Black's Fork River Wyoming Site

Continuing with this series on ancient pre Clovis sites in America, this post will cover the Black's Fork River site, located in Wyoming, USA, which I didn't know existed until I read about it in Hidden History of the Human Race by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, 1993.

Discovered in the 1930s

The site was discovered by Harold Marion Dunning (1891-1973) a local historian, businessman, and amateur archaeologist. He founded the Loveland Museum in Loveland Colorado and established the local Stone Age Fair.

Dunning, accompanied by his friend and former student, Edison P. Lohr, who also lived in Loveland, found some unusual stone tools, artifacts that were different from the usual Indian arrow points. They came from the terraces along the Black's Fork River.

The river has its sources in the Uinta mountain range in Utah, and is an affluent of the Green River. It heads east across Utah, into Wyoming and then curves south into Colorado, to join the Green River and eventually flow into the Colorado River.

The Black's Fork River has eroded a plateau that has slowly been rising over millennia, and formed terraces. The region was not glaciated, and although it is arid nowadays, in the past it harbored grasslands and open forests.

The two men showed these stone implements to Etienne Bernardeu Renaud (1880-1973), a Frenchman, who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Denver. Renaud was immediately interested, as he had been trained in France, and recognized them as Early Paleolithic tools. Renaud set up an excavation in 1933, finding and collecting more tools along the Black's Fork River between Lyman and Granger, Wyoming (see approx. location in Google Maps).

Ruth Simpson, 1961, see p.32 describes the sites along the river citing three publications by Renaud (the 1936, 1938, and 1940 articles titled "The Archaeological Survey of the High Western Plains", seventh, tenth, and twelfth reports, respectively, University of Denver, Department of Anthropology).

The tools have a definite Lower-Paleolithic appearance, and were foiund in over forty surface sites. There were different types of artifacts grouped into three categories. The "Peripheral" kind, which were small tools, the "Sand Dune" material, which are more recent, and then came the "Typical" artifacts, the hallmarks of "Black's Fork Culture" or "Black's Fork Industry", the Lower-Paleoloithic tools.

These are made of chert and are the oldest of the three. They are mostly large-sized, heavy choppers accompanied by "large scrapers and many coup de poing-like implements", shown in the image below. The assemblies also include crude quartzite pebbles that have been shaped into flaked stone implements, with a dark patina covering their sufaces, which are "strikingly similar to the Pebble Industry placed at the base of the Lower Paleolithic culture sequence on other continents".

Black's Fork River, stone tools. Source, p. 33

Rejected by the Establishment

Renaud described them as "early and late Chellean, and early Acheulian coups-de-poing together with early Clactonian flakes is perfectly consistent and would suggest a cultural complex in America similar to that in Europe" (Source, p.86). These tools, in Europe are the mark of H. erectus.

As expected, the mainstream archaeologists, who had for decades stood beside the theory of a late peopling of America (championed by Ales Hrdlicka), and were now slowly embracing the Clovis First theory which was characterized by Neolithic tools, modern, delicate, and crafted by modern men, with an older arrival date in the Americas (~10 to 13 kya), but definitely not Paleolithic.

During the 1930s, E.B. Renaud explored and excavated the area finding more of these crude stone tools.

Despite Simpson's 1961 commentary quoted further up, the orthodox archaeologists refused to acknowledge these implements as real man-made tools. Renaud was surprised by these rebuttals and wrote in 1938 that his findings were "...harshly criticized by one of the irreconcilable opponents of the antiquity of man in America, who had seen neither the sites nor the specimens. After such subjective and unfair criticism, the best course to pursue was to do more extensive exploration, to collect more numerous specimens, to study them more closely, and to compare them directly with Old World artifacts of well-authenticated origin and established age and culture, and to obtain the expert opinions of qualified scientists not prejudiced on the subject of the antiquity of man in the New World." Source, p.87)

An amateur archaeologist, and art professor, Herbert L. Minshall (1912-1991), supported an early peopling of America, and in his book Buchanan Canyon: Ancient Human Presence in the Americas (1989) mentions the Black's Fork site. Below is an image showing one of the Black's Fork River tools, from his book.

Minshall says that a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, Dr. E. H. Stephens, in 1938, assigned an age of 125,000 to 190,000 years BP, or even earlier. However, by 1940 he had recanted.

The critics gave all tools found along the river a rectn age even though the tools from the older upper terraces are covered with desert varnish (an indication of great age) are have shapes similar to H. erectus crafted tools from the Old World and those from the recent lower terraces resemble Paleoindian tools or Upper Paleolithic, with no desert patina.

Renaud retired in 1948. The matter was ignored, Clovis First had prevailed.

Renaud had visite sites in France during his trips to Europe, including the key sites that gave their name to stone industries: Solutrewan, from Le Solutré, and Mousterian from Le Mostier, just to name two of them. He had seen Neanderthal and early Modern Human tools spanning over 250,000 years.

Yet, even in 1968, an article by Whitthoft and Eyman entioned Renaud's Black's Fork Culture, as "a controversial complex. Great antiquity has been claimed for it. It consists of crude massive tools of quartzite and flint, notable for their primitive character and large size. They have been compared with the most ancient stone tools from Eurasia and Africa" but, added that their survey considered the most recent artifacts that had a crude Clactonian appearance as the work of Shoshone natives while the oldest tools they found "are less than eight thousand years old on geological evidence."

Yet the geological evidence is incomplete because the tools are not embedded in deep stratigraphic layers that could be dated, they are superficial, and, as Minshall affirms "... weathering over long periods in a variety of environments can remove original surfaces by undeterminable amounts, particularly by blowing sand or dust, so that surface finds are usually subject only to personal interpretations based on geological provenience, typology, technological aspects, individual familiarity with similar industries elsewhere, and what might be called a "consensus" or current doctrine, whatever that might be... With the soils reduced by the actions of wind and rain and melting snow, the stone materials had been slowly concentrated into a desert pavement, a mosaic-like surface into which the artifacts had been incorporated as solidly as paveing stones." Minshall, 1989, p.88 & 90.

Schroedl, 1985 (see p. 16) states that "Even Renaud (1940:91) recognized some serious flaws with his chronology of the region. All of the artifacts of the Typical and Peripheral cultures were surface finds; Renaud was unable to locate any buried components from these occupations, components which he expected to produce Pleistocene fauna" (Typical and Peripheral were the oldest elements) and argue that they are in fact recen tools "(Sharrock 1966) has demonstrated that the bulk of the flaked artifacts from these reputed early cultures do not represent crude hand axes and flake implements, but are more parsimoniously interpreted as remnants of lithic reduction stages, e.g., cores, blanks and preforms, instead of paleolithic tools."

Closing Comments

This site is indeed controversial. Assigning an age is complicated, and the orthodox viewpoint has prevailed, assigning a recent, paleoindian origin to these crude Early Paleolithic-like tools. I am open to a Paleolithic peopling of America, but it can only be proven irrefutably with stratigraphic evidence, datable bones of animals and humans. Until then, the question remains open.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Denisovans in America... I found an article about this possibility

My search for scholarly articles about an early peopling of America struck gold today. I came across a post on a blog that was structured like a research paper, which is a nice detail. It was written by Riley Rogerson, and its title is Multi-Level Hominin Migration and Denisovan Presence in the Americas posted on 2025/07/09. It even includes bibliographic references. Well done!

You can read the post at Rogerson's blog, the white letters against a black background make it hard on the eyes (by the way, I also dislike the beige background I chose for my blog, but now it is too late to change it!). Below I summarize the main points and include links to any post I may have written about a specific item.

Abstract: "This theory proposes that Denisovans, an archaic hominin group closely related to Neanderthals, may have been the earliest hominin migrants to the Americas. A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in California suggests hominin activity long before anatomically modern humans are known to have left Africa. During this period, Denisovans inhabited Siberia and may have crossed the Beringia land bridge, establishing ephemeral populations in North America. These groups likely died out without descendants but left behind physical traces. Later, modern humans who interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia crossed into the Americas in intermittent migration waves taking place possibly as early as 37,000 years ago. Genetic findings in a 1,500-year-old skeleton from Uruguay confirm persistent Denisovan ancestry in Indigenous populations, supporting the idea of earlier, layered migrations. This model complicates the standard peopling narrative and opens new avenues for understanding pre-Clovis human history in the Americas."

