Faithful readers of my blog may remember several posts from 2016 and 2015 (here and here) about the production of a movie titled The Solutrean. My interest in the movie centered mostly around the question of how much, if any, of the storyline would revolve around the central claim of the Solutrean hypothesis (that Late Pleistocene Europeans colonized eastern North America). I was also interested in the film for the possibility that we'd get a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.

The trailer for the film (now named Apha) was released in mid July. I've watched it three times and haven't noticed anything in it that screams "boat trip across the Atlantic ice." I also haven't been left with much hope it will be a good cinematic treatment of life in the Upper Paleolithic.  

Here is the trailer: watch it yourself and then we'll discuss.

I see all the things you'd expect to see in in a "caveman" film: campfires, a saber-toothed cat, mammoth-skull houses, people flintknapping in a circle, etc.  The lifeway depicted seems focused on hunting terrestrial large game, with one scene showing our Solutrean friends attempting some kind of bison hunt by throwing spears into an amazing precise line in front of the charging herd. (It's hard to tell if the intent of the hunt was to drive bison over a cliff -- the cliff appears to be about a mile high, so . . .). 

Apparently something goes awry with the plan, as the protagonist gets tossed over a cliff and separated from the group. He is then chased by wolves and befriends one that is injured, creating the first human/canine bond and forever changing the world (hence the title Alpha). 

To my eye, what's shown in the trailer is unexciting. The actors look like A-listers who need a bath, and the scenery looks more like the sterile CGI landscape of 300 and The Phantom Menace than the real natural world shown in films like The Black Robe.

​I give the trailer a score of three bored yawns (out of five, not ten).

Back in September, I wrote this short post about the announcement of an upcoming film called The Solutrean. I have a Google Alert set up for "Solutrean," so when there's a press release about the movie it shows up in my inbox. I also have a Google Alert set up for my own name, just in case. I hope no-one is getting me confused with the Vicar of Baghdad or Nebraska Cornhusker's guard Andrew White III. Those are the Andrew Whites that make the news routinely.

A story two days ago seems to answer the question of whether The Solutrean will have anything to do with the Solutrean Hypothesis with a big "yes:"

"Inspired by the idea tossed around by some folks that Europeans settled in North America over 20,000 years ago, the movie . . .  tells the Ice Age set story about a hunting trip the goes bad, and the tough journey home that follows." 

And in this story:

"Specifically, the title “Solutrean” is a nod to a hypothesis written by scholars who believe that Europeans settled America somewhere around 20,000 years ago."

It sounds to me like they're writing from the same press release.  So the film is, in at least some way, about the Solutrean Hypothesis.

I'm interested in the Solutrean Hypothesis (the idea that Upper Paleolithic peoples from western Europe colonized eastern North America sometime during the period 21,000 to 17,000 years ago) for a couple of different reasons.  First, as a scientific idea, it relates directly to questions about the peopling of the New World and the earliest hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Woodlands. Like many other archaeologists, I'm open to possibility but remain unconvinced and unimpressed by the positive evidence that's been put forth so far (e.g., the Cinmar biface, the other bi-points reportedly recovered from Chesapeake Bay area, the genetic data, etc.).  There have been reports of the discovery of Solutrean assemblages in sites with good context in eastern North America, but (as far as I know) those reports have been thus far limited to stories in the popular media (this story in Popular Archaeology, for example -- edited since I wrote about it here). I can't speak for others, but real publication of those sites is something I'm eagerly awaiting.

Not everyone is as skeptical as me. Some professional archaeologists apparently are convinced by what they've see so far, and it's pretty clear that the Solutrean Hypothesis has a strong following among non-professionals. My sense from comments I get on this blog is that many of you out there feel that the burden of proof has already been satisfied.

I disagree, obviously, and I think the contrast between how professionals and non-professionals generally view the Soloutrean Hypothesis and the strength of the evidence for it illustrates a good degree of daylight between how professional archaeologists and the public at large evaluate ideas about the past. I've been accused of "attacking" the Solutrean Hypothesis because I have expressed skepticism about the evidence, when, in reality, such skepticism is a basic, fundamental part of the process of doing science. Critical evaluation of positive material evidence is absolutely essential to the whole endeavor of understanding the past. I'm not sure when the Solutrean Hypothesis became so sacred and beloved that it was no longer permissible to ask questions like "what is that artifact really telling us?" or "what is the basis of that assertion?" News flash: those kinds of questions are never out of line. The Solutrean Hypothesis is far from being settled science. And, even if does turn out to be correct (i.e., the null hypothesis of "no North American visit by Solutrean-age peoples from Europe" is falsified by a good site), the door will never close on asking pertinent questions about the evidence and the interpretation of that evidence.

