"The Solutrean" Reportedly WILL Visit the Americas

2/21/2016

The standard illustration of Solutrean tools (Musee d'Archeologie Nationale).

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.

29 Comments

Stuart Fiedel

2/21/2016 07:41:22 am

Calibrated age of the Solutrean is ~25-21,000 cal BP. It's important to state it that way now that people have begun to comprehend that Clovis is 13,000 years old. They are separated not only by the vastness of the North Atlantic but also by 8,000 yrs.

Andy White

2/21/2016 11:41:26 am

Can you save me a little work and provide a link to back that up?

Stuart Fiedel

2/21/2016 02:28:18 pm

http://paleo.revues.org/pdf/2721

Badegoulian replaces Solutrean in France around 23 k cal BP; maybe it survives a little later in southern Iberia.

Jonathan Feinstein

2/21/2016 08:43:02 am

The Solutrean Hypothesis is at least not as impossible as some of the notions we hear about and I will admit that it has more plausibility than the average fringe archaeology we often have to deal with.

During the Ice Ages, both the Grand Banks and Georges Banks were above sea-level landmasses (even now during a lunar low tide it is possible to wade on Georges Banks), so the crossing would have been marginally less arduous.

The crossing would still have been quite an accomplishment however, and I am forced to wonder whether one or two boats landing on the Grand Banks would have either attempted to return to Europe or continued onward to North America (which they would not have known existed). I think the Gulf Stream was depressed to the south at the time since it now flows directly over the banks, but it still would have represented the prevailing currents and breezes headed eastward rather than west.

That considered, I believe I would want to see more than just a similarity in the lithic technologies before I could accept the hypothesis. The Solutrean culture is not just known for its lithic technology but for the cave paintings associated with it as well. Wouldn't transplanted Solutrians bring that part of their culture too?

So while the hypothesis is not impossible, it does have one disturbing feature with some of the fringe theories and that is the introduction of European (Caucasian) culture to North America, which frequently implies that Native American technology (or at least improvements on it) was dependent on European infusions both technologically and genetically. So it plays into racist attitudes that have no proof behind them.

So while I can keep my mind open on this one, I need more proof to turn this hypothesis into theory.

Pegi Jodry

2/21/2016 10:30:51 am

Yes. It will take the continuing acquisition of good, solid material evidence and it's scientific reporting to come to a better understanding of multiple entries from multiple directions into and out of North America. This was the case with demonstrating a Pre- Clovis occupation in North America. The points of view expresses in 1978 on the (im)possibility of Pre-Clovis were much the same as those now expressed regarding early entry from what we now call NW Europe. I in Idaho listening to a Northern Cheyenne Elder (Algonquian speakers) tell me the perspective passed down to him regarding such matters. Listening to many perspectives is also an essential part of the scientific approach to learning. An open mind is a useful tool. It is not only non-scientists who share the considered hypothesis that Paleolithic people's entered Turtle Island from more than one direction. What a fictional movie has to present here, we will have to see... about the same as a fictional account of the Bering Land Bridge story during Clovis, I suspect. Although after decades is fieldwork by many people... we now understand that that story needed some tweeking. Any less to be expected of a Solutrean hypothesis?

Robert Lassen

2/21/2016 10:23:31 am

I think one big problem, for professionals and non-professionals alike, is that we often get emotionally attached to a particular hypothesis and then attack any alternative suggestions. Of course, that's okay when some of those alternatives are objectively ludicrous, as you so often highlight. But I feel that the Solutrean hypothesis is often unfairly seen as "objectively ludicrous" by most professional archaeologists, and it often gets an unfair share of derision leveled at it.

For example, one time a student went to reddit asking about resources concerning the peopling of the Americas. I recommended a number of books and articles (starting with Meltzer's First Peoples in a New World, which I think is a great intro). But at the end I suggested taking a look at Across Atlantic Ice, keeping in mind that most archaeologists are very skeptical of it. I got attacked by another professional for making that suggestion, saying that the Solutrean hypothesis is "pseudoscience on par with Ancient Aliens."

In peer reviewed publications as well, I think the hypothesis is sometimes the butt of what amounts to academic bullying. Don't get me wrong, many of the criticisms are valid and worth raising. The Raff and Bolnick genetics paper is a recent example of a very good critique. But when Eren et al. essentially concocted a conspiracy theory implying that the Cinmar discovery was faked, it came off as desperate and unscientific, at least to me. And that's a shame, because those authors have raised a couple good questions concerning the hypothesis in previous publications.

I think the Solutrean hypothesis also sometimes suffers from guilt by omission in professional research as well. There are a number of articles that report on computer-based models tracing entry routes into the Americas, and to my knowledge, there is not a single published model that tests an eastern entry. Why not give it a try, if only for shits and giggles? I've always been curious to see how it fits the data compared to Ice Free Corridor or west coast migrations.

I understand there are probably a lot of rabid fans of the Solutrean hypothesis out there, and since you are a very public skeptic, you probably get hassled by the worst of them. But I feel that some of the professionals are almost as rabidly opposed to the hypothesis. I think people on both sides of the argument get wrapped up in the modern idea of "Europe = white people," but we need to remember that the Paleolithic people of 20,000 years ago were not the same as the Europeans of today. We also need to remember that it's just an idea, and if we fail to uncover any solid (i.e. in situ) evidence in support of it, it will fall into obscurity like many ideas before it.

Uncle Ron

2/21/2016 10:54:43 am

"We also need to remember that it's just an idea, and if we fail to uncover any solid (i.e. in situ) evidence in support of it, it will fall into obscurity like many ideas before it."