The article looks into Monte Verde site in Chile (clearly Pre-Clovis, despite current arguments that it is much more recent), the 130 ky old mastodon bones from the Cerutti site in California, the Hartley site (37 ky) in New Mexico, and the 23 ky old footsteps from White Sands.

It correctly argues in favor of an Older Land Bridge between Asia and America: "During periods of low sea level, including Marine Isotope Stage 5e (~130,000 years ago), the Bering land bridge connected northeastern Asia to Alaska, providing a viable (though harsh) migration route for Pleistocene megafauna and, potentially, archaic hominins such as the Denisovans."

I found the comment of admixture within America (Denisovans and modern humans) extremely interesting; it explains the "...elevated Denisovan signature. First, it might indicate a major admixture event occurring in ancestral populations prior to entry into the Americas, resulting in sustained higher levels of Denisovan ancestry in certain lineages. It could alternatively reflect more complex regional population dynamics, such as secondary admixture events occurring within the Americas, potentially involving remnant populations carrying substantial Denisovan ancestry from earlier migrations. This hypothesis implies that Denisovan genetic influence in the Americas may not have been uniformly diluted over time but instead persisted regionally or was periodically refreshed by contacts with isolated groups."

The author argues that "Recent archaeological findings further complicate the picture. Several controversial sites in eastern Beringia, including Old Crow Basin, Chandalar River, and the deeper strata of Bluefish Caves, have produced lithic tools and faunal remains that some researchers interpret as evidence of hominin activity dating from approximately 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. These dates precede the known arrival of anatomically modern humans in northeast Asia, raising the possibility that these occupations reflect short-lived incursions by Denisovan groups during glacial periods when the Bering Land Bridge was exposed. While the artifact status of some materials is debated, the timing and geography align with what is known about Denisovan range and climate-accessible corridors."

The paper suggests some potential avenues for further research, including genetics: "high-resolution mapping of archaic DNA segments in Indigenous populations, may help distinguish between Denisovan ancestry acquired in Asia and ancestry potentially inherited from archaic populations present in the Americas. Third, paleoenvironmental reconstructions of Beringia during MIS 5e and related periods can refine our understanding of when and how migrations might have occurred."

The article is well structured and presents the evidence in a straightforward manner. No controversy, just facts. Well done!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Cinmar site 22 kya (beneath the waves)

A scallop trawler ship called "Cinmar" dredged-up and recovered some prehistoric remains and an eight-inch stone blade (20 cm) back in 1970 while dredging in the Atlantic Ocean 47 miles (75 km) from the shores of Virginia, USA. They were sitting on the continental shelf 250 ft (76 m) below sea level. The mastodon tusk and stone blade were divided by the captain of the ship, Thurston Shawn, among its crew. Years later, in 2008, a geology student, Darrin Lowery, came across them in Gwynn's Island Museum, Virginia. They were dated as being at least 22,000 years old. (Source).

As with all old, pre-Clovis artifacts, it drewn fire from the Clovis first supporters. It was also used by those supporting the Solutrean migration (from Europe to America across the North Atlantic Ocean) during the Last Glacial Maximum.

An interesting analysis can be found in Stafford, Lowery, Bradley al., 2014 that describes the stone tool.

The Mastodon remains were carbon dated to 22,760 RCYBP so the stone tool was estimated to be of the same age. The tool itself is a bifacial rhyolite implement shaped like a laurel leaf (lanceolate) and this is why the Solutreans like it, because this shape is quite unusual. It shows that there were people hunting mammoths on the continental shelf during the Last Glacial Maximum, which was exposed at that time due to lower sea levels.

The rhyolite rock used to make the blade has been analyzed and its source was traced to the South Mountain Catoctin rocks of Pennsylvania, spefcifically to a spot close to Tom's Creek Railroad Tressle. This is 320 km (200 mi) from the Cinmar spot and reveals that these people had been there long enough to trek inland from Chesapeake Bay to find the stone quarry.

An interesting conclusion found in this paper is that the scarcity of site dated between 23 and 15,000 years ago suggests that they may be submerged. The coastal habitat, now underwater would have supported a rich ecosystem that provided these first inhabitants with plenty of food. When it became submerged due to the ice melt of glacial ice at the end of the Last Ice Age, some 14,500 years ago, and with a growing human population, they spread inland into the interior of the continent, resulting in the more abundant Clovis sites.

Solutreans

Cinmar, Beringian and Solutrean routes. Source.

I have discussed the Solutrean people theory in previous posts (white supremacists like it, as it proves a first European settlment in America!) and mentioned that it is upheld by those who believe the X2 mtDNA haplogroup or the R haplogroup in the Y-chromosome found in America came from Europe; I don't support it. However, Stafford et al., are promote it:

"It is important to note that the manufacturing technology used to produce the Chesapeake Bay bifaces and the tool types themselves reflect the same technology as that used by the Solutrean people of southwestern Europe during the LGM (Stanford and Bradley 2012). Although more evidence is needed, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to hypothesize that this early settlement of the East Coast of North America resulted from a European Paleolithic maritime tradition."

The authors point out that the lanceolate shape of the point is unusual in this region, and they included the folowing image in the paper:

Differente lanceolate tools. Stafford et al.

I must point out that Dennis Stafford co-authored a book with Bruce Bradley, with a revealing title: Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture. So we know where they stand when it comes to the Solutrean hypothesis.

Since we only have the version given by the trawler's captain and crew about the finding, and can't confirm if the bones and tool came from the same spot, or even pinpoint its location exactly, there are some doubts about the finding. Metin I. Eren, Matthew T. Boulanger, and Michael J. O'Brien, 2015 are very skeptical and question the story of its discovery, the uncertainty of the site's location (it was dredged up from the sea) and conclude " the reported inconsistencies in the blade's history, there is no confirmable evidence currently available that demonstrates that it was even dredged up by the Cinmar. Thus, even in the event that the same, original underwater mastodon site is eventually empirically proven to be re-located at some point in the future, this re-discovery would not provide context for, or validate, the stone blade's association with it."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

30 ky old bone tool from Tule Springs (a cover-up?)

In my recent post about Clovis First, I mentioned that Vance Haynes had assumed the role of publication gatekeeper and watchdogs to prevent anti-Clovis-First scholars from publishing research that could undermine that theory. I have found some threads in X (twitter) and in forums mentioning conspiracy theories about scientists damaging proof of pre-Clovis sites, but I am not convinced yet, that those allegations are true. What I do know for certain is that Vance Haynes did not believe in an early peopling of America. Today's post looks into a finding that he seems to have ignored due to its old age, because he discarded it, considering it far too old to fit into his neat Clovis First hypothesis!

Below is the quote from the following source: National Park Service (NPS) History Collection, NPS Paleontology Program Records (HFCA 2465). Vincent Santucci’s NPS Oral History Project, 2016-2024. Vance Haynes. May 10, 2016. Interview conducted by Vincent Santucci et al. page 32. Accessed April 10, 2026. (VH is Vance Haynes, and KS is the interviewer):

Quote begins.

