Andy White Anthropology
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Thursday Odds and Ends

2/25/2016

 
This has been a busy couple of weeks and the blog writing has once again slipped down the priority list. Preparing two "extra" presentations this month (one for the Archaeological Society of South Carolina meeting last weekend and one for my talk at Mercer University tomorrow) were at the top of the list along with keeping the Kirk data collection going, teaching my class, and falsely promising to get caught up on emails.
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The Mercer presentation is going to be fun. I'm sure I'm several standard deviations from the mean in terms of my interest in thinking and talking about anthropology and pseudoscience, so it will be a struggle to get my presentation down to length. I was told I would have to reduce the talk from its original 8 hours to about 45 minutes. My last counter-offer was to meet somewhere in the middle, say around 6.5 hours. I didn't hear anything back after that, so I think we've reached agreement.  The organizer (Craig Byron) is an old friend of mine, so I'm sure he'll understand if I have to go to 7 hours or so to make all my points.  That will still get us done before midnight, even allowing for a five minute bathroom break.

Don't worry, I'm kidding. You should still come to my talk, if only for my animations of flying watermelons. I promise I won't take up a single minute more than three hours of your time.

On another topic, I have been happily reading the comments on my blog post reacting to Chris Moore's American Antiquity paper. If you're interested in Paleoindian, hunter-gatherers, and/or the Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the Eastern Woodlands you should check it out -- it's nice to see professionals chime in and share information and ideas in a public setting like a blog. Hopefully we can get that happening more often. I want to respond to and/or follow up on several of the comments, but I've been forcing myself to take care of other business first (see above).

Here's another thing I'd like to have a good look at: this new paper on Fishtail projectile points from Brazil by Daniel Loponte, Mercedes Okumura, and Mirian Carbonera. It has metric data, nice images, maps, and a summary of what's known about dating.  I don't know much about Fishtails -- the last thing I can recall reading about them (some time ago) was the 1999 "Geographic Variation in Fluted Projectile Points: A Hemispheric Perspective" by Juliet Morrow and Toby Morrow (American Antiquity 64(2):215-230). It will be interesting to read the 1999 paper again and look at the new paper.

The Bison in the Room

2/22/2016

 
What if the Clovis adaptation in the Eastern Woodlands had nothing substantive whatsoever to do with mammoths and mastodons? 

What if all of those dioramas and illustrations of Paleoindian peoples swarming a mastodon mired in the muck are complete baloney?

What if one of our most popular baseline notions about Clovis in the east is totally wrong?
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The thought isn't an original one, of course, but one that I've been thinking about since listening to a presentation by Christopher Moore (SCIAA colleague) at the Archaeological Society of South Carolina (ASSC) meeting on Saturday. Moore is the senior author of a recent American Antiquity paper (which is unfortunately behind a paywall) that presents protein residue analysis of 142 hafted bifaces (i.e., stone projectile points/knives) from the Savannah River area of South Carolina and Georgia.  Protein residue analysis uses chemical tests to identify trace residues left on stone tools through contact with the blood of various groups of animals.

Here is a summary figure from the published paper:
Picture
The results that Moore et al. present are striking for two main reasons. First, there is positive evidence for the exploitation of bison in the region during the Paleoindian through Middle Archaic periods.  Second, there are no indications that any of the Paleoindian tools they examined were involved with processing proboscideans (i.e., mammoths and mastodons).

As explained in the American Antiquity paper, the positive evidence for bison populations in the region in the Late Pleistocene is consistent with several other data points (including previous protein residue studies and radiocarbon-dated remains such as the Wacissa bison). The new residue data also support the continued presence of bison in the region into the mid-Holocene. That's pretty interesting to me, as it suggests that the exploitation of a large game animal that is more-or-less invisible in the faunal records (both archaeological and natural) may have been important to the food economies of the Archaic peoples I'm keenly interested in understanding.

And what about the absence of hits for proboscidean?  That's pretty interesting as well. Near the end of his ASSC presentation, Moore informally posed a great "what if" question (and I'm paraphrasing here): what if the evidence for human involvement with mammoths/mastodons in eastern North America actually pertains to pre-Clovis rather than Clovis peoples?

For me, pondering that question was one of those nice "wait a @#!%*$# second . . ." moments that happens every so often in science. What if we have not just exaggerated the embrace between Clovis and megafauna in the east, but allowed our romantic notions (and the very clear evidence of Clovis-age megafaunal predation in the west) to blind us to the real pattern that's present?

Impossible, you say?  Let's ask a series of questions. I'll give you the answers based on what I know off the top of my head and what I have time to assemble on Monday morning of a busy week.  Please correct me if I'm wrong on something or help me add things I've left out -- I'm not making any claim that this listing of evidence is exhaustive. Note: when I say "eastern North America" I mean east of the Mississippi River.

Question: Are there any direct associations between Clovis stone tools and mammoth/mastodon remains in eastern North America?

Answer: No. As far as I know, Kimmswick (Missouri) is the farthest east Clovis-associated megafaunal kill site.

Question: Are there any human-butchered mastodon/mammoth remains in eastern North America that have been dated to the Clovis period (i.e., 11,050-10,800 radiocarbon years before present [RCYBP]; ~13,250-12,800 Calendar years before present; ~11,300-10,850 BC)?

Answer: Not that I know of off the top of my head. The eastern cases of purported mastodon/mammoth butchery of which I am aware pre-date the known age range of Clovis. Here are some examples:
  • Hebior mammoth (Wisconsin): ~12,500 RCYBP;
  • Burning Tree mastodon (Ohio): ~11,500 RCYBP (Fisher et al. 1994);
  • Aucilla River mastodon tusk (Florida): ~12,200 RCYBP;

Question: Is there any direct evidence that mammoths/mastodons survived into Clovis times in eastern North America?

Answer: Yes. There are directly-dated mammoth and mastodon remains that demonstrate that proboscideans survived into and beyond Clovis times. The period 10,500-10,000 RCYBP (i.e., post Clovis) is probably a reasonable extinction window for mastodons in the east.  Here, for example, is a report of a mastodon from northern Indiana dated to about 10,000 RCYBP. 

Question: Is there any direct evidence that Clovis peoples used parts of mammoths/mastodons obtained from recently deceased animals?

Answer: Yes, apparently. There are ivory and bone tools from Florida that are attributed to Clovis. Here is a quote from a paper by Bruce Bradley:
"While most of the known specimens were recovered from stratigraphically mixed deposits, recent archaeological excavations have found them in late Pleistocene deposits directly associated with extinct fauna, including mammoth and mastodon. Flaked stone projectile points and other tools are also associated with these artifacts. Projectile point types commonly include Clovis fluted and Suwanee."
​I don't have the time to delve into the literature right now and investigate the nature of the associations between the ivory tools and the Paleoindian points, or to see if any of the ivory tools have been directly dated. 
So there you go.

It seems pretty clear that Clovis peoples existed on the landscape (or were at least present in eastern North America at the same time) as proboscideans.  They apparently used parts of those animals to fashion tools. But the case for active Clovis-age predation of mammoths and mastodons continues to be based on circumstantial evidence. As more and more purported proboscidean butchery sites of pre-Clovis age are reported from the Eastern Woodlands, it seems less likely that the east-west contrast in megafaunal kill sites is solely the result of a preservation bias: it's not the elephants that are missing, but the direct evidence that Clovis peoples hunted them.

