Human Occupation of the North American Colorado Plateau ∼37,000 Years Ago

Abstract

Calibrating human population dispersals across Earth’s surface is fundamental to assessing rates and timing of anthropogenic impacts and distinguishing ecological phenomena influenced by humans from those that were not. Here, we describe the Hartley mammoth locality, which dates to 38,900–36,250 cal BP by AMS 14C analysis of hydroxyproline from bone collagen. We accept the standard view that elaborate stone technology of the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic was introduced into the Americas by arrival of the Native American clade ∼16,000 cal BP. It follows that if older cultural sites exist in the Americas, they might only be diagnosed using nuanced taphonomic approaches. We employed computed tomography (CT and μCT) and other state-of-the-art methods that had not previously been applied to investigating ancient American sites. This revealed multiple lines of taphonomic evidence suggesting that two mammoths were butchered using expedient lithic and bone technology, along with evidence diagnostic of controlled (domestic) fire. That this may be an ancient cultural site is corroborated by independent genetic evidence of two founding populations for humans in the Americas, which has already raised the possibility of a dispersal into the Americas by people of East Asian ancestry that preceded the Native American clade by millennia. The Hartley mammoth locality thus provides a new deep point of chronologic reference for occupation of the Americas and the attainment by humans of a near-global distribution.

Evidence of artefacts made of giant sloth bones in central Brazil around the last glacial maximum

“…Santa Elina challenges mainstream claims on peopling of the Americas, in favour of a model in which people first reached out to the American continent during, or even earlier than, the LGM. It agrees with evidence reported from other sites that suggests early human presence in North America, such as the Bluefish Caves in Canada [22,23], the White Sands National Park in NM, USA [24,25], the Gault site in TX, USA [26], the Hartly mammoth locality in NM, USA [54], the Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico [27], which has retouched artefacts similar to the ones found in Unit III of Santa Elina [55]; and in South America, such as several localities at the Serra da Capivara National Park in northeast Brazil [5,6,9,28,29], Monte Verde II in Chile [8], and those with claims for human-megafauna interaction, such as El Muaco and Taima-Taima in Venezuela [56], and Arroyo del Vizcaíno in Uruguay [6] (although the pre-LGM human presence in the latter has been disputed [57]). The Cerutti Mastodon site in CA, USA, stands out as an even more controversial site which has been suggested to present evidence for human presence and megafauna butchery during an interglacial period (approx.…”

“…Whereas some authors question the veracity of pre-LGM human settlements in the Americas (e.g. [ 61 , 62 ]), others interpret that the scarcity of archaeological evidence of pre-LGM sites in the Americas may be explained by an initial settlement occurring earlier than the introduction of elaborate stone technology in the continent [ 54 ], and that pre-LGM hunter/gatherers populations were probably affected by climate pressures and remained at low densities until their wide dispersal after the deglaciation of the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets [ 63 ].…”

Antarctica as a ‘natural laboratory’ for the critical assessment of the archaeological validity of early stone tool sites

“…Parfitt et al 2005, 2010); mountainous or desert regions (e.g. Rowe et al 2022); or under water (e.g. O'Shea 2014; Lemke 2021; White 2021).…”

“…Moreover, if more ‘complex’ specimens, such as proposed discoid cores or bifaces, possess Antarctic ‘doppelgängers’, then bashed or split cobbles, flakes and microflakes should certainly be compared with specimens from Antarctic contexts (e.g. Parfitt et al 2005, 2010; Lemke 2021; Rowe et al 2022).…”

Cultural Meaning of Playas to Native Americans

“…The temporal frame for this heritage analysis of playas is operationally defined as the late Pleistocene, which occurred between 128,000 BP and 11,700 BP, and the Holocene, from 11,700 BP to modern times. Scientific studies have placed Native Americans in the region at least by 37,000 BP with the geoarchaeology dates of 23,000 -21,000 BP at White Sands, New Mexico [6,7] and 38,900 to 36,250 BP at the Hartley locality, a mammoth kill site situated near the Rio Puerco, New Mexico [8]. These new geoscience dates indicate that Indigenous Peoples experienced this area as both a massive wetland filled with lakes, rivers, and swamps and later as an arid desert with intermittent streams, sand dunes, small artesian springs, and heritage playas.…”