VH: To Dick's dying day there were a couple of bone things that were tools.
KS: Mhmm.
VH: In fact, he illustrates them. And because they were –they were polished they were spirally fractured and polished. But I, you know one of the things I pointed out was that if they get into the spring conduit—
KS: Right.
VH: —that's exactly what's going to happen to them
KS: Right.
VH: And it's also about this time that I got to know Hibberd who was this—
KS: Right.
VH: —famous paleontologist from Michigan.
KS: Right, right
VH: And Hibbard was working on these springs in Kansas and one of his springs was, this was a Pliocene spring you know.
KS: Mhmm.
VH: And it's just identical to what we were finding out here. And there were even some stone fragments in that thing that were polished. And they're not artifacts, they're Pliocene. So, it's a springs, it's very interesting what springs can do to make things look like artifacts. There's one I didn't put it in the report, because I always going to, write a little separate thing about it. Potential pre-Clovis artifacts from the spring conduit of Tule Springs. There is a, it's a part of a camel bone. I've forgotten which end of it is, but it's broken in such a way that it forms a perfect point. And exposed the inside.
KS: Mhmm.
VH: And it's beautifully braided on all sides, so it looks like a tool. But it came out of a 30,000- year-old conduit. So, there’s just. You can go through the art assemblages from there and pick but these assemblages that do look like tools."

Quote ends.

Context

Vance Haynes had taken part of the Big Dig at Tule Springs, near Las Vegas, Nevada, a National Monument (visit its official website). He unearthed many bones of extinct and extant animals, and of course, Clovis tools starting around 12 kya. Nothing earlier. This led Haynes to believe that the Clovis people were the first to reach the area. Earlier stuff was not even considered.

He seems to argue that Claude W. Hibbard (1905–1973) had found smilar artifacts in his studies in Kansas (maybe in Meade County). Dick, is Richard Shutler (1921-2007), and Vance implies that Dick believed the polished bones were indeed man made!

But Vance is terminant: "it looks like a tool. But it came out of a 30,000- year-old conduit", and added that "they're not artifacts, they're Pliocene" Their age, in his opinion did not allow him to consider them as tools!

Vance decided to defend the Clovis-First theory and published an article in which he states that the polished bones could be either 12-13 ky or 40 ky old, and guess what? He proves they were young, and fitted them into the Clovis theory: "Two bone objects from the Tule Springs site, possibly tools, occurred in ancient sedimentary fill of a small spring outlet-channel remnant. The ancient spring was active more than 40,000 years ago and again 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. The fill and the bone contained therein could be of either age. Chemical and X-ray analysis on bone of the known ages and bone from the fill showed no significant or systematic differences in fluorine, uranium, nitrogen, or phosphate content. On geological grounds, it is concluded that the bone objects are 12,000 to 13,000 years old." Case Closed, Clovis-First saved.

It is relevant to point out that a pre-Clovis age had been assigned to Tule Springs (Richard Shutler, 1965), but this was dismissed by Vance. Shutler had written that Pleistocene animals, burned earth, stone and bone tools had been radiocarbon dated to 23-28 kya at the site (Harrington and Simpson, 1961).

In The archaeology of archaeologists: "Camp Harrington" and the "Big Dig", Tule Springs, Nevada, 1962-1963, Swope, Murrell, and Aldi, report that "A small unifacial scraper was uncovered in a deposit containing camel bone fragments and organic deposits thought to be charcoal, and a sample from the deposit produced a date in excess of 28,000 BP (Fergusson and Libby 1964; Shutler 1967b). The results of Harrington’s subsequent excavations yielded but a single stone tool definitively linked to human activity and the radiocarbon date."

I wonder what happened to the "bone tools" are they in some box in a university?

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Why did the Clovis First Hypothesis last so long?

If the Clovis first hypothesis or theory was wrong, why was it so pervasive? How could it have last for so long? Many factors contributed to its acceptance, consolidation, prevalence, and survival for over 40 years (1935-1975), and a protracted battle over the next 50 years, that is still being waged.

Today's post will explore the reasons behind the love affair of academia with the Clovis first ideology.

I am indebted to the excellent outline posted by https://x.com/MoundLore on X (twitter) which can be seen online here, which helped me organize my thoughts on this matter. I don't believe that the Clovis First theory was a deliberate conspiracy. Instead, it was a combination of different factors that had a catalyzing effect.

1. Initial Acceptance and a Grand Theory

When Howard proposed the Clovis culture, defined its age, and its big-game hunting society, North American archaeology suffered from many problems and lacked a sound, unifying theory:

• There were no dependable dating techniques (eg. radiocarbon dating was developed in the late 1940s, luminescence dating in the 1960s), only stratigraphic ones, which were unreliable. Deep, older dates were not trusted. In fact, the origin of the human fossils in the Old World were dated to a few thousands or tens of thousands of years at that time (~25 ky for Cro-Magnons and ~50 ky for Neanderthals, 500 ky for the Heidelberg man, and 1 My for the Pithecanthropus
• Most scholars had been formed under the influence of Aleš Hrdlic̄ka who imposed his belief that the Native Americans had arrived via Bering Strait, from Asia, recently (initially not more than 3,000 years ago, later increased to 10,000 years after the Folsom stone tools were discovered in the late 1920s). The late arrival was supported by Hrdlic̄ka's conviction that Amerindians descended from Asians (who they resembled), and did so after the Mongoloid race had differentiated (sorry for the term, but it was used at that time), he stubbornly refused to accept any pre-modern (i.e. Neanderthal) presence in America. Therefore, most American archaeologists supported a recent arrival of the ancestors of Native Americans to the New World.
• The natives were considered a lower race, weak, and feeble-minded, and scientists collected artifacts, bones, skulls, and ignored native myths and beliefs while trying to interpret the data.

The discovery of the Folsom site in the late 1920s shook the archaeological community, man-made stone tools were found beside extinct Pleistocene bisons. Humans had lived in America for at least 10,000 or more years. This was followed by the even earlier Clovis points that were then found in different locations across North America, of a similar late Pleistocene age (breaking with the previous dogma set by Hrdlic̄ka), and coinciding with the demise of the megafauna like mammoths, large bisons, camels, and giant sloths, was a catalyst that brought all these elements together into a new race of big-game hunters 12,000 years ago, that took the New World by surprise as soon as the ice sheets retreated. Nice and neat, intellectualy comfortable, no loose ends.

Although there had been some isolated claims about early Pleistocene findings, they had been silenced by academic orthodoxy before the Folsom and Clovis discoveries (Jenks, 1932 and Jenks, 1937, and his Minnesota Man), and the Natchez human pelvis found below the level of megafauna remains (Wilson, 1895).

Clovis provided a coherent framework for scientists to work with, based on their preconceptions and assumptions. Soon Clovis sites appeared across America.

2. Clovis becomes Mainstream

The acceptance, and further discoveries fueled publications, fed collections, expanded slots in museums, and became included in textbooks. Clovis was taught in college to a new generation of archaeologists. The general public became aware of the Clovis people.

Each new site contributed to reinforcing the preceeding findings. Academic careers were built on these discoveries. Tenures and publications resulted from research projects linked to Clovis.

The outcome of this process was the entrenchment of the Clovis idea in the archaeological community. Funding and grants were awarded to projects that would support the Clovis notion. Challenging theories were discarded and went unfunded.

Even if a scholar went ahead and produced research that conflicted with the Clovis orthodoxy, it was rejected during the peer review process. Journals refused to publish them.

3. Resistance to Change

Thomas Kuhn outlined the concept of paradigm shift in science, it is a natural process by which theories and basic assumptions change. Science moves forward in bursts, when a revolution ousts an entrenched orthodoxy (an existing "paradigm") replacing it with a new one.

As anomalies appear (sites that are older than the established paradigm), tensions build up, and before the crisis, the orthodoxy fights back. Accepting a new paradigm implies rewriting history, modifying books, upsetting established courses in colleges, modifying museum layouts. Change is costly and people resist it.

Watchdogs appear. The role of Hrdlic̄ka as the gatekeeper, and watchdog, in the case of Clovis First, was played by C. Vance Haynes. His work at Tule Springs, a site located close to Las Vegas, Nevada, US, converted him into an ardent supporter of the Clovis First theory. He has been described as the Godfather within the "Clovis mafia".

Haynes research at Tule Springs led him to believe that there had been no humans at that site prior to 13 ky BP. There were animal remains spanning tens of thousands of years, but the only humans were the Clovis, and they appeared all of a sudden, 13,000 years ago.