If we take mammoths and mastodons out of the Clovis picture, there's a lot of explaining to do. What was the point of all that beautiful technology? I was one of several junior co-authors on a paper (Speth et al. 2013) that attempted a political re-imagining of Early Paleoindian fluted point technologies. While I'm not convinced by all the arguments in that paper, I think it was a useful exercise. There are other alternatives to the dominant "Clovis meat machine" model that can be constructed.

And what if bison was an important game animal in some portions of the Eastern Woodlands into the Middle Archaic? What if bone preservation issues really are part of the problem for our interpretations of the Early and Middle Holocene and we've been unable to see (and therefore to factor into our models) a large herbivore that may have been a huge part of the subsistence economies of early hunting-gathering societies in the region? That deserves a very hard look.

I've used all the time I can spare to write about this today. I'm hoping some of you find this question interesting and point out things I'm not aware of. I'll be returning to this as I have time - it's a pretty cool set of questions to think about. 

ResearchBlogging.org
Moore, C., Brooks, M., Kimball, L., Newman, M., & Kooyman, B. (2016). Early Hunter-Gatherer Tool Use and Animal Exploitation: Protein and Microwear Evidence from the Central Savannah River Valley American Antiquity, 81 (1), 132-147 DOI: 10.7183/0002-7316.81.1.132

A Few Things on a Thursday Morning

11/12/2015

 
As usual, I have many more ideas for things to write about than I have time to write.  There's a backlog of material related to giants and plenty of other stuff I'd like to write about related to my research plans in the Southeast, interesting things about South Carolina, teaching, etc.  This post is just to mention a few things relevant to previous posts.

Haplogroup X2a

Based on the metrics I have access to (Facebook likes/shares, Twitter data, and the page view metrics that Weebly provides), the post I wrote on the new paper by Jennifer Raff and Deborah Bolnick was one of the more popular things I've written recently. I think the paper is very nice, and I'm glad for anything I can do to encourage people to read it.  Yesterday, Raff wrote a post addressing some questions about the paper.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic (professional or otherwise). When I looked at where my post was posted on Facebook, I was a little dismayed by some of the comments.  It is evident (and interesting) that a lot of people react to the headline and the image without even reading the content.  Anyway, I encourage you to read the original paper and Raff's answers to common questions.

Hutton Pulitzer Claims He Made Me Famous, Threatens to "Out" Professional Archaeologists

My posts about the various silly activities and statements by Hutton Pulitzer (there's a listing here) appear to be gaining a fan base. A post from September titled "The Philyaw Follies, Fall 2015 Edition" attracted Pulitzer as well as several individuals who he has apparently tangled with online before.  And I've been getting emails from some Pulitzer detractors. 

Among other strange things, Pulitzer made the following comment on my blog:

"Hey Andy, yes saw this and me calling you the "4A" made you quite famous. LOL, but yes archaeologists tend to not let themselves be interviewed. We did in fact offer you a spot to go on record with Wayne May, but yes you did decline. However, some of our new recordings are outing people like you and University coverups."

While I will eagerly await whatever "outing" he's talking about, I won't be holding my breath. If there's one thing that I can confidently identify as part of Pulitzer's M.O., it's the lack of follow-up to his grandiose statements. Anyway, his comments on my blog are worth reading, as are the comments of readers on Jason Colavito's post about a recent interview between Pulitzer and Scott Wolter.

Which brings us to the next tidbit.

Scott Wolter Is Still Participating In My Class

My plans for teaching a class about "fringe" ideas in archaeology (working title: "Forbidden Archaeology") in the Fall of 2016 are moving forward. The paperwork is currently working its way up the various steps in the chain.  I just got here, so the process is somewhat mysterious to me.  But I don't have any reason at this point to think that I won't be able to teach the course.

As I wrote in this post, Scott Wolter responded to my open invitation for "fringe" theorists to step up to the plate and participate in my class. An alert reader emailed me the other day to point my attention to Wolter's blog, where someone had made a comment about my website and Wolter had replied with something like "Who is Andy White?"  The reader questioned if Wolter would still be participating in the class.

The answer to that is "yes."  I had a cordial email exchange with Wolter and the plans for his participation in the class are still on.

I'm still looking for one or two more who like to be involved - I'd love to have a person talk abut giants and a person to make a case for any aspect of claims related to Ice Age civilization.  Send me an email if you're interested: [email protected].

Boycotting Discovery and the History Channel?

I think many of my readers will agree that the overall quality of programming on The Discovery Channel and The History Channel has gone downhill in recent years. I don't have anything new to say about why that's a bad thing, but I wanted to direct your attention to a blog post by Gordon Bonnet at Skeptophilia calling for a boycott. Here is a bit of what he says:

"Look, it's not that I'm against speculation.  Sometimes people doggedly pursuing ideas that everyone has thought ridiculous has paid off in the end.  But there is nothing to be gained by formerly reputable channels airing fiction passed off as truth, and fantasy passed off as documentary.  In the end, it makes everyone's job harder, from lowly science teachers like myself who are trying to get kids to learn how to sort fact from bullshit, to the honest researchers who would like to investigate fringe claims and do so in a rational, evidence-based manner.

So it's time to turn off The History Channel and Discovery.  They've been veering off course for a while, but it's getting worse, and it's time to send a message.  Stop watching this garbage, and better yet, send a letter or an email to them telling them you're doing so.  It's time to get some good science and history programming back on the air."


Yeah . . . believe it or not there is a distinction to be made between programs honestly investigating ideas at the "fringe" and programs presenting outright fantasy that is disguised as documentary.  It's the turn toward that second kind of programming that irks a lot of us, I think.  Mermaids, anyone?  

I really think there has to be a way for media to tap into the public's interest in the human past (and a spectrum of ideas about it) without resorting to just making things up. 

The Topper Site Pre-Clovis: A Newcomer's Perspective

11/5/2015

 
Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the Topper site with my SCIAA friend and colleague Al Goodyear.  In addition to ongoing work on a well-preserved Clovis component (e.g., see this page by Derek Anderson and this 2010 paper by Ashley Smallwood), Topper is probably most widely known for Goodyear's claim of evidence for a human occupation possibly in excess of 50,000 years old. For those of you keeping score at home, that is significantly older (by tens of thousands of years) than the proposed dates for other pre-Clovis components in eastern North America. Good evidence for a New World human occupation that old would really be a game changer.  And that's why Topper is controversial. And interesting.
PictureAl Goodyear in front of the deep excavation area at the Topper site. The mosquitoes were very happy to see us.
The purported pre-Clovis assemblage from Topper is entirely stone, consisting of items described as cores, blades, flakes, gravers, spokeshaves, scrapers, etc. Bifaces are absent, which, I think, is one of the aspects of the assemblage that gives many North American archaeologists pause. You can see images of some of the pre-Clovis material here and in Doug Sain's dissertation (discussed more below). You can also read Goodyear's 2009 update on work at the site here.

The questions about the Topper pre-Clovis assemblage boil down to two main issues:

  • Is the material cultural?
  • Is it really that old?

Both of those issues are much simpler to raise then they are to answer.  

Is It Cultural?