So now that we know that The Solutrean will indeed consciously embrace the Solutrean Hypothesis. It's a movie, of course, not science.  But it will be interesting to see how the characters and story of The Solutrean engage and reflect both the scientific and non-scientific parts of the story of the Solutrean Hypothesis. What will the Solutreans look like? Will they encounter any other peoples in their journeys? Will they drop the Cinmar biface while traversing the Atlantic Shelf? 

​We shall see.

Another mention of The Solutrean popped up in my news feed this morning, announcing that Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee is nearing a deal to star in the "Ice Age-set survival thriller:"

"Smit-McPhee will play a young man who must cross miles of dangerous, weather-whipped territory to reunite with his tribe."

In a previous post, I wondered if that "dangerous territory" included the New World. Today's stories aren't any more specific than the original ones, but do mention that the story is "set 20,000 years ago in Europe."

In another previous post, I discussed the results of recent genetic analyses that suggested Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe (including Solutrean peoples) were relatively dark-skinned compared to western Europeans today.  

At this point there's no way of knowing what The Solutrean will bring to the table. I would love to see a film about Paleolithic Europe that made a real effort to get the details right and present a vision of the past that is as accurate as it is compelling (i.e., more like The Black Robe and less like 10,000 BC).   I'm hoping The Solutrean is not a film just about a bunch of people who look like modern, white Europeans doing brave things.  Filming is scheduled to start soon.

If you're interested in how, when, and from where people first entered the Americas, you should be aware of a new paper by Jennifer Raff and Deborah Bolnick titled "Does Mitochondrial Haplogroup X Indicate Ancient Trans-Atlantic Migration to the Americas? A Critical Re-Evaluation" (PaleoAmerica 1(4):297-304). It is a concise, clear, and largely non-technical essay discussing what the presence of mitochondrial Haplogroup X2a in Native Americans might be telling us about the pre-Columbian migration of populations across the Atlantic. 

The answer is . . . (drumroll): not much.

Haplogroups are genetic populations that share a common ancestor.  The common ancestry of mitochondrial haplogroups is defined by differences and similarities in mitochondrial DNA, a kind of DNA that is contained in the mitochondria of cells.

Haplogroup X is found in living populations in Europe, west Asia, and northern North America.  Studies in the late 1990s began to ask whether the geographic distribution of Haplogroup X among living populations was telling us something about the origin of at least some New World peoples. A widely-read 1998 popular article titled "Genes May Link Ancient Eurasians, Native Americans" (Science 280(5363):520) helped popularize the idea that peoples from the Near East or Europe contibuted to Native American ancestry.  This idea was very popular among Mormons looking for evidence of a migration of Near Eastern peoples to the New World several thousand years ago (it is regarded with less enthusiasm now, especially after the publication of genetic data from Kennewick Man: see this blog post, for example).  

The distribution of Haplogroup X has also been proffered as evidence by proponents of the Solutrean Hypothesis (the idea that Paleolithic peoples from Europe migrated to eastern North America around 20,000 years ago). In a 2014 paper ("Solutrean Hypothesis: Genetics, the Mammoth in the Room," World Archaeology 46(5):752-774), Stephen Oppenheimer, Bruce Bradley, and Dennis Stanford argued that

"The mtDNA X2a evidence is more consistent with the Atlantic route and dates suggested by the Solutrean hypothesis and is more parsimonious than the assumption of a single Beringian entry, that assumes retrograde extinction of X in East Eurasia." (from the abstract)

Raff and Bolnick's essay strongly challenges that interpretation, concluding the following (page 301):

"We remain unconvinced by the arguments advanced thus far in favor of a trans-Atlantic migration prior to 1500 cal yr BP or so. As we have discussed, X2a has not been found anywhere in Eurasia, and phylogeography gives us no compelling reason to think it is more likely to come from Europe than from Siberia. Furthermore, analysis of the complete genome of Kennewick Man, who belongs to the most basal lineage of X2a yet identified, gives no indication of recent European ancestry and moves the location of the deepest branch of X2a to the West Coast, consistent with X2a belonging to the same ancestral population as the other founder mitochondrial haplogroups. Nor have any high-resolution studies of genome-wide data from Native American populations yielded any evidence of Pleistocene European ancestry or trans-Atlantic gene flow."