In my next post I will mention Haynes and a pre-Clovis tool that he found, and ignored, possibly 30,000 years old, there at Tule Springs.

Haynes and the notion of a late ice-free corridor (published in the mid 1960s), made the theory invulnerable to attacks. Haynes refuted, identified trivial weaknesses, attacked, and disqualified other findings.

An online article in the Smithsonian magazine describes the negation and suppression of pre-Clovis dates: "It was a brutal experience, something that Cinq-Mars once likened to the Spanish Inquisition. At conferences, audiences paid little heed to his presentations, giving short shrift to the evidence. Other researchers listened politely, then questioned his competence. The result was always the same. “When Jacques proposed [that Bluefish Caves was] 24,000, it was not accepted,” says William Josie, director of natural resources at the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow. In his office at the Canadian Museum of History, Cinq-Mars fumed at the wall of closed minds. Funding for his Bluefish work grew scarce: his fieldwork eventually sputtered and died."

4. Religion

The Christian Bible upholds certain dogma, like the Noachian flood, the dispersal of races after the failed Babylon tower project, and an early (a few millennia) origin of mankind (God's creation of Adam and Eve). These pose time constraints that cause friction with scientific theories.

There are several weird ideas related to religion involving the peopling of America, these are some examples that I found online: The Clovis people died in Noah's flood, Clovis people descended from Noah arrived by boat after the Flood, they reached America after the Babel dispersion.

It may not seem important, but don't forget that a 2025 Religious poll found that 57% of adult Americans believe that Hell exists, 49% believe that the Bible is 100% accurate in its teachings, 68% believe in an unchanging God and 71% assume him as a Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit).

5. Cultural Dominance

But what about the Native Americans. These people have their own creation myths, oral traditions dating back in time that state that they have always been here, in America, since Time inmemorial.

Now, in a more woke period, Richard W. Stoffle, Kathleen A. Van Vlack, Heather H. Lim, Alannah Bell, Landon Yarrington, 2024 note that the Native Americans ancient beliefs are gaining relevance among scholars. These authors acknowledge that it wasn't always the case:

"... the Clovis first theory... was the dominant interpretation of the past throughout most of the 20th century and into the 21st century. It precluded the acceptance of Native American Pleistocene observations as they were presented in Native rock paintings, rock peckings, and oral history that depicted and interpreted large Pleistocene animals and glacial wetland ecology. During this time, it was the standard practice of western scholars and land managers to reject Native interpretations of ancient times. Pleistocene-specific observations were even removed from ethnographic reports by land managers and debunked in science papers and journals because Native American observations did not align with what western scientists deemed to be true"

Native Americans were silenced and ignored. They didn't support the Clovis First theory, or in fact any theory that puts their position as "First People", or, as we call them in South America, Pueblos Originarios (Original People).

One of the few natives to reject the Clovis First theory was a Native American named Vine Deloria Jr. (1933-2005), he was a lawyer, theologist, university professor and scholar. As a Standing Rock Lakota, he held a strong point of view about Western civilization and academia, and its influence on how history is written. He was an advocate for the rights and claims of Native Americans.

In his controversial and provocative book Red Earth White Lies, published in 1995 he criticizes Western science and puts forward many pseudoscientific notions, for instance, that geology is mistaken, humans and dinosaurs were contemporaries, high levels of carbon dioxide and a fluctuating gravity coefficient lead to gigantism, and the theory of Evolution is wrong, just to mention a few. However he does hit the nail on the head when he suggests that scientists revere orthodoxy, and science is essentially a religion, with its scientific myths.

It should be noted that Deloria believed that the oral traditions of Native Americans accurately describe what happened in the past. Their versions should be considered the truth until science can provide strong, data-backed evidence to refute them. This concept also had a political point of view, to ratify the Native American people's oral tradition as being the correct interpretation of historic events, such as the treaties they were forced to sign with the U.S. or Canada.

Stoffle et al., 2025, acknowledge Deloria's work and adopt a critical view science's attitude: "that there is no Native truth unless it is supported by western truth —an argument that only further validates Deloria's claims that Native American knowledge and history are being suppressed by the limitations of western science."

Philip J. Deloria, Vine's son, wrote that his father's book is hard to defend. However, he understands where his father was going with it. Vine Deloria believed that the Beringia crossing into America made Native Americans migrants, they were one of many who migrated to America, with the Western Europeans being the last. The Natives did so early, but were migrants just the same we are all migrants in the New World. He also disagreed with the notion that these first people entered a vacant, virgin continent, untouched by humans, it wasn't owned, it was there to be taken. The idea that these new-arrivals then overkilled the megafauna to extinction, a gross violation of the idea that Native Americans understood their environment and were stewards, led him to propose catastrophic events leading to the extinction.

Conclusion

Only when irrefutable evidence had accumulated, and genetic information backed by these earlier archaeological dates put forward early dates for genetic splits in Asian lineages, did the Clovis First yield. Slowly, but inevitably the pre-Clovis field gained momentum and is now the prevailing dogma, though, some holdouts of the former orthodoxy remain, like Surovell.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

21 ky old cut marks on a glyptodont in Argentina

This post will discuss a research paper published in 2024, that describes man-made cuts on the bones of an extinct megafaunal mammal, some 21,000 years ago in the Argentine Pampas in Buenos Aires, very close to the city of Buenos Aires.

The research article is the following (notice its title!): Del Papa M, De Los Reyes M, Poiré DG, Rascovan N, Jofré G, Delgado M (2024) Anthropic cut marks in extinct megafauna bones from the Pampean region (Argentina) at the last glacial maximum. PLoS ONE 19(7): e0304956. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304956

The paper's abstract clearly states an old date for human presence in Southern South America: " we present the analysis of fossil remains with cutmarks belonging to a specimen of Neosclerocalyptus (Xenarthra, Glyptodontidae), found on the banks of the Reconquista River, northeast of the Pampean region (Argentina), whose AMS 14C dating corresponds to the Last Glacial Maximum (21,090–20,811 cal YBP)."

Fig 9. Drawing of a Neosclerocalyptus skeleton highlighting cut-marked skeletal elements in light blue found at the CRS-10 specimen.. From Del Papa et al., 2024

The article concludes, after discussing the subject in depth, that:

"Our results, fit with recent findings showing evidence of human occupation between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago in Central and South America as well as North America. Finally, a recent study has suggested that the upper limits of the chronological range for megamammal species commonly exploited by humans in South America date back to 18 k cal BP while the archaeological signal goes back to 16 k cal BP, indicating, along with the evidence provided by others sites mentioned above, that the archaeological signal of the human occupation of southern South America is consistently and progressively reaching the Last Glacial Maximum. Taken together, these evidences allow envisages a new perspective regarding the timing of the initial entry of humans to the Americas."

So this is another very old site that reveals a very early presence of human beings in the southern reaches of South America 21,000 years ago. When did these people enter the New World? Possibly 30 or more kya. Again, I wonder how many similar or even older sites are out there, waiting to be discovered?

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Arroyo Vizcaino, Uruguay: a 33 ky spear lesion in an extinct ground sloth

This is another post in my series on pre-Clovis sites in America. A bone of an extinct ground sloth, a Lestodon, found in Uruguay, close to its capital city of Montevideo was reported last year by Fariña et al. The research paper cautiously suggests that the hole in the bone of this sloth was caused by humans, 33,000 years ago.

Read the original paper: Fariña RA, Hayes E, Lemoine LA, Fullagar R, Tambusso PS, Varela L (2025) An indentation in a 33,000-year-old right calcaneus of the ground sloth Lestodon (Xenarthra, Folivora) from Uruguay and its possible human agency. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology 144: 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13358-025-00379-0

The hole caused by... a spear? 33,000 years ago. From Fariña et al., 2025

The hole in the right calcaneus (a bone in the paw) of a ground sloth (Lestodon armatus), was found in Uruguay, in a site by a creek (Arroyo Vizcaíno), that has been dated by radiocarbon to 33,000 cal years ago. The authors, who made a cast of the hole and sampled it "argue that it could have been created by a penetrating object with a rounded tip, possibly a bone, ivory or hardened wood tip attached to a shaft. This evidence contributes to discussions on the dates of human arrival in South America and the potential interactions with the megafauna."