The "is it cultural" question is Question Number 1: if it's not cultural, then it doesn't really matter how old it is. Some archaeologists (such as Michael Collins in this Popular Archaeology article and this CNN story)  have stated that the the pre-Clovis materials from Topper are the result of some natural process rather than the products of human behavior (i.e., they're "geofacts" rather than artifacts). If the Topper pre-Clovis "artifacts" are just a bunch of rocks, the rest of the story doesn't really matter.

Yesterday I looked at some of the material from Topper that is displayed at USC's Salkehatchie campus. I wasn't doing a systematic analysis, and I didn't actually handle the material (I was just looking through the glass like everybody else), so I'm not yet ready to offer a strong opinion of my own.  I will say, however, that at least some of the objects displayed surely looked like good candidates for human-made stone tools and cores to me. There were several pieces that appeared to have fairly clear unifacial retouch, one flake with a very clear bulb of percussion, large "cores" that appeared to have multiple flake removals, etc.

PictureOne of the pieces on display at the USC Salkehatchie campus: a graver from the pre-Clovis deposits at Topper. The image is from Goodyear's (2009) paper (link in the text).
In my opinion, several of the pieces from the Topper pre-Clovis assemblage that I saw (the only ones I've looked at recently) show characteristics that appear to be consistent with human manufacture. Does that mean they couldn't have been produced by some sort of natural process? Good question. Doug Sain's recent (2015) dissertation on the pre-Clovis assemblage from Topper attempted to address that issue by developing several lines of analysis (experimental archaeology, attribute analysis, refitting, etc.).  Sain concluded (on page 567) that:    

"Evidence from this study supports King’s (2011) findings and demonstrates a human origin for the pre Clovis conchoidal flake assemblage at the site. However, this assemblage likely resulted from flake core and flake tool manufacture as opposed to biface manufacture and furthermore does not reflect bioturbation as an agent responsible for deposition. The assemblage is at minimum 14,000 BP and possibly much older. The bend break assemblage from the Lower Pleistocene Sands and Upper Pleistocene Terrace at Topper are also considered products of human agency based on the presence of specific technological attributes (compression rings, lips), retouch modification, and lack of differentially weathered scars." 

I confess that I have only skimmed through Sain's dissertation at this point (it is 2400 pages).  It's clear, however, that he's done a lot more than simply look at some pieces of stone and say "yup, looks like an artifact" or "nope, doesn't look like an artifact." He has looked more closely at the material than (I would guess) anyone else at this point.  Thus his conclusions are an important data point suggesting that we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the materials from Topper just because they are difficult to reconcile with the "knowns" of North American prehistory.

Is It Really That Old?

If the pre-Clovis materials from Topper are legitimate products of human behavior, can they really be 50,000 years old?

It looks to me like there is little question that the sediments (writ large) from which the Topper materials were excavated really do date to several tens of thousands of years ago.  This (2009) paper by Michael Waters et al. discusses the geoarchaeology and dating of the Topper sediments, if you want to wade into the particulars.

Even if the general sediment stratigraphy is understood and well-dated, however, it is fair to ask if younger artifacts might have been introduced into older sediments through some sort of natural process - tree roots? animal tunnels? cracks in the earth?  I wasn't present at any of the Topper excavations, so I can't really add anything about the possible role bioturbation might have played in moving artifacts around. Again, there is discussion in Sain's dissertation about whether some kind of bioturbation could explain how much younger (i.e., Clovis age) artifacts were introduced into such old sediment.

What If?

Healthy skepticism is an important part of doing good science. I'm as skeptical as the next person, and I think the extraordinary nature of the claims being made about Topper warrant significant scrutiny.  What I (and many others, I think) are anticipating is the definitive publication by Goodyear that lays out the evidence and the argument in a succinct, clear way.  That will let us evaluate the totality of the claim and find a path forward for future inquiry.  The Topper site is still there, and new excavations could be conducted to target questions that develop from analysis of what has been done so far.

But take off the skeptic's hat for a minute and put on the "what if" hat: how cool would it be if there was an archaeologically-recognizable occupation of eastern North America pre-dating the Last Glacial Maximum? Where did those people come from? What were their societies like? What happened to them? Humor me for a minute here.

The time period between about 60,000 and 30,000 years ago (i.e., the time period that is claimed for some of the pre-Clovis materials from Topper) saw the movements of human groups into several previously-unoccupied parts of the world, including northern Asia, Japan, and Australia. What if an early wave of colonizers reached the New World? What if the 33,000 year-old remains from Monte Verde (Chile) were left behind by people in this first wave? What if the 48,000-32,000 year-old remains from Pedra Furada (Brazil) were also left by those early settlers? What if the stone tool technologies of these early settlers, like those of many Paleolithic groups in the Old World, were not based heavily on bifaces? What if a lack of formal bifaces in these early pre-Clovis technologies means that the lithic tools and debris left behind by these early settlers is "hiding in plain site," the nondescript assemblages of pre-Clovis flakes and unifacial tools blending in with the lithics left by much later peoples?  What if that earliest occupation was ultimately unsuccessful, leaving behind no survivors and presenting no evidence for a historical connection between the technologies of its people and those of the people who followed?

That's a lot of "what ifs," but I think that's okay.  "What ifs" are free.

If the pre-Clovis lithics from the Topper site were really produced by a very early human occupation of eastern North America, there is quite a story that remains to be told in this part of the world. And if that story is true, maybe Topper won't even be the site that can tell it the best. If there were people in the Southeast 50,000 years ago, it will ultimately be possible to find other examples of sites that they produced.  Perhaps a systematic look at buried deposits predating the LGM will help produce some information (positive or negative) that can help us understand what Topper means.  After visiting Topper and having a cursory look at some of the materials myself, I'm looking forward to watching the debate play out and seeing what happens next. Who knows -- I may get in on the action myself someday.  

What's the Solutrean Hypothesis Worth?  About $10k per "Laurel Leaf"

6/2/2015

 
It may or may not surprise you to learn that two of the artifacts identified as Solutrean laurel leaf bifaces in a 2014 paper by Dennis Stanford and colleagues are currently being hawked for sale on the internet for $20,000.  A post on a Facebook page titled "Solutrean-American and Indian Arrowheads, Artifacts for Sale" makes the pitch:

"For sale--the only Solutrean-American continental bi-faces (2) available for sale in the world. Dating to approx 23,000BC, these blades were recovered from the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay by scallop dredge.

Offered now for $20,000--the price will only go up as more evidence mounts.

My friend, the late Mark Small obtained these by trade and it wasn't until after his passing 8 years ago that we learned what these were. I talked the widow into showing the collection at the Gwynn's Island Museum a few years ago. Dr Stanford and his team from the Smithsonian were there to present a casting of the Cin-Mar blade to the folks who donated the original to the Smithsonian.

Upon seeing these, a request was made to loan them to the Smithsonian, which was done. The results are that the Solutrean Hypothesis rests upon these and other blades like them found in recent years on shore and off on the continental shelf--and they were made by peoples coming from France at the height of the ice age."