This is an interesting case where, I think, interpretations based initially solely on genetic information from living populations are and will continue to be refined as data are added from prehistoric remains.  Genetic data from living populations are great for formulating hypotheses, but they don't actually provide direct evidence about the past -- that has to come materials and skeletons that are actually from the past.  Whatever story is "true" has to be consistent with all lines of evidence.  Raff and Bolnick (page 301) mention that there are currently no genetic data from Solutrean skeletal material -- I hope someone pursues that in the near future.

As a final aside: it's a bummer that every single paper I discuss in this post is behind a paywall. I can get to them through my university library access, but the public generally can't.  A lot of people out there who are not professional academics are interested in these issues and it's a shame we can't make our work more openly available to them.  The Raff and Bolnick paper is a great example, I think, of an essay on a technical issue that is written in such a way as to be palatable to a non-technical audience (and when it comes to genetics, I include myself in that audience).  I hope that their paper can somehow be made open access so anyone and everyone can read it.​

Update (11/7/2015):  A copy of Raff and Bolnick's paper can be downloaded from Jennifer Raff's Academia.edu page.

The Fall 2015 edition of Popular Archaeology contains a story about the Solutrean Hypothesis titled "The Iceman Cameth" by Patrick Hahn. I've seen the story (dated October 2) pop up in a number of groups that I follow online. It contains several obvious errors, including a particularly important one in the first paragraph.  I would have thought someone would have pointed them out and/or corrected them by now, but that doesn't appear to have happened.  So here you go.

This is the first paragraph of the story:

"In his laboratory at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., Dr. Dennis Stanford hands me a slab of brown plaster. It’s a replica of a bone fragment – from a mastodon or a giant ground sloth – the original having been dredged from the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. On the slab is an etching of a mastodon, placed there by some unknown artist long ago. By itself, the find is a truly remarkable one. But more than this, the artifact, dated to a staggering 22,000 years ago, is now part of a growing body of evidence that could overturn everything scientists once thought they knew about the peopling of the Americas."

The first sentence might be correct.  The rest of the first paragraph, however, is wrong.  

Unless I missed something, there is no 22,000 year-old mastodon carving from Chesapeake Bay. The author has conflated the carving of a mammoth on a piece of fossil bone from Vero Beach, Florida (dating to about 13,000 years ago), with the 22,000-year-old mastodon remains that were purportedly dredged up from the mid-Atlantic continental shelf along with the Cinmar biface.

This is not a trivial error: it conflates a discovery that is accepted (Vero Beach) with one that is much less so (Cinmar), casting the case for the Solutrean Hypothesis in a more favorable light than is deserved based on the evidence.  

As far as I know, no-one really doubts the veracity of the Vero Beach mammoth carving: it appears to be a genuine artifact that dates to at least 13,000 years ago (i.e., when mammoths became extinct).  It could have been produced by Clovis or pre-Clovis peoples.  It's pretty cool, but it hasn't been dated to 22,000 years ago and doesn't "overturn everything scientists thought they knew."  If you want to read some scholarly work on the Vero Beach carving, here is a 2011 paper by Barbara Purdy et al. from the Journal of Archaeological Science.  

To say the Cinmar biface doesn't enjoy the same level of acceptance as the Vero Beach carving is putting it mildly. The Cinmar biface, a bi-pointed stone blade that resembles a Solutrean laurel-leaf point, is said by its supporters to be about 22,8000 years old by virtue of its association with radiocarbon-dated mastodon remains. Both the point and the mastodon remains are said to have been dredged up from the continental shelf some years ago. The reported circumstances of discovery of the Cinmar biface have been strongly questioned (you can read a June 2015 paper by Metin Eren et al. in the Journal of Archaeological Science here; you can read Darrin Lowery's response to that paper here; and you can read what I wrote about the whole affair here).