The paper points out that the lesion hadn't healed, it was not caused by cancer (neoplasia). It discards an attack by a predator as there are no other lesions in the bones (why would only one tooth of the preadotr impact the prey?). The article finds damage associated with fracture caused by penetration.

"The analysis of the mark and rounded surfaces within the indentation suggests that the perforating object had a rounded cross-section without a sharpened tip. We propose it was more likely to be made of bone, ivory or (less likely) hardened wood, inserted into a shaft or sleeve that was long enough to allow sufficient energy to penetrate the thick bone and allow rotational and lateral movement to generate the double cavity visible in the CT scan. In addition, the attack angle and location suggests a very close range attack of about 1 or 2 m away, which requires a club like and a hafted point heavy enough to produce the force required to break the relatively thick flat face of the calcaneus at this short distance."

Interestingly, the authors note a link with Siberian hunting technology: "Osseous projectile technologies are representative of the Early Upper Palaeolithic to Late Upper Palaeolithic industries in central and eastern Siberia and are key to understanding initial human dispersal in the Americas." In a recent post, I mentioned this when I wrote about the Yana Rive Site in Siberia and their bone foreshafts!

This is just another pre-Clovis site, but 33,000 years old, in Southern South America. Which prompts me to ask: how many more are out there, waiting to be discovered? and also why are so few discovered? Lack of research funds in South America seems to be the main reason, because when the local researchers look for pre-Clovis evidence, they find it!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Japanese and pre-Clovis North American stone points are similar, and 20 ky old

Continuing with the Clovis people, and their lanceolate stone points (leaf shaped, without a stem, with a flatter, concave tip opposite its point), a paper published in Science by Madsen et al., 2025 reported that similar stone-knapping technologies were used in Japan around 20,000 years ago and in North America 15,000 to 16,000 years ago, producing stemmed stone points. This occurred before the Clovis-style lanceolate points appeared.

This is the paper: David B. Madsen et al., Characterizing the American Upper Paleolithic. Sci. Adv. 11, eady9545(2025). DOI :10.1126/sciadv.ady9545. I had already posted about it in the context of an early peopling of America, today I will refer to it in the context of Clovis "late" and also an even earlier arrival date into America before 27 kya.

The paper studied tools found in ten different ancient pre-Clovis sites (including Friedkin and Page-Ladson mentioned in my previous post) dating back to the North American Upper Paleolitic (AUP) and compared them with tools unearthed in Japan.

With some the exception of the Schaefer, Hebior, and White Sands sites, all the others share similar stone working technologies and are ancient: "Age estimates associated with the basal AUP components at these sites range between ~20,000 and ~13,500 cal yr B.P. Because the 10 sites are widely distributed across North America south of the ice sheet, the AUP populations associated with their occupations were also apparently widespread, albeit perhaps thinly. Given this wide distribution and the associated age range, we speculate that the initial occupation of lower-latitude North America likely occurred around 20,000 cal yr B.P."

This is interesting, widespread across the subcontinent 20 ky ago! The paper also questions the Beringian origin and the "standstill" hypothesis.

"... there are no known stone tool complexes in Beringia that are old enough and/or similar enough to be possible progenitors of AUP technology. All lithic tool assemblages in eastern Beringia postdate ~14,500 cal yr B.P., lack large core-and-blade production, and are characterized by a microblade technology and a small “teardrop-shaped” projectile point pattern that is not found in the AUP.
...
In other words, present speculation that ANA [Ancient Native American] populations and AUP technology originated in Beringia, e.g., (7, 8), is just that—speculation—and so we need to look elsewhere for a likely cultural progenitor of the AUP. The archeological record of the northwestern Pacific Rim’s Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kuril (PSHK) peninsula and its vicinities in continental East Asia is older than the AUP, is geographically most proximal to North America, and is therefore the more likely region where an AUP cultural progenitor may be found.
...
The distinctive technological features seen in Hokkaido LUP [Late Upper Paleolithic] lithic assemblages dating to between ~20,000 and ~16,000 cal yr B.P. provide some of the strongest clues potentially linking the cultural patterns of the LUP in the PSHK to the AUP. While we cannot yet determine whether the LUP populations on Hokkaido or elsewhere in the PSHK [Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kuril region] (or Beringia, for that matter) were directly genetically related to the First Americans, their technological lithic traditions do suggest potential cultural connections. "

Map showing the locations mentioned in the paperE. Fig. 1 in Madsen et al., 2025

Clovis period was short lived

Clovis points appeared ~13,275 to ~12,980 cal yr B.P. but "were largely abandoned by the end of the very short ~600 to ~250-year Clovis period" they were replaced by the Folsom style points.

Lack of Microblades hint at a very early date for the peopling of America: older than 27 kya

The theory sounds interesting, but there are some things that it does not explain. For instance, there are no microblades in among the AUP stone tools. Yet these are found in Northeastern Asia and Hokkaido in Japan in sites that are older than 20,000 years (Figure 9 in the paper shows that microblades first appeared 27 kya). The authors find this "intriguing" (because they are constrained by orthodox pre-Clovis dates for the peopling of America which do not contemplate very early dates). They suggest that microblades are an adaptation to the colder environment of Northern Asia (?). A simple explanation is that the first people to reach America did so before microblades were developed, in other words they did so over 27 ky ago.

And, unsurprisingly, the paper states that "Although the exact timing is uncertain, the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets appears to have closed by around 26,000 cal yr B.P. and remained impassable until after the appearance of AUP sites south of the continental ice sheets." This, in my opinion suggests that these people entered America before 26,000 years ago while the corridor was open (which coincides, more or less, with the 27 ky limit mentioned above). What other proof do you need?

But the paper, constrained by current orthodox timelines proposes a later migration along a coastal route 20,000 years ago and proposes the following dates and supporting literature:

"Praetorius et al., in a review of environmental conditions along the Pacific coast of North America, particularly variations in the strength of counterclockwise coastal currents, suggest that the most optimal times for a coastal migration during this period were between ~24,500 and ~22,000 cal yr B.P. and again between ~20,000 and ~19,000 cal yr B.P. Similarly, on the basis of an examination of faunal records from the same southern Alaska and Canadian coastal zone, Steffen concludes that glacial ice cover “probably hindered” migration starting between ~23,300 and ~20,000 cal yr B.P. and lasted until ~18,900 to ~17,700 cal yr B.P. Together, these studies conclude that conditions were optimal for a coastal migration into the Americas sometime about 22,000 years ago, a time estimate compatible with our archeologically based estimate of sometime shortly before ~20,000 cal yr B.P."

The authors also open the window for an earlier migration, by sea (as mentioned in my previous post on this paper) "Alternatively, the migration may have been rapid but also have occurred any time. By ~30,000 cal yr B.P., Upper Paleolithic seafarers were using sea-going vessels to access some of the outer islands in the Japanese archipelago, and were capable of negotiating the Kuroshio Current, one of the fastest in the world. This suggests that such experienced seafarers may also have been capable of handling adverse Pacific coastal currents. Either way, environmental constraints on the timing of the initial occupation of the Americas may not have been much of a factor."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Two pre-Clovis sites (Florida and Texas)

Continuing with my series on pre-Clovis sites, today's post will mention two research papers published in Science in 2016 and 2018 describing the ages and artifacts unearthed at pre-Clovis archeological sites in Florida and Texas, USA.

14,550-year-old site in Page-Ladson site, Florida

Jessi J. Halligan et al., Pre-Clovis occupation 14,550 years ago at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, and the peopling of the Americas. Sci. Adv. 2, e1600375(2016). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.1600375 reported this site located on the Aucilla River, beneath 9 m (27 ft) of water, on the panhandle side of Florida.