That post (dated September 25, 2014), was followed up by another (May 6, 2015) that gives more details of how the points came to be included in Stanford's Solutrean work:

"The [M]ark Small examples were discovered by Dr Stanford and his team at the Gwynn's Island Museum during his annual visit to ID and examine others' collections. I induced Mark's widow to bring the collection, then held by her son for safe keeping. The collection showed up, under his care, as piles of arrowheads laid upon sheets of foam, one atop the other. Her son had rifled every case open....but that's another story. Amidst the mess, Dr Stanford grasped the significance of these two pieces, his then fiance marveling over the smaller examples' evident resharpening trajectory, and the colors of the material isteld--both pieces are rhyolite. Casts made by Michael Frank were used at the Paleo conference in 2012, where thousands of archaeologists examined their displays. These are considered significant to the evidence supporting the Solutrean Hypothesis, and they reside in my hands for now--anyone wishing to examine them need but make arrangements with me to come here."

The sale of the purported Solutrean artifacts is apparently being handled by Trimble's Tavern Antiques in White Stone, Virginia. David Stone Sweet is listed as the contact person, and I'm guessing he's the one responsible for the Facebook postings and the posts (by "Stone") about the points on this forum. 

The points being offered for sale are shown as (a) and (e) in Figure 5.10 of Stanford et al. (2014:90; available here and here).  The discussion of the points in that paper is limited to the following: 

"A large knife (Fig. 5.10a) made of quartzite was dredged from the bottom of Mopjack Bay near Norfolk, Virginia. Use-wear studies suggest that it was not hafted, but rather it was hand-held. A heavily resharpened biface (Fig. 5.10e), was also dredged from Mopjack Bay. Like the Cinmar biface, this tool was made of  banded rhyolite and was used as a hafted knife."
(Stanford et al. 2014:90).

The "Mark Small's Artifacts" page on Facebook also has the points for sale.  The price is the same, but the provenience story is a little different:

"The Pair for $20,000 These are possibly the only known American Solutrean blades offered for sale in the world!

These are the real-deal, rare as hen's teeth and the identification of these is without question--note these two blades in the case of points directly under Dr's Stanford and Bradley's hands in the third pic. Dredged from the Chesapeake Bay near Haven Bar Bouy and the ancient Paleo-channel that outlets there from Milford Haven.

The bay is at it's deepest, 150ft--the deepest bay in the world.
Shown in Dr Stanford's Exhibit at the conference are these two blades along with detailed pen and ink sketches showing flaking patterns, and a map showing approximate find locations."


The story posted by "Stone" on this forum has a bit more detail:

"Mark Small found several on [Gwynn's Island] off that point, and Pleistocene fossils turn up on that stretch of now swiftly disappearing sand. leeward of that island is Milford Haven, an ancient drainage of the Piankatank and Queens Creek systems that carved a channel to some 6 miles out during times when the lands were dry. That paleo-channel reaches to the old banks of the Susquehanna River, then at some places only a mile wide and some less. The two blades in my hands now came from below the edge of the banks of that channel--they were recovered by scallop dredge."
Picture
Based on that description, it sounds like the find spots should be associated with a submerged channel stretching from Milford Haven to the submerged channel of the Susquehanna River. There's no mention of Mobjack Bay (that's the correct spelling, not "Mopjack").  I don't see a submerged channel from Milford Haven in bathymetry data for that section of the bay.  Stanford et al. (2014:Figure 5.9), show the locations of the artifacts in the central part of the channel, southeast of Mobjack Bay but miles from Milford Haven.  There is a deep submerged channel associated with the York River south of Mobjack Bay, and it is into that area that Queen's Creek actually empties.  I couldn't find a location for a "Haven Bar Buoy" mentioned by the seller of the artifacts.

PictureLocations relevant to the provenience of the "Mopjack laurel leaf" points indicated on bathymetric map of Chesapeake Bay. Bathymetry data source: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay/chesgeo.html
The hodge-podge of information that's out there about the "Mopjack laurel leafs" leads to a set of questions similar to those surrounding the Cinmar biface: where and when were these artifacts actually found?  who actually found them?  what, if anything, do they actually tell us about a "Solutrean" colonization of the New World? 

If the information provided by the seller of the points is accurate, Mark Small (deceased at the time the points were shown to Stanford) did not find the points himself but got them through trade.  I haven't located any other details about who originally found the points or how we know anything about where and when the points were found (other than "scallop dredge").  We are told that the collection containing the points was taken to the Gywnn's Island Museum specifically so that Stanford could look at it, and the seller's description makes it clear that Stanford's endorsement of the points
in the collection is an important part of the story now attached to them.  Stanford's interpretation and publication of the points as authentic New World Solutrean artifacts appears to be the sole criterion for attaching an extraordinary monetary value to them.

So what's the Solutrean hypothesis worth?  To people invested in the monetary value of authentic "Solutrean" artifacts from eastern North America, quite a bit. To the rest of us . . . you'll have to decide that for yourself. 

Also: Chesapeake Bay is not the deepest bay in the world.  That honor goes to the Bay of Bengal, which just squeaks out a win over Chesapeake Bay's 150' with a maximum depth of 3 miles. Pesky details.


References Cited: 

Stanford, Dennis, Darrin Lowery, Margaret Jodry, Bruce A. Bradley, Marvin Kay, Thomas W. Stafford and Robert J. Speakman.  2014.  New Evidence for a Possible Paleolithic Occupation of the Eastern North American Continental Shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum.  In Prehistoric Archaeology on the Continental Shelf, edited by Amanda Evans, Joe Flatman, and Nicholas Flemming, pp. 73-93.
New York: Springer-Verlag.

Shots Fired in the Battle Over the Cinmar Biface . . . But Does it Actually Matter to the Solutrean Hypothesis?

5/31/2015

 
PictureThe Cinmar biface featured on the cover of Stanford and Bradley's (2013) book. Image source: http://smithsonianscience.si.edu/2012/01/new-book-across-atlantic-ice-the-origin-of-americas-clovis-culture/
This week, Darrin Lowery responded to questions raised about the circumstances of the discovery of the Cinmar biface, a bi-pointed stone tool that resembles, at least superficially, artifacts made and used by the Solutrean peoples of Upper Paleolithic Europe.  The point was reportedly dredged up in 1970 by a scallop boat named the Cinmar (hence the name) operating off the Atlantic coast of North America, and associated with mastodon bones that were radiocarbon dated to 22,760 +/- 90 RCYBP (UCIAMS-53545).  The Cinmar biface has assumed a prominent place in the debate about the Solutrean hypothesis (the idea that Upper Paleolithic peoples from western Europe colonized eastern North America sometime between about 21,000 to 17,000 years ago), even gracing the cover of the 2013 book about the idea by Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley, its two main advocates.

The circumstances of the Cinmar discovery were called into question in a paper by
Metin Eren, Matthew Boulanger, and Michael O'Brien titled "The Cinmar Discovery and the Proposed Pre-Late Glacial Maximum Occupation of North America," published in the Journal of Archaeological Science (JAS) in March of this year.  Eren et al. questioned the history and details of the find, focusing particularly on inconsistencies and omissions in the various accounts of the discovery.  The JAS is a high profile venue, and the paper by Metin et al. generated a significant amount of discussion among archaeologists interested in the peopling of the Americas.

Full disclosure
: I consider Metin Eren a friend of mine.  We have some overlapping research interests, and have occasionally exchanged emails and papers.  I think we've even had beers together at one or two professional conferences.

