-Clovis critics in general, and Meadowcroft critics in particular, as
merely a convenient crying towel distraction. Others might view it as opening
the window on the reality of serious scientific debate. Judge for yourself
while reading this frank, detailed and wide-ranging exploration into the
scientific swamp. Adovasio’s use of mug-shot photos, despite their postage
stamp size in some cases, provides a useful and enlightening view of the
players who move across the archaeological stage. Overall, the book is
undeniably a valuable contribution to the literature on one of archaeology’s
landmark subjects.
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