The site had been explored between 1983 and 1997 and the dating of 14.4 ky had been disputed by the Clovis "firsters". Halligan et al. revisited the spot in 2012-2014 and confirmed its antiquity. They recovered several chert tools. Interestingly, the original excavation had found domestic dog bones, but Halligan et al. didn't manage to confirm this finding. If it was verified, the domestic dog would have arrived in America with these pre-Clovis people!

"At Page-Ladson, hunter-gatherers, possibly accompanied by dogs, butchered or scavenged a mastodon carcass at the sinkhole’s edge next to a small pond at ~14,550 cal yr B.P. These people had successfully adapted to their environment; they knew where to find freshwater, game, plants, raw materials for making tools, and other critical resources for survival. This occupation was during the ~14,000 to 15,000 cal yr B.P. period when there is clear evidence that humans were exploring and settling the Americas. Page-Ladson is located ~8500 km from Monte Verde, ~3500 km from Paisley Caves, and ~1500 km from the Schaefer, Hebior, and Friedkin sites, where other successful groups of hunter-gatherers were adapting to those environments. As at other places, the people at Page-Ladson coexisted with and utilized megafauna for ~2000 years before these animals became extinct at ~12,600 cal yr B.P.; however, the role humans played in this extinction process is unknown.
The record of human habitation of the Americas between ~14,000 and 15,000 cal yr B.P. is sparse but real. The rarity of these early sites along the Gulf Coastal Plain of North America is largely due to two factors: sediment preservation, and burial and submergence during the late Pleistocene transgression. Page-Ladson shows that much of the earliest record of human habitation of the American Southeast lies submerged and buried in unique depositional settings like those found along the Aucilla River. This record can only be accessed through underwater investigation, which, if undertaken with intensity and focus, should reveal a rich and abundant pre-Clovis record for the American Southeast."

13,500 to 15,500-year-old site in Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas

Michael R. Waters et al., Pre-Clovis projectile points at the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas—Implications for the Late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Sci. Adv. 4, eaat4505(2018).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aat4505 report the excavations at this site in Texas, USA, and reach some interesting conclusions about the origin of the Clofvis points:

"... below Folsom and Clovis horizons, we find stemmed projectile points dating from ~13.5 to ~15.5 ka ago, with a triangular lanceolate point form appearing ~14 ka ago. The sequential relationship of stemmed projectile points followed by lanceolate forms suggests that lanceolate points are derived from stemmed forms or that they originated from two separate migrations into the Americas."

Clovis and Folsom points are lanceolate (leaf-shaped: an oval shape that tapers towards each tip, with a concave base) but all earlier pre-Clovis points are stemmed, meaning they have a tapered tip on one end, and a stem to secure it to a shaft on the other). The Fell Cave tools used in South America are also stemmed, suggesting its earlier introduction into the subcontinent.

The maps below outline their conclusions (it also shows the Florida site in Page-Ladson).

Original image caption. Fig. 6 Proposed models explaining the peopling of the Americas. (A) The earliest people exploring the Americas used stemmed projectile points and traveled along the coast ~16 ka ago, moved inland, and reached the Debra L. Friedkin site by ~15.5 ka ago and South America by ~14.2 ka ago (blue arrows). (B) A triangular lanceolate projectile point form develops in situ from the earlier lanceolate stemmed form ~14 ka ago, with Clovis developing ~13 ka ago and spreading across most of the United States and northern Mexico (red arrows). (C) Alternatively, the origin of Clovis may be explained by a second migration that occurs with people using triangular lanceolate points traveling through the ice-free corridor and reaching the Friedkin site by ~14 ka ago. Clovis develops in situ ~13 ka ago and spreads across central and eastern North America (red arrows). Archaeological sites with ages are shown. Colored regions on the map show the general distribution of Clovis, with highest densities in the east (brown), moderate densities in the central United States (orange), and light densities in the west (yellow), overlapping with the Western Stemmed Tradition shown by the cross-hatch pattern.

This paper suggests that the first people to reach North America did so in boats along the Pacific coast as the ice blocked an inland terrestrial route until 14 ky ago. Then they people moved inland from the coast. The authors propose that the lanceolate Clovis and Folsom points evolved from the stemmed points of these first arrivals or, alternatively, that it was brought by a second wave (now, the Clovis aren't first, but second!) of migrants: "Stemmed points could have arrived with the first people to settle the Pacific and Gulf coasts, while other groups carrying some form of lanceolate point could have entered later through the inland, ice-free corridor."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Topper Site, South Carolina, US - 50 ky old?

Topper site is located in Allendale County, South Carolina, US (see it in Google Maps). It was named after a local who showed it to Albert C. Goodyear, as a chert quarry, and a good spot to look for paleo-Indian stone tools. Goodyear first excavated the site in 1986, and he recovered Clovis-style tools there in the 1990s.

Digging Deeper

Reflecting the mindset of that time (which still prevails), Goodyear said that after hitting the Clovis stone points roughly 3 feet (1 m) below the surface, the dig stopped. After all, there were no people in America before the Clovis arrived (How many times have I written that American archaeologists don't dig deep enough to find older evidence of people in America?)

Goodyear is quoted as saying: "Back then, I wasn’t particularly interested in, or even believed that there probably was any serious pre-Clovis in North America... You don’t look for what you don’t believe in, so I sort of stopped there. I wasn’t finding any artifacts, so to me that was the end of the dig." This is something I have mentioned in previous posts. Nobody digs deep enough to find anything older than 15 ky in America!

But, prodded by the pre-Clovis Monte Verde site in Chile, and the fact that chert of this site would have been a valuable asset for making stone tools to earlier people reaching the area, Goodyear dug deeper (4 meters or 13 feet below the Clovis layer). His efforts were rewarded, he found older tools that were different from the Clovis fluted point style. These tools were relatively simple. They were dated by OSL (luminescence) dating methods to 15.2 ky ago; definitively pre-Clovis.

During his initial explorations (see Goodyear, 2000) he reported that "this date would indicate that the preClovis artifacts, which are found predominantly in the lower half of this unit, are at least 16,000 years old and probably older."

Pre-Clovis stone tools, Topper Site. Fig. 4 in Goodyear, 2000

Digging even deeper into older sediments Goodyear unearthed a chert stone, now known as "Big Red", that shows evidence of human flaking. Goodyear says is probably 50,000 years old Source.

In his 2018 research article (Goodyear, A., 2018. The Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Topper Site, Allendale County, South Carolina. Early Human Life on the Southeastern Coastal Plain), Goodyear states that "Below a substantial Clovis occupation lies a preClovis assemblage consisting of core and flake technologies associated with two Pleistocene alluvial deposits. The deepest occupation is buried in a meander phase terrace with radiocarbon dates in excess of 50,000 years. Indirectly associated radiocarbon dates of the upper alluvial zone indicates an age of 25,000 to 38,000 years ago. Topper is currently oldest radiocarbon dated preClovis site in the Western Hemisphere."

See also another paper published in 2018: Goodyear and Sain, 2018, The Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Topper Site, Allendale County, South Carolina🔒 (free access to the paper🔓). This paper clearly confirms the early dates for this site:

"In their appraisal of the dating of Topper, Waters et al. (2009:1309) reported that it dated diachronously, from minimally about 15,000 yrs B.P. to at least 50,000 or more years. e radiocarbon dating of the WPAS deposit with the cores farther up the terrace ranging from 25,330 B.P. to 28,810 B.P. is the probable minimal age of the upper pre-Clovis assemblage. at being the case, the beginning of the site as found in the Pleistocene ter-race would still be minimally about 50,000 yrs B.P. or more. A time span of 25,000 to 50,000 B.P. or longer is still a remarkable amount of time for a lithic technology to persist, at least by New World standards."