I should also say that I'm very skeptical of the Solutrean hypothesis. 
The claim of a trans-Atlantic colonization of North America during the Last Glacial Maximum is an extraordinary one, and I have seen nothing so far that convinces me it is correct. I'm not alone.  The Solutrean hypothesis does not enjoy widespread support among North American archaeologists for a number of reasons (see this 2014 exchange for some summary arguments).  Unfortunately, it has captured the imaginations of some ugly elements outside of the professional community, serving as the basis for white supremacist and neo-Nazi fantasies about the importance of white people to North American prehistory.  That's not the fault of the developers and proponents of the idea, but it's a social dimension to the Solutrean hypothesis that is nonetheless worth being aware of and keeping an eye on.

After reading through both the JAS paper and Lowery's self-published response, I can't say much has changed for me.  The discussion about the circumstances of the Cinmar discovery is an interesting one (especially if you like to see an argument), but it's a debate about the details of a single discovery that, in my opinion, doesn't have the power to "prove" anything either way. Despite its appearance on the cover of a book and a charged exchange about the credibility of the artifact and those who are interested in it, the Cinmar biface doesn't really matter. 

Let me explain what I mean by that.

On the one hand, what if the case for the Cinmar biface is materially flawed and you just have to throw it out?  Eren et al. ask several pointed questions about the discovery, any one of which could potentially sink it as a reliable piece of evidence. Maybe we can't be sure it was in the same dredge load as the mastodon bones, or maybe we can't be sure the artifact was even recovered at sea.  So maybe the Cinmar biface means nothing in archaeological terms because we just can't trust it. 

But, on the other hand, what if everything about the Cinmar discovery is "best case scenario" for the Solutrean hypothesis? Let's the say we can be sure the point was dredged up in 1970 in the same immediate area as some mastodon remains - what does that actually get us? The "association" between the point and the fauna (on which the age estimate is based) is still incredibly weak, leaving us still with just a single stone point largely without context.  Is that the kind of "site" that will change anyone's mind about something as significant as the first colonization of the Americas?  I don't think so, and history agrees with me. Think about the sites that have been pivot points in our acceptance of alternative ideas about prehistory in the western hemisphere: L'Anse aux Meadows, Monte Verde, Folsom . . . those were all sites with clear evidence that falsified an existing model. Proponents and skeptics could stand there together and look at the deposits and have a meeting of the minds about what they meant.  That's never going to be the case with something like the Cinmar biface.  A point that "resembles" a Solutrean artifact with a provenience of "same dredge load as some mastodon bones" is not at the level of a site like Monte Verde - not even close.  Under the most charitable reading it doesn't have the power to move the needle on acceptance of the Solutrean hypothesis.  By itself it's just not a game changer.

What would be a game changer? Proponents of the Solutrean hypothesis are going to have to find, excavate, and document a real site: good artifacts in good contexts with good dates. Period. If the hypothesis is correct, those sites should be identifiable.  The Cinmar biface was made from an inland raw material source, so there should be some sites on dry land with clear evidence of a Solutrean occupation.  All you need is one. One good site trumps dozens of finds of purported Solutrean or Solutrean-like artifacts with poor or no context. 
Think about how many sites with "associations" between stone projectile points and extinct fauna were dismissed in North America prior to the acceptance of the antiquity of humans in the New World demonstrated by careful excavations at the Folsom site.  The Solutrean hypothesis will ultimately need something similar.

The burden of proof in this situation pretty clearly has to be on the advocates of the Solutrean hypothesis: it is impossible to use material evidence to prove that Solutrean peoples did not make it to North America (
just as we cannot prove they are not currently orbiting the sun in a teapot). The falsifiable hypothesis in this case is that there was no colonization of North America by Upper Paleolithic peoples from Europe.  That's what would need to be proved wrong. Does the Cinmar biface, even under the best of circumstances, do that?  I would say no.  And I would also say that eliminating the Cinmar biface as a piece of evidence doesn't "disprove" the Solutrean hypothesis. Basically, I think that with or without the Cinmar biface the Solutrean hypothesis remains an idea based on an assemblage of circumstantial evidence, none of which at this point appears to be critical to whether the hypothesis is viable or not.  I think the Cinmar biface would not change that equation for me even if I had plucked it from the dredge myself.  It's just not enough.

Other than it's relevance to archaeology, the Cinmar discussion is interesting because of the speed and openness with which it's taking place.  The JAS paper was published open access, so it's available to everyone. Lowery published his response less than two months later on Academia.edu (again, available to everyone).  I'm not sure if there's a precedent for this sort of thing - we may be watching something new.  It will be interesting to see if the discussion continues and, if so, at what pace and in what format. 

Even though I don't think the Cinmar biface is as crtitical to the viability of the Solutrean hypothesis as it has been made out to be, I do welcome the vigorous questioning of evidence.  I think it tells you something important about where the debate about the Solutrean hypothesis is at the moment: it's a lot of energy expended over the minutiae of an artifact that greatly diminishes in perceived importance if a single "good" site can be located.  That's what I'll be watching for.


ResearchBlogging.org
Eren, M., Boulanger, M., & O'Brien, M. (2015). The Cinmar discovery and the proposed pre-Late Glacial Maximum occupation of North America Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.03.001

Does the Fan Base of the Solutrean Hypothesis Change if Upper Paleolithic Europeans Weren't White?

4/5/2015

 
The Solutrean hypothesis is the idea that Upper Paleolithic peoples from western Europe colonized eastern North America sometime during the period 21,000 to 17,000 years ago.  The idea is based largely on the purported similarities between Solutrean chipped stone technologies and those related to the later Clovis horizon in North America.  The idea does not enjoy widespread support among professional archaeologists for a variety of reasons (see this 2014 exchange for summary arguments).

While most archaeologists aren't impressed, the Solutrean hypothesis does have fans outside of the academic community. Predictably, it is very popular among white supremacists, who are fond of the idea of the original settlers of the continent being of European rather than Asian heritage. The Solutrean hypothesis is part of the white supremacist fantasy presented in the novel White Apocalypse by Kyle Bristow.  The Solutrean foundation of America is also a key component in the rhetoric of neo-Nazi John de Nugent:

"The enemy of truth has a big problem with the issue of the Solutrean whites being here first and then the red man genociding him, for the whole story is didactic and instructive for white people today. It is the story of the first whites to build a great culture, and how they were crushed and died in slavery and agony after they became a minority in their own country." (source)

More discussion of the white supremacist embrace of the Solutrean hypothesis can be found in this blog post by Jason Colavito.

But what if those Solutrean people weren't actually white?  Some new research that was presented at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists conference in St. Louis last week suggests just that:

"The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes--SLC24A5 and SLC45A2--that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today."

If correct, that would mean that the Upper Paleolithic peoples of Spain and France - our friends the Solutreans - had dark skin. Does that put
a chill on the love affair that white supremacists and neo-Nazis seem to have with the Solutrean hypothesis? 

The quote above is from a news story on the Science website -- I'm not aware that the primary work has been published yet.
I'll look forward to reading it when it is.