The conflation of the Vero Beach carving (a well-accepted artifact) with the dates and location associated with the Cinmar biface (a much more controversial artifact) is an important mistake.  The Cinmar biface is one of the key pieces of evidence put forward by proponents of the Solutrean Hypothesis. The Vero Beach carving is not. Not a great start to the article.

Moving on.

This is paragraph fourteen:

"Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation antedating Clovis by thousands of years, including sites on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  Tools associated with these sites have a distinctly Solutrean look."

This paragraph, again, mixes something that most archaeologists accept (the reality of a pre-Clovis occupation of eastern North America) with something that has been asserted but not yet demonstrated to the satisfaction of most of us (that there are actual Solutrean sites on the east coast).  More clarity would been helpful - what sites are we talking about here? Presumably, the article is referring to the Miles Point and Oyster Cove sites which were discussed by Lowery et al. in this 2010 paper in Quaternary Science Reviews (and this 2012 Washington Post article).  The artifacts described from Miles Point (reportedly found in sediments of pre-Clovis age) don't look particularly Solutrean to me, and indeed that paper does not suggest any Solutrean affinity (the word "Solutrean" does not appear in the paper). You can read a critique of the evidence for the Solutrean Hypothesis and the data from Miles Point and Oyster Cove in this 2014 Antiquity paper by Michael O'Brien et al.  If there's a paper somewhere that makes a case for the Solutrean affinity of the lithic assemblages from Miles Point or Oyster Cove (or other sites) on typological grounds, I haven't seen it.

Moving on.

The article includes an image of some Solutrean artifacts followed by two images that are supposed to be Clovis points.  Neither of the artifacts represented as a Clovis point actually is.​

The first "Clovis point" is apparently an artifact found in Mexico near the Tepexpan skeleton. It's possible it's a preform for a fluted point, but it clearly isn't a finished Clovis point.

The second image, also not a Clovis point, is apparently a biface from Nicaragua.  The image can be found on Wikimedia Commons, where is described as "NOT A CLOVIS TECHNOLOGY."  

​It's pretty easy to find images of actual Clovis points, so I'm not sure why the Popular Archaeology story chose to use non-Clovis artifacts as examples of Clovis.  In terms of their shape, the artifacts shown at least superficially resemble Solutrean laurel-leaf blades far more to the untrained eye than actual Clovis points.  But they're not Clovis points.  And they're not Solutrean artifacts.  So why are they in the article?

Strike three.

Neither the Solutrean Hypothesis nor the evidence associated with it is really very complicated. I have no idea what the editorial process at Popular Archaeology is like, but the significant errors and omissions in this story don't inspire a lot of confidence. 

I was compelled to write this post because one of the readers of my blog (a non-archaeologist) asked me about this article in particular.  He wanted to know what I thought of Popular Archaeology.  I think there's some room for improvement.

Is it just me? Am I missing something? Let me know if I've gotten anything wrong: I'll gladly correct what I've written.

A story about an upcoming film titled The Solutrean popped up in my news feed this morning. According to the piece, the film will be

"a visually striking epic-adventure . . .  It has to do with a hunting expedition gone awry and a young survivor’s quest to brave the inhospitable and dangerous conditions to find his way back."

My first reaction was to wonder if the young hero's adventures will have him visiting the Americas. Will we see North Atlantic currents carry him away along the pack ice? Will the "inhospitable and dangerous conditions" be provided courtesy of Native Americans? In other words, will the film engage with the central idea of the Solutrean Hypothesis?

My second reaction was to wonder if the Solutreans in film will be depicted as very light skinned, even though recent genetic evidence suggests their skin tone was darker than modern Europeans?

Connected to those was my third reaction: a conflicted mix of excitement and dread.  I think a lot of professional archaeologists will agree with me when I say there really aren't that many good movies that deal with our subject matter.  Movies can have a powerful effect in shaping the public's perception about both what archaeologists do and what the human past was like.  We love to watch movies that put flesh on the bones of things we think about every day, but we're often disappointed in what we see. 

I hope The Solutrean makes some good choices.  No word on when it's slated for release. Casting has begun and the film will be shot in Iceland and Canada.

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.