Clovis First Reaction

Of course, Clovis First supporters have had their say suggesting that the old tools are not man-made, but rocks shaped by natural processes, mere geofacts, the site's old ages are also doubted, and they suggest that animal burrows that disturbed the soil, causes younger tools to move downwards and appear deeper, and therefore older. See this article and this one. A 2009 paper politely recognizes the pre-Clovis tools but in a very conditional way, and casts doubts about them being man-made: "Hypothesized pre-Clovis artifacts derive from several stratigraphic units below the Clovis horizon at Topper. However, the anthropogenic origin of the “Topper assemblage” has yet to be adequately demonstrated and it may be natural in origin..."

The Younger Dryas Meteor

Even Surovell in 2009, the person who wrote the Clovis-strikes-back paper about Monte Verde analyzed the Topper Site to discredit a paper that proposed that a meteor impact led to the megafauna extinction and a period known as Younger Dryas (Firestone, 2009). If it was a meteor and not big-game Clovis hunters that killed the mammoths, it undermines the Clovis First theory. As expected from a Clovis-firster, Surovell didn't find proof of any meteor. However, a re-analysis of the site by LeCompte and Goodeayear, 2012 did.

The Younger Dryas event took place between 12.9 and 11.7 kya, and was a sudden cooling event that interrupted the warming period that followed the end of the last Ice Age. Temperatures dropped almost 10°C (18°F), affecting plants, anmilas and humans. The causes are under study. One theory suggests that the freshwater influx from glacial ice melt into the North Atlantic affected the circulation of the warm Gulf Stream current, another posits that a comet or meteor broke up in the upper atmosphere causing a "nuclear winter". But in the Southern Hemisphere, the effect was the opposite, it warmed up!

Personally, I don't have an opinion about the Younger Dryas meteor, but I will post about it in the near future.

The meteoric impact forms part of the conflict between Clovis-firsters and pre-Clovis supporters. Goodyear and LeCompte found more meteoric dust (microspherules) in the Clovis tools sediment layer at Topper and dusting the Clovis tools, but, after removing them, the soil beneatht them had 30 times less microspherules, proof that they fell during the Clovis time. This is rejected by Clovis First supporters, they believe that the Clovis people spread out and hunted the megafauna to extinction and dissipated into other cultures. The meteor with its environmental impact refutes both explanations.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Hayden and the Malpais-San Dieguito people ~40 kya

In 1976, Julian Dodge Hayden (1911–1998) published his ideas about a pre-Clovis group of people who lived in the Southwest of the United States some 30 to 40,000 years ago.

Hayden described a "pre-Paleoindian" human culture that lived during the Malpais pluvial, a humid period that spanned between 20 and 32 ky ago. Later, these people developed a stone tool culture known as San Dieguito, in the Sierra de Pincate area in the north of Sonora, Mexico. The Malpais stone tools were first described by Malcom Jennings Rogers (1890-1960) in the 1920s, who used the Malpais to name them, and later adopted the San Dieguito term for them. Hayden adopted it.

"The phase sequence goes: Malpais, which refers to the earliest inhabitants with a pre-projectile point horizon who entered the area 30,000–40,000 years ago and who used a basic flake and core tool technology (flakes and ‘choppers’); followed by San Dieguito I, II, and III phases. San Dieguito describes a long-lived industry widely spread over southeastern California, northern Baja California, northern Sonora, Mexico, southern and western Arizona, and southern Nevada (Huckell 1998). Bruce Huckell has identified a San Dieguito site in proximity to Organ Pipe at Dateland on the Lower Gila River in southwestern Arizona (1998:145)." source

But, how old are these San Diegito stones? Hayden gave them an age of 30,000 to 40,000 years based, not on radiocarbon or other technological tools. Hayden estimated the age based on their appearance. The objects have a glassy, dark "desert varnish", the outcome of thousands of years of exposure to the wind, the sun and rain. It is caused by silica leaching from the rocks, and is also found on Martian rocks (read all about desert varnish in this Science article). There have been several attempts to use desert varnish for dating purposes, but none of them are reliable. One research paper states that rock varnish forms at a rate of 1-40 microns every 1000 years.

Hayden claimed that: "Two degrees of thickness of desert varnish on pavement and associated artifacts provide evidence that man was present during a pluvial period preceding an altithermal episode centering around 17,000 B.C., as well as throughout the well-known Pluvial period. The formation of caliche below ground level helps place excavated artifacts in sequence. M. J. Rogers' term “Malpais” is revived and assigned to the earlier pluvial occupation, basal to “San Dieguito Phase I (SD I)” of the Pluvial."

Hayden's work is the following: Hayden, Julian D. (1976), Pre-Altithermal Archaeology in the Sierra Pinacate, Sonora, Mexico. American Antiquity 41(3):274–289. 🔒

The term altithermal is a formal one referring to the warming up caused by the end of the last Ice Age, so this is Pre-Altithermal, or preceeding the last glacial period.

An interview with Hayden in 1988 provides some insight into his research:

"... the desert pavement. Sierra Pinacate is a volcanic complex composed of basalt left by the ejecta and lava flows of an ancient eruption. When the soil is blown away during periods of drought, the basalt stones drop down upon a bed of clay, which will not support plant life. This is the desert pavement. Once formed, it is more or less permanent except for human disturbance. Tools dropped on the desert pavement remain lying atop it and are thereby identified as being more recent; tools within or troiecting throuch the navement are necessarily as old projecting through the pavement are necessarily as old or older than it is, as the composition of the pavement prevents anything from sinking through it.
...
Rogers himself had noted in the Colorado desert back in the 1930s that San Dieguito I tools, bifacially flaked and thinly varnished differed from other tools flaked and thinly varnished, found in the same area which were unifacially flaked and heavily varnished. Indeed, it was the latter to which he nad tentanvely appiled the name Maipais before abandoning the notion of a basal stage as untenable, in the absence of a reliable non-subjective technique of dating. Hayden had noticed a similar phenomenon at Ventana Cave. When he got to Sierra Pinacate, Hayden not only found tools which differed in their amount of varnish found tools, but observed that the SD-I tools, as well as those of a more recent culture called Amargosan, lay on top of the desert pavement. The heavily varnished unifacial tools either projected from the similarly varnished pavements or had been dropped upon still older pavements, establishing a sequence. Hayden therefore revived the name and theory of a basal Malpais Complex.
At this time another piece of the puzzle fell into place. From Malpais times until recently, a number of tools were made out of shell brought inland from the Bay of Adair. East of the present shoreline, Hayden found aeolian dunes with food shell remains: occupied dunes. The weathered surface shell yielded a radiocarbon date of 33,950±1250 years B.P., the lower level dates in excess of 37.000 vears B.P. It has been only in the last few thousand years that the sea level has risen and brought the shoreline close enough to harvest shellfish conveniently from the bay within traveling distance from the dunes.
...
[this helped] Hayden to realize with some assurance that he was dealing with two stages within the Malpais Complex: Malpais II, older than 17,000 years B.P., and Malpais I, an earlier from 22,000 years B.P. to at least 28,000 years B.P., and quite possibly exceeding the 33,000-37,000 year old shell dates. Varnish ages are, of course, minimum ages marking varnish-forming periods, with no implication or indication of how long the artifact had been made prior to varnishing."

This is his work on the shells at Adair Bay: Hayden, Julian D. [unsigned] 1981 [C-14 ages of foodshell from occupied dunes of the Bay of Adair, Sonora, Mexico] American Antiquity 46: 933.

Hayden's publication was controversial: "Hayden's discussion while certainly provocative, suffers from the same shortcomings as those found in the work of his mentor, M. J. Rogers. He presents his conclusions in some detail with only very general references to the data upon which it presumably rests. Further the use of desert pavement patination (either desert varnish or oxidation) and caliche as dating criteria are no more verified now than they were when Rogers attempted to use them. Independent verification of the paleoclimatic material might bolster his case, if he could demonstrate a correlation with the cultural remains." (Crabtree, 1981).

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Clovis First

The "Clovis Fist" theory has recently received some media attention due to the publication by one of its staunch defenders that suggests a post-Clovis date for one of the oldest pre-Clovis sites in the Americas, suggesting that it is far more recent than previously believed. (see my post on the new date for ancient Monte Verde site in Chile).