Data from "Functional and Stylistic Variability in Paleoindian and Early Archaic Projectile Points from Midcontinental North America"

3/3/2015

 
Picture
I have added an Excel file of the basic dataset for my 2013 paper in North American Archaeologist to the "Data" section of the website.  The file contains basic information on provenience (county), UTMs (county center), typological category, and morphometric data for the 1,771 Paleoindian and Early Archaic projectile points that I used in that study.  Like the 2014 AENA paper, the NAA paper was produced from a portion of the analysis in my dissertation. 

The samples I used for the morphometric analysis in my dissertation and in the NAA paper were identical, so the data in the Excel file are also in the appendices of my dissertation.  I'm hoping that providing the data in an electronic format will save someone a great deal of time doing data entry, and will encourage the use of the dataset that took me who-in-the-hell-knows-how-many hours and miles to collect, compile, and produce.  The measurements used, as well as the procedures for taking them, are defined in the paper and in my dissertation.

The ultimate goal of the two analyses (raw material and morphometric) was to produce a quantitative description of the apparent sequence of material culture change from homogenous (Early Paleoindian) --> regionalized (Late Paleoindian) --> homogenous (Early Archaic) that characterizes the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in the Midcontinent.  A quantitative description allowed an "apples to apples" comparison with data from model experiments, providing a basis for evaluating some alternative scenarios explaining the regionalization as a result of various changes in social network structure.  As the time to my defense was ticking away, I had to sacrifice some of the modeling work in order to get finished.  I was able to draw some conclusions, but a satisfying analysis of the "social boundary" question is still in the future.  Once I get set up at my new job I'll be able to restart the modeling work, add data from the southeast to my dataset, and reboot on the question of the social networks of early hunter-gatherers in eastern North America.


Data From "Changing Scales of Lithic Raw Material Transport Among Early Hunter-Gatherers in Midcontinental North America"

3/2/2015

 
Picture
I am a proponent of openly sharing information, and one of my purposes in creating this website was to create a way that I could make available data from own papers and research projects.  I realized when I recently paid my bill for the site that it has been a year and I have yet to post any data.  So I'm starting now.

I have added an Excel file of the basic dataset for my recent paper in Archaeology of Eastern North America to the "Data" section of the website.  The file contains basic information on provenience (county), UTMs (county center), raw material, and typological category for the 926 projectile points that I used in that study.  The AENA paper was produced from a portion of the analysis in my dissertation.

The Elephants of Ether: Mormons and the Mastodon Problem

2/27/2015

 
One of the interesting things about doing “research by blog” is that you can get almost instant, unanticipated contributions of information from anyone who reads what you’ve posted.  As a result of this post exploring two examples of the idea that “Mound Builders” and mastodons co-existed, I became aware of the interest that Mormons have taken in mastodons.  As soon as I wrote the post, Jason Colavito and Brad Lepper each made me aware of the 1839 story Behemoth: A Legend of the Mound Builders by Cornelius Matthews.  Behemoth told the tale of the quest of a pre-Native American race (the "Mound-Builders") to slay a giant mastodon. From there I was led to mentions of elephants in the Book of Mormon (BOM) through this site.

The BOM mentions elephants in the following passages from Ether (9:16-19), referring to the experience of the Jaredites entering the New World around 2500 BC:

“And the Lord began again to take the curse from off the land, and the house of Emer did prosper exceedingly under the reign of Emer; and in the space of sixty and two years they had become exceedingly strong, insomuch that they became exceedingly rich—Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things; And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man. And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.”

The clear statement about the existence of elephants in the New World at 2500 BC is one of many details in the BOM that critics have questioned and Mormons have defended.  As data and scholarly opinions have changed, the Mormon argument has also changed. In the mid 1800s, the idea that mastodons had co-existed with the “Mound Builders” in eastern North America was not uncommon.  Currently, however, you would be hard-pressed to find a single non-Mormon scholar who thinks that mastodons survived until anywhere near 2500 BC (a more reasonable estimate would be about 9500 BC).  As an archaeologist who works in the Eastern Woodlands, I can tell you that I am not aware of any serious, recent scholarly work that tries to understand the role of mastodons in middle or late Holocene (i.e., post-8000 BC) Native American cultures.  Why?  Because there is no good evidence that they existed that late into prehistory.

That change in scientific opinion about the timing of mastodon extinction was the result of accumulated paleontological and archaeological knowledge and the development of radiometric dating techniques that allow chronology to be understood in absolute terms (i.e., in terms of real calendar dates).  The current Mormon argument for elephants at 2500 BC hinges on just a handful of anomalously late mastodon radiocarbon dates that were obtained in the early decades of radiocarbon dating, before the effects of sample contamination were understood and before procedures were developed to mitigate those effects.  By continuing to rely on those dates, Mormon apologists and scholars are clinging to 60-year-old "facts" that they must know are probably in error.

I will discuss the radiocarbon dates further below.  But first let’s put the story of mastodons, Mormons, and “Mound Builders” in America in some historical context.  Why?  Because it’s interesting!
PictureIllustration of the Peale mastodon.
The first and perhaps the most famous early encounter between science, religion, and mastodons in America was Cotton Mather’s (early 1700s) interpretation of mastodon bones unearthed in New York as the remains of an Antediluvian giant. African slaves in South Carolina, familiar with the anatomy of elephants, correctly identified mammoth teeth unearthed in 1725 as those of an elephant rather than a human giant (see this post by Adrienne Mayor). As more and more fossils were discovered, naturalists refined their understanding of mastodons, mammoths, and their relationships to living elephants.  The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) was formally named and described as a taxon in the 1790s.  The Peale mastodon, a relatively complete skeleton from New York, was excavated, illustrated, and displayed in 1801.  As encapsulated in this article, the large mastodons, with all their implications of power and size, became a part of the emerging identity of the young United States. 

The idea that species could go extinct was still relatively new in the late 1700s. (The absence of the idea of extinction was an important component of why the bones of extinct animals had so often been interpreted as the remains of ancient giants - what else could they be?).  The idea of extinction was apparently not one that Thomas Jefferson subscribed to.  Consequently, he was convinced that mammoths and mastodons should still be alive in the western part of the continent.  In Notes of the State of Virginia (1785:55), Jefferson wrote:

“The bones of the mammoth, which have been found in America, are as large as those found in the old world. It may be asked, why I insert the mammoth, as if it still existed?  I ask in return why I should omit it, as if it did not exist?  Such is the economy of Nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. To add to this, the traditionary testimony of the Indians, that this animal still exists in the Northern and Western parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to that of the meridian sun.  Those parts still remain in their aboriginal state, unexplored and undisturbed by us, or by others for us.  He may as well exist there now, as he did formerly, where we find his bones.”

Notice also Jefferson's plea for recognition of the vigor and size of the North American fauna, of which the mammoth and mastodon were a part.  He fully expected that living examples could be found and add to the argument for the grandeur of a young nation.  As President of the United States, Jefferson instructed Lewis and Clark to look for mastodons and mammoths during their Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804-1806).  After they found none, he ordered excavations at the productive fossil site of Big Bone Lick in Kentucky in 1807 (see A Discourse on the Character and Services of Thomas Jefferson by Samuel Latham Mitchill, 1826, pages 29-30), retrieving mastodon fossils to send to Europe.

