The First Americans : In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Clovis-firsters trumped
Review: "The First Americans" is an excellent read despite being somewhat misnamed. It is primarily the story of the overturning of the archaeological orthodoxy that the first humans in the New World arrived no earlier than about 12 to 11 thousand years ago in the form of the 'Clovis' culture. It mixes up good science with a story of conflicts among scientists.

While not skimping at all on the details of archaeology, the author structures the book to explain how Clovis-first orthodoxy was established, and how it was overturned. It gets downright personal at times, as the author describes how particular members of the archaeological 'establishment' stopped at almost nothing to deride him and a few other archaeologists, whose excavations were instrumental in overturning the Clovis-first orthodoxy.

The author does conclusively convince that the first Americans arrived at least 17 to 16 thousand years ago and probably much earlier. But only toward the end of the book does he seriously speculate as to exactly who they were and exactly when they arrived.

Rating:
Summary: I gather they were mean.
Review: Adovasio's book can be summarized in three bullet points:

1. Until recently, there has been a general consensus in archaeology that the first human arrivals in the Americas were the Clovis culture, around 10,500 BP (before present). Several older sites were proposed before 1970 or so but all turned out to be wrong dates.

2. However, Adavasio at Meadowcroft, Pennsylvannia and Tom Dillehay at Monte Verde in South America have really good archaeological sites which are definitely much older. This new evidence demands that the entire Clovis-first idea should be replaced.

3. And archaeologists who say otherwise are just plain mean. At great length, and naming names. They should be compared to religious fanatics and Mafia hit men and "Star Trek" scriptwriters in their meanness-based refusal to face facts. There's no point in talking to those people.

The meanness theme crowds out several points I would have liked to have read more about. Adovasio mentions in passing that he has recovered Meadowcroft-like artifacts from other sites near the Meadowcroft rock shelter, but never goes into detail. He also mentions a site called Fell's Cave at the south end of South America which is apparently post-Clovis, but so barely post-Clovis that humans getting so far so fast after the start of the Clovis period beggars the imagination. Again, no more details. I also wish I could have read more about the linguistic evidence for earlier and more widespread human arrival in the new world.

About two-thirds of this book is a pretty well-written first-hand review of a very interesting area of archaeology. The other third is like going out to dinner with friends and having them not only launch into a loud family argument in the middle of a restaurant, but try to drag you into taking sides.

Rating:
Summary: Data demolishes dogma
Review: As a young science, archaeology is necessarily dynamic. New discoveries, fresh insights, novel concepts emerge with almost dizzying frequency. Science is supposed to work on hypothesis testing - evidence confirms or refutes ideas. To discover that entrenched dogmas have been established, battlelines drawn and still contested, careers launched and destroyed is disheartening. To realise that the issue centres on a few stone tools renders the situation almost ludicrous - until we remember archaeology is the study of humanity. And humans, as Adovisio points out vividly, can cling tenaciously to favoured ideas - particularly those concerning humanity.

Adovasio briefly relates the African origins and distribution of humanity across the globe. However, this story truly starts with the 1937 discovery of some finely crafted stone spearpoints in New Mexico. Debate over Indians as "noble savage" or "barbarous native" was sharply interrupted by this find. The workmanship and novel design of the "Clovis Points" demanded reconsideration of Native Americans - particularly of their origins and dispersal in the Western Hemisphere. Knowledge of the extent of the massive glaciers covering North American many millennia ago left but a small time window for Asian peoples to cross the Bering land bridge exposed during the glacial period. Who were these people? Adovasio asks. When did they arrive? How long did it take them to inhabit the hemisphere? What was their environmental impact?

All these questions have been asked for many years. Adovasio's own research made a significant contribution when he excavated a rockshelter at Meadowcroft, Pennsylvania. Artefacts there were dated to a time far earlier than the Last Glacial Maximum [LGM] of just over eleven thousand years ago. Other sites, most notably the Monte Verde site in Chile have added data positing an earlier emigration from the Old World to the New. All this new information has challenged the dogma of "Clovis" being the "earliest Americans". It's not just an academic debate, Adovasio points out. Questions of site selection, investigation, testing procedures, retention of artefacts and human remains have all be raised. Indeed, with the Native American Graves Protection and Preservation Act [NAGPRA] some of these issues have been enshrined in law. He examines all the issues in exquisite detail, readily dismissing the more bizarre, such as the contention that the Western Hemisphere is the cradle of all humanity. Data must not only support or demolish dogma, it must support or demolish poorly conceived law.

Adovasio's narrative becomes vigorously polemical at times. His stridency is forgiven when you recall he's spent three decades of defenders of the Clovis Bar shutting their minds to evidence - his and that of others. Although this is hardly an academic study, his assemblage of evidence and logic underpinning his assertions is a standard that any researcher would do well to review. He gives Paul Martin's "Pleistocene blitzkrieg" of the new human arrivals a thorough airing, but rejects it. In Adovasio's view, it was the climate or disease that drove the large fauna extinct, not human hunting. He examines a wide variety of emigration scenarios, including the "coastal enclave" idea, in explaining how this Hemisphere was populated. He admits defeat in selecting any one, but declares the first humans arrived here before the LGM. Only from that basis, he argues, can we establish not only when humans occupied this region, but how.

This book is both a scholarly and entertaining read. Adovasio builds his case well, even adding cartoons to his collection of photographs and diagrams. Instead of footnotes, he provides per-chapter references, a nuisance to the novice in this topic. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]