But, what exactly do we mean by Clovis or pre- and post-Clovis? Today I will summarize the Clovis First theory.

It al began in Clovis, New Mexico, USA

A young man named Ridgely Whiteman found some stone points and mammoth bones in 1929 in a spot known as Blackwater Draw, a temporary stream that, ~10 miles SW of Clovis, New Mexico (see Google Map). Whiteman had been following the discovery of the Folsom stone points in Folsom, in northwestern New Mexico (see map) when he made his discovery.

A few years later, in 1932 archaeologist Edgar B. Howard and his student John L. Cotter had been digging in Buttler cave close to Carlsbad, New Mexico, 150 mi. (250 km) southeast of Clovis. While stopping in Carlsbad, the scientists learned from an amateur archaeologist, A.W. "Pete" Anderson, who had founded an archaeologist society in Clovis, about the Clovis finds. Anderson led them to the site. Howard and Cotter excavated the area and discovered some distinctivly shaped stone tools with fluted points. They were deemed to be old, as they lay beneath a layer of sediment that contained buffalo bones and another type of stone tools, the ones that had been discovered in Folsom (Folsom points), and which were considered to be Pleistocene artifacts.

Over the next five years Howard dug at the site, and in 1935 he published Clovis Evidence of Early Man in North America

This discovery was important because it followed the discovery of a pointed stone tool discovered by Jesse Higgins in 1926, near Folsom, also in New Mexico. The digging also produced bones from an extinct species of bison, suggesting a Pleistocene age for human beings in America.

At that time, the official doctrine that had been imposed 30 years earlier by Ales Hrldicka and William Henry Holmes of the Smitshonian Institution, and Thomas Chamberlin of the United States Geological Survey, refused to accept that humans had reached America before the end of the last Ice Age, and placed their arrival around 3,000 to 10,000 years ago. The discovery of the Folsom points, and the Clovis stone tools confirmed that the 10,000 year-old ceiling could be ignored. These tools suggested that there had been people in North America around 13,000 years ago.

The prevailing orthodox dogma was replaced by a new theory, the "Clovis First" one. Which proposed that the people that had designed and used these fluted stone points, were the first to reach America from Asia, through Beringia. They spread across the empty North America with their stone points and used them to hunt "big game", the megafauna. They were mammoth hunters, and had reached America following the mammoths across Beringia during the period of the great ice-melt at the end of the last Ice Age some 13,000 years ago.

Clovis hunters and mammoths. University Press of Colorado, from Frontiers in Colorado Paleoindian Archaeology: From the Dent Site to the Rocky Mountains, edited by Robert H. Brunswig and Bonnie L. Pitblado, 2014, 2 nd ed.

Clovis and the Ice-Free Corridor

C. Vance Haynes, 1964 analyzed the dates of the Clovis sites and found that they spanned a period of around 500 to 1,000 years, between ~11 or 11.5 ky to 12 ky, none were older than that date, which confirmed that they were the "first" to reach America because "The glacial history of Alaska, Canada, and the Great Lakes region indicates that, for the first time in at least 15,000 years, an ice-free, trans-Canadian corridor opened up approximately 12,000 years ago. Since Clovis points are distributed from coast to coast south of the Valders ice border, the abrupt appearance of Clovis artifacts in the stratigraphic record of the High Plains some 700 years later suggests that Clovis progenitors passed through Canada during [this] time."

Now, Clovis and the "Ice Free Corridor" dogma became linked. The geologists of that time believed that the whole of the northern part of North America had been covered by a seamless sheet of ice, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so it was only natural that when the ice melted, and a clear corridor appeared, mammoths, and the humans that hunted them, poured into the southern reaches of North America. Before that time, the access into the New World was blocked by the ice sheet.

The Clovis-First theory had been taught to hundreds of archaeologists since the late 1930s, and became part of their mindset, the new orthodoxy that replaced the previous one (Hrldicka's late Beringian entry).

Due to the glacial ice blocking the way, nobody could have entered America earlier than 12,000 years ago (unless you believe that humans were around before the Last Glacial Maximum some 25 kya, but such old dates are still looked upon with disgust). Neat, tidy, dogmatic, and... wrong,

Cracks in the structure

But, during the 1970s, some new sites were discovered, and their dates seemed to be older than the 13ky limit supported by the Clovis First theory, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in the US ( Adovasio, Gunn, Donahue, and Stuckenrath, 1978) dated at 16 to 19 ky, and Monte Verde in Chile are two examples. They were relentlessly attacked by the orthodoxy, but somehow have managed to survive the onslaught.

Why would modern human beings well adapted to dealing with cold glacial climates (they lived in Siberia, northern Eurasia during the last 50 ky) take so long to reach the New World? They sailed across the Wallace Line into Australia 50 kya ago, why would they camp in Beringia for 15-20 ky? Were they waiting for an ice-free corridor to open, or is the theory flawed?

This is not a scientific discussion, the dogma and prejudice, the personal interests in academia and petty enmity have led to the confrontation between clovis-firsters and those proposing an early peopling of America.

Archaeologists dig, identify, select, sort, analyze and interpret data. Conclusions in academic publishing are analog to a building that is built, brick by brick, on the foundation of previous findings. So if scholar after scholar find that 13,000 years is the oldest date unearthed in America, it becomes accepted as a fact. But, if nobody digs deeper to see what the sediments aged 15, 20, or 25 ky old contain, how can we be sure that 13 ky is the oldest age? It requires new, unexpected discoveries to shake the structure, and move forward in our understanding of how the Universe, and learn more about us, as humans.

Orthodoxy builds complacency. Disputing established beliefs is not good for someone wanting to forge an academic career.

So, older sites are not on the agenda. Nobody looks for them, and if found, they are dismissed, discarded, and demolished. To make matters worse, potential coastal routes into America, that skirted the glacial ice fields, lie along the now submerged continental shelf, beyond the reach of archaologists.

Dating is also an issue, stone tools are not easy to date, radiocarbon methods require organic matter, not always present, and luminescence dating also has limitations. Then, there is the issue of interpreting the data. Did the Clovis tools originate in America, were they brought there by a group of people from Asia? Did the toolage spread with the people as they moved across the continent, or was the know-how culturally transmitted to other groups of different populations?

Why are there no Clovis points beyond North America (or Venezuela, where Clovis-like tools have been found)? All the older sites that have been discovered in North America (earlier than the Clovis ones) have a stem-shaped stone tip, this helps fixing the spearhead to a shaft. One tip is sharp, the other stemmed. The Clovis and Folsom tools, on the other hand, are lanceolate, or leaf-shaped meaning that they are long ovals with sharp edges, with a tip at one end, and concave base on the other. They are very different from the stemmed points that preceeded them.

Stemmed points, not lanceolate ones are the oldest and most common ones found in South America. Here, the main stone tool technology is the distinctive "Fishtail" or "Fell's Cave" points, dated to 10-11 kya, also found in Central America, contemporary with the Clovis points. Both are shown below:

Now we know that the ice free corridor opened up earlier (Meltzer et al., 2022), 15.5-16 kya. Where were the Clovis people between 16 and 13 kya? Surely someone entered America at that time, before the oldest Clovis points.

Another theory proposes a coastal route where people used boats and bypassed the ice blockage (Davis and Madsen, 2020). This pushes the arrival date to even earlier periods.

And finally, there are may pre-Clovis sites, older than 13,000 years, that were reported across the continent, I will only mention some of them: Pendejo Cave USA (55,000 years), Cacao shelter, Argentina (40,000 years), Hartley, USA (37,000 years), Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico (33,000 years), Claromecó, Argentina (30,000 years), Gault (26,000 years), Meadowcroft Rock shelter, White Sands USA, and Pedra Furada, Brazil (24,000 years).

Now, nearly one century later you would expect the Clovis to be considered early arrivals, but, not the first to reach the Americas, But, a bad penny always turns up again, so the Clovis-first theory refuses to die, as shown by the recent paper attacking the early age of Monte Verde.

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