More than just a scientific curiosity, mastodons and mammoths were participants in American culture in the early 1800s.  The earliest use of the term “mastodon” that I located in a newspaper dates to 1810. 
Several mastodons were unearthed in New York in the 1810s and 1820s, and those finds were reported in newspapers.  The data below show a rapid increase in the appearance of "mastodon" in books (many of them scientific/technical) in the 1820s.  Newspapers from this time period also contain numerous advertisements for living elephants exhibited by traveling circuses.  My point is that knowledge of both living elephants and their extinct relatives was being widely disseminated when the BOM was published in 1830.  Extinct elephants were becoming part of an emerging American identity.

Picture
Google Ngram results for "mastodon."
PictureIllustration of the Wisconsin "Elephant Mound" from MacLean's "Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man" (1880).
As the possibility that the animals could still be alive somewhere on the continent evaporated with continued Euroamerican exploration of the American west and more widespread acceptance of the idea of extinction, the debate in the mid-1800s shifted to whether humans and extinct elephants had ever co-existed.  Were mastodons and mammoths Antediluvian beasts that had perished in the Flood, or did prehistoric peoples in North America interact with them? As described by John Patterson MacLean in his book Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man (1880, pages 74-82), evidence that humans and mastodons had overlapped in time included mastodon bones associated with projectile points, mastodon bones that had been burned, mastodon bones associated with pottery, engravings of elephants on Mayan stonework, the presence of mastodon remains stratigraphically above sediments containing basketry, the “Elephant Mound” in Wisconsin, and Native American oral traditions that described elephant-like creatures.  

In the same year as MacLean’s book, Frederick Larkin’s Ancient Man in America was published, describing his theory that the “Mound Builders” had domesticated the mastodon as a beast of burden and for warfare.  Larkin also used the elephant-shaped effigy mound in Wisconsin as evidence.  A few years later (1885), Charles Putnam published his volume on the elephant pipes of Iowa, widely thought to be fraudulent.

Mormons embraced the array of evidence in the late 1800s that seemed to support the contemporaneity of humans and mastodons in the New World.  The 1908 Book of Mormon Talks, written by Hyrum O. Smith, addresses the 1857 critique of Mormonism offered by John Hyde’s Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs:

“Papa.--We certainly can not blamed for considering this as conclusive evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon account, and rejecting the dogmatic statement of Mr. Hyde that “the elephant is not a native of America and never was its inhabitant.” We have not only found that the elephant was here, but that other large animals of the elephant or mastodon species were here, and that they were here at the same time that man was.  These larger animals that are called “cureloms and cumoms” in the Book of Mormon were evidently of the mastodon or elephant type for which there were not names in English, hence their names were transferred to the book just as the Jaredites called them.  There is one more point which we wish to establish before we leave this subject.  You will notice that the last part of the quotation which Harry has read from Ether says, “And there were elephants, and cureloms, and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms and cumoms.”  This certainly signifies that they used these large animals for beasts of burden, and strange to say, we have something to sustain this statement also.  Ethel, you may read from page 75 of the Archaeological Committee’s report the opinion of Mr. Frederick Larkin, M.D.:” (pages 141-142)

In the book, Ethel goes on to read Larkin’s self-proclaimed “visionary” statement about the domestication of the mastodon by the “Mound Builders.”  Papa gladly accepts Larkin’s conclusion, but chides him for claiming something as “new” which of course had been revealed in an inspired way decades earlier in the BOM.

In the early 1900s, then, the defense of the elephants of Ether was based on a constellation of data points (Central American engravings, apparent associations of mastodons with human tools, fraudulent pipes, an amorphous earthen mound that looks like an elephant if you squint) that suggested the contemporaneity between elephants and the complex societies of the Americas.  Larkin’s statement about the domestication of the mastodon was welcomed because the language of the BOM “certainly signifies that they used these large animals for beasts of burden.”

Investigations at the Folsom site in the 1920s cemented the case for all interested parties that humans and extinct Pleistocene animals had co-existed in North America.  Excavations at Blackwater Draw in the early 1930s conclusively demonstrated an association between mammoth bones and distinctive Clovis projectile points. The debate about the co-existence of humans and extinct proboscideans was over.

The advent of radiocarbon dating in the early 1950s changed the game of understanding time in prehistoric North America, allowing the ages of organic remains to be estimated in absolute terms (i.e., in calendar years).  Almost immediately, the archaeological chronology of North America lengthened significantly as archaeologists were able, for the first time, to understand how much time was really represented by the remains they could observe. Paleontology benefited also, as many fossil remains could be directly dated.

Radiocarbon dates initially seemed to provide support for the idea that mastodons had survived late into prehistory, consistent with the statement in the Book of Ether.  As Mormon publications and websites are fond of pointing out, radiocarbon age estimates from mastodons include several mid-Holocene dates that suggest mastodons and the Jaredites could have overlapped.  A 2012 paper by John Sorenson in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture (volume 1, page 99) reads:

“Mastodon remains have been dated by radiocarbon to around 5000 BC in Florida, around the Great Lakes to 4000 BC, in the Mississippi Valley to near 3300 BC, perhaps to near 100 BC near St. Petersburg, Florida (“low terminal [C-14] dates for the mastodon indicate . . . lingering survival in isolated areas”), and at sites in Alaska and Utah dating around 5000 BC.  In the Book of Mormon, mention of elephants occurs in a single verse, in the Jaredite account (“There were elephants,” Ether 9:19), dated in the third millennium BC, after which the record is silent (indicating spot extinction?).”

The website "Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon" repeats some of those dates, as does this website.

As someone who works on Paleoindian period archaeology in eastern North America, I was surprised to see the suggestion that radiocarbon dates indicated the survival of the mastodon into the mid-Holocene.  The youngest radiocarbon dates for mastodon of which I was aware are around 10,000-9500 BC (see Woodman and Athfeld 2009).  And I've never heard of a single mastodon bone being recovered from a context that suggested any interaction with Archaic peoples.  

Fortunately, Sorenson’s paper provides some references so we can have a look at these purportedly late dates. Here are the radiocarbon dates I could find that apparently form the basis of the Mormon claim of a late survival of mastodons in eastern North America:

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I was unable to find the 1975 Wenner-Grenn report that Sorensen references for the claim of mastodons in the Great Lakes at 4000 BC (related to the work of Warren Wittry), but I wonder if that date isn’t related to M-347 above (a 4000 BC mastodon date from Lapeer County, Michigan, reported by Crane and Griffin in 1959).

I was also unable to find a specific date associated with the mastodon from Devil’s Den, Florida, and couldn't find a copy of Martin and Webb (1974) online.  Kurten and Anderson (1980:365) reference “unpublished C-14 data” from Martin and Webb (1974) and give an age range of 8000-7000 BP (i.e., about 5000 BC, uncalibrated).

For the other dates, a few things are worth noting. The M-138 date (the “Richmond Mastodon” from Noble County, Indiana) is from charcoal, not the mastodon itself.  The association between the charcoal and the mastodon is highly suspect, as the excavation that produced both the mastodon and the charcoal was actually performed in the 1930s (see Williams 1957:365, 368).  The excavators thought that the charcoal and some corner-notched projectile points were associated with the mastodon, but it seems more likely they they are actually from a later Late Archaic component that was not directly associated with the mastodon remains.  Williams (1957: 368) states that there was a second radiocarbon date from the site that was about twice as old.

