Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 30 205
Radiometric determinations are extremely
complex, and more research on dating technology
needs to be conducted so that the reliability of
dates can be assessed. This is true for wood charcoal
dates, as well as for the more controversial
bone collagen and apatite dates. There is also a
need for additional research regarding racemization,
paleomagnetism, and thermoluminescence
techniques. Given the difficulties with these dating
techniques, it is clear that a single radiometric
date cannot be considered reliable for dating a
site or an occupation level. Nor can dates that
have been run on bone or other organic matter
be considered accurate until many problems with
these techniques are worked out.
Rudimentary flaking is not indicative of any
chronological or cultural technological stage.
Thus, it is impossible to identify an early cultural
tradition on the basis of lithic technology from
surface-collected artifacts. Only sites that have
precisely dated stratigraphy can be used as evidence
for early man.
The major problem is to distinguish artifacts
from bone and stone objects that have been altered
by various natural noncultural processes.
This problem cannot be resolved until well-conceived
experiments and studies with sound theoretical
and systematic approaches have been conducted.
Impressionistic statements merely cloud
the literature with misleading and confusing information.
A site must meet the following criteria to be
accepted as evidence for a pre-Clovis culture: (1)
clearly defined stratigraphy; (2) reliable and consistent
radiometric dates; (3) consonance of the
data from various relevant interdisciplinary researches;
and (4) unquestionable human artifacts
in indisputable association. These rigid criteria
would eliminate most of the existing sites from
any discussion. Nevertheless, in the following paragraphs
I will discuss some of the dubious sites,
mainly because, they indicate strongly that pre-
12,000-year-old occupations might be found in
the New World and because most of them have
been used by various authors to support the
existence of extremely early occupations. My ob­
servations are confined to those sites of which I
have firsthand knowledge or are published in
sufficient detail.
Site Evidence
Recent finds in the Arctic suggest that man
may have been in the New World for a much
greater number of years than previously recognized
(Figure 34). The discovery of a flesher made
of caribou bone from the Old Crow Basin in the
Canadian Yukon resulted in an increased effort
to locate pre-Clovis remains (Irving and Harington,
1973). The caribou flesher, although nearly
identical to those used by the modern Athapaskan
Indians, was dated to an age of 25,000 to 30,000
years old. Research by Bonnichsen and Morlan
(Bonnichsen, 1978, 1979) on the modification of
fossil bone indicates that it would have been
impossible for this tool to have been manufactured
after fossilization.
These discoveries gave impetus for two longrange
research programs to be undertaken in the
Old Crow Basin. The first was organized by
Irving of the University of Toronto and is known
as the Northwest Yukon Refugium Project
(NYRP), while the second, the Yukon Refugium
Project (YRP), was organized by Morlan of the
Canadian National Museum of Man. The research
teams involved with these projects have
spent the last few years diligently searching for
evidence of early man in the Yukon (Irving and
Cing-Mars, 1974; Irving and Harington, 1973,
1978; Morlan 1977, 1978, 1980) and have produced
impressive numbers of fossil remains and
paleoecological dates. Unfortunately, the researchers
have not been able to locate an in situ
occupation level on or within any of the river
terraces that they have examined in the Yukon.
Instead, nearly all fossils have been found in
redeposited contexts along gravel bars of the Porcupine
and Old Crow rivers, as well as in buried
erosional surfaces. Fewer than a dozen bones have
been found in possibly primary depositional context.
Some megafaunal bones were modified into
unquestionable artifacts while others show signs