The M-67 and M-347 dates, obtained in the 1950s from tusk material, could easily have been contaminated by more recent organic matter (see below).  They are most likely far too young.

The L-211 date, like the M-138 date, was apparently obtained from charcoal recovered from an excavation decades earlier.  Further, the deposits were unconsolidated and may have contained a jumble of redeposited material (in other words, the charcoal may have had nothing to do with the mastodon bones) (Hester 1960:65).

The alert reader will notice that four out of the five dates in the table above are in the very early years of radiocabon dating (the 1950s), and the fifth is from the 1970s.  Why does that matter?  Because, as in all science, there have been developments in the methods, practice, and theory of radiocarbon dating since it was first operationalized in 1947.  Radiocarbon dating is incredibly important tool for understanding the past, and considerable effort has gone into improving it.  One aspect of improving the reliability and accuracy of radiocarbon dating was dealing with problems of sample contamination.  Early on, it was realized that radiocarbon dates on bone were often far too young because the samples were often contaminated with more recent carbon.

Here is a summary of the history of advancements in radiocarbon dating bone.  Here is another.

The evolution of thought in the scholarly literature about the extinction of mastodons is connected to developments in radiocarbon dating and the refinement of techniques for removing contamination.  The 1957 paper by Williams referenced above, often cited by Mormons, argues for the presence of mastodons in eastern North America after 8000 BC, with extinction around 5000 BC.  Because of a lack of archaeological associations between mastodon remains and the Archaic peoples with whom they would have been contemporary, however, Williams discussed the possibility of a problem with dating techniques.  In other words, the late dates appeared somewhat anomalous even in 1957 because there was no good direct evidence of interactions between mastodons and the Archaic peoples that would have shared the continent with them between 8000 and 5000 BC.  All of the radiocarbon dates on bone that Williams utilized would have been subject to contamination by younger carbon, resulting in age estimates that skewed too young.

A 1968 paper by A.
Dreimanis summarized 28 available radiocarbon dates for mastodons, throwing out many of the early dates and suggesting that extinction was underway by 10,000 years ago. Dreimanis did not throw out the dates arbitrarily, but because of issues of contamination that were becoming better understood and unclear relationships between what was dated (e.g., plant material) and the target of the date (the mastodon).  The paper by Hester (1960) also discusses some of the same problematic dates.  By the 1960s, it was recognized that contamination by recent humic acids may make dates on bone collagen too young.  Bone samples were especially susceptible to contamination by more recent organic materials, complete removal of which was difficult for the sample sizes that were required.

The advent of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating in the 1980s allowed smaller samples to be used to produce age estimates, permitting improved pretreatment procedures to remove contaminants from bone prior to dating (see this 1992 paper). This improved both the accuracy and precision of radiocarbon dates on bone, which are now typically performed only on collagen (protein) extracted from the bone, rather than the mineral component (hydroxyapatite).  Here is an explanation on the Beta Analytic website.  

In the present (the early 21st century) all scientists that I’m aware of support the idea that mastodon extinction was associated with the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The young (e.g., 8000-1000 BC) dates obtained from mastodons in the first decades of radiocarbon dating have not been duplicated (with the possible exception of very recent date from another Michigan mastodon) since procedures for removing contaminants were refined. Now a “young” date on a mastodon is one that post-dates 10,500 RCYBP (as above). There are good reasons why scientists don’t use those anomalous dates from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: they are not discarded simply because they don’t fit our expectations, but because there are logical, well-understood reasons to strongly suspect they don’t reflect the actual age of the bones. And those dates exist in a vacuum of other compelling evidence to suggest that populations of mastodons really survived that long into the Holocene.

So while radiocarbon dating and science have continued to move forward and refine our understanding of the demise of the mastodons, the Mormons seem to prefer to stop time during the early days of radiocarbon dating, when anomalously young dates on bone were not uncommon.  Based on what we know now, those anomalously young dates are probably attributable to either contamination, context/association problems, or both.  They are embraced by Mormons not because they are good science, but because they remain the "best fit" to the Jaredite time period.  No-one else takes those dates seriously, and it isn't because they're trying to undermine the BOM.  It's because there isn't any reason to take them seriously:  they are probably mistakes.  

As the scientific evidence against a 2500 BC population of mastodons in eastern North America mounted, the Mormon interpretation of the elephants of Ether also changed.  Gone now is any argument that humans had domesticated mastodons, as so confidently asserted by Hyrum O. Smith in 1908. Again from the website "Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon:"

“Moroni then lists the animals that were "useful unto man," including horses, asses, and the elephants, cureloms, and cumoms. But it is very interesting that there is a difference in the way they are listed. They "had horses and asses," implying possession of domesticated animals, but "there were elephants, cureloms, and cumoms" (Ether 9:19). This hints that these last mentioned animals existed in the land and were useful to them, but were not domesticated.”

Many Mormon websites also cite as support for the late survival of mastodons evidence of the co-existence of humans and mastodons.  Co-existence and late (i.e., 2500 BC) co-existence are not the same thing.  The fact that humans and mastodons co-existed has zero bearing on the argument of when they coexisted.  There is abundant evidence that humans and mastodons did interact in North America during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and that fact is not in dispute. What is in dispute in the late survival of those creatures claimed by Mormons.  Of that there is no good evidence.  Once radiocarbon data allowed prehistoric time in eastern North America to be unfurled, it became clear that there was a large time gap between the heyday of the mastodons the purported arrival of the Jaredites.  That time gap grew as radiocarbon dating procedures improved to deal with the systematic error produced by contamination problems.

Continuing to uncritically employ a handful of young radiocarbon dates from the early decades of radiocarbon dating as support for the claim of elephants at 2500 BC is intellectually dishonest.  Last time I checked, AMS dates were about $600 each (I also seem to recall that the price has recently dropped).  If Mormons want to continue to use radiocarbon dating to evaluate the historical accuracy of the Book of Ether, I suggest that they have those “late surviving” mastodons re-dated.  If they agree to pay for it, I would be happy to help attempt to locate the remains wherever they are curated and try to secure permission to have samples dated.  It would be a nice way to resolve the ambiguity.  We can publish the results.  If there really were mastodons tromping around in the woodlands of Archaic eastern North America, I would like to know about it and so would a lot of other people.  It's a win-win.
___________

References for unlinked literature:

Crane, H. R. 1956.  University of Michigan Radiocarbon Dates I. Science 124(3224): 664-672.

Crane, H. R., and J. B. Griffin. 1959.  University of Michigan Radiocarbon Dates IV. American Journal of Science Radiocarbon Supplement 1: 173-198.

Hester, Jim J.  1960.  Late Pleistocene Extinction and Radiocarbon Dating.  American Antiquity 26(1):58-77.

Kurten, B., and E. Anderson. 1980.  Pleistocene Mammals of North America.  New York: Columbia University Press.

Martin, R. A., and S. D. Webb. 1974.  Late Pleistocene Mammals from the Devil's Den Fauna, Levy County.  In Webb, S.D. (editor): Pleistocene Mammals of Florida, pp. 114-145.  Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.

Williams, Stephen. 1957. The Island 35 Mastodon: Its Bearing on the Age of Archaic Cultures in the East.  American Antiquity 22:359-372.


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