No, unfortunately, it won't. Maybe among academics, but once a romantic idea becomes embedded in the fringe culture it will live on despite the best efforts of scientists and skeptics (or possibly because of them); even after it's been totally debunked. Fringe beliefs are mostly driven by the desire to feel like a part of something special - the "in" crowd with the "secret" knowledge the government, academia, and the mainstream are hiding - rather than the quest for knowledge.

John Conrick

3/3/2016 07:35:58 am

The use if the derisive term "fringe" should have no place in civil discussion. We are all looking to advance science and when some choose to denigrate others by calling them names it only impedes scientific advancement. I am sure that those that believed in evolution were called "fringe" and worse. But, thankfully, they persevered and advanced our knowledge of human history. Please try to control your emotions in the future and stick to the facts and do not sink to calling others names in an attempt to shut them down.

jaap

3/8/2016 01:27:16 pm

John Conrick addressed your 'fringe'-epithet, but I do see you have a point (pun unintended). I would like to point at the reverse: do not archeologists profit from the romanticism of the uneducated? It's their fucking capital!

Stuart Fiedel

2/21/2016 02:37:50 pm

Solutrean voyage not likely across LGM Atlantic:

ftp://ftp.soc.soton.ac.uk/pub/jkd/Publications/Westley%20%26%20Dix%202008.pdf

Robert Lassen

2/22/2016 08:59:08 am

Have you seen Dave Madsen's take on this in PaleoAmerica (vol. 1 no. 3)? Here's an excerpt:

"Unlike some (e.g. O’Brien et al. 2014), this review of Atlantic drill core records does not seem to me to disprove the basic Solutrean hypothesis, it simply limits the time and seasons during which an ice coast hunting of seals and other aquatic mammals may have occurred. Perhaps of more importance is that the location of the drill core records is rather spotty, and the determination of ice shelf limits is correspondingly hypothetical. Similarly, atmospheric circulation models place the Atlantic ice margin locations during the LGM anywhere from the Iberian Peninsula (Löfverstrom et al. 2014) to north of the British Isles (Pausata et al. 2011; see Vettoretti and
Peltier (2013) for a graphic representation of this ice margin movement during the LGM)."

Thank you for posting the Phillips article. I saw it in poster form at the SAAs a few years ago, but I never encountered the published version. I'll take a look.

I think it's safe to say that there was no route to the Americas that offered favorable travel conditions at all times. I've read that traversing along the Beringian coast would have been just as hazardous as the Atlantic, but sadly I can't remember a citation at the moment. And of course there's the issue of timing over when the Ice Free Corridor was open which no one seems to settle on.

Anyways, when I was asking about models tracing entries into the Americas, I was thinking more specifically of the work of folks like Dave Anderson and Todd Surovell who have mapped colonization pathways through the Americas once people arrived on the continent. I would be interested in seeing a least-cost pathway originating from the east, just to see how it compares.

jaap

3/8/2016 12:57:16 pm

There are many unlikely things going in this world. Such as a laurel leaf made out of American rock ... This is never going to go away unless it is properly accounted for as an American thing. I almost feel sorry for you, it's so unfair! This burden of proof is horrendous!

Also this one

2/21/2016 03:21:12 pm

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.3998/jar.0521004.0070.404

jaap

3/8/2016 01:59:19 pm

Robert Lassen. Now I'm really interested: whence this safety? With the sparsity of data we're well within the hypothetical tract of educated guesses. And I really wonder: how can you be so sure (or 'safe')? These are muddy waters, but you are safe! How do you do that? Dwarfs turn up in Indonesia, Australia gets peopled (whenever), Celebes at 100 000 plus, where do you get your security??? I'm really interested! For me this is a methodological question: how do people think, how do they probe forwards, and how do they get places? I don't really care for the 'solutrean hypothesis', but I'm dumbfounded with how American academia have dealt with it so far. And to me it seems the plot is thickening ...

John Conrick

3/3/2016 07:18:54 am

I believe a lot of the antagonism for the Solutrean hypothesis is the investment we have in the old theory of the peopling of America and the protection of the "Native Americans" or "Early Arrivals" due to the way later Europeans treated them when they came here. The greater technology and numbers overwhelmed the Early Arrivals and destroyed almost all of their culture and nearly exterminated them. Guilt is a powerful emotion and I believe guilt and the possibility of displacing the Early Arrivals from their position as the only Native Americans fuels strong objections to any possibility of someone from Europe coming here before them.

Normandie Kent

10/9/2017 07:05:31 pm

What a crock! No one takes the idea of Stone Age Solutreans voyaging to America across the ice, because they are NOT Inuit! They were not a maritime culture for f**ks sake! Their stone tools and their art shows them to be landlubbers ! Give me a break! It's because Europeans have no history past 400 years in the Americas, and it mess's with their self Esteem. It's no longer enough that the stole the whole continents , but now they want more , they need to feel that they have a claim to be Native Americans. Even to the extent of latching on to a long discredited HYPOTHESIS .

jaap

3/8/2016 12:44:41 pm

Robert Lassen. At last! An American academic with a regard for science! Oops, sorry Andy, you also qualify, of course. It seems difficult to disagree without getting mean, whereas disagreement is essential for any consensus to emerge! As to the Solutrean Hypothesis, it is often represented as an opinion that is somehow in very bad taste. I must say things are getting better now that Clovis First is off the table. But it is what it claims to be: a hypothesis, and there can be nothing disrespectful about that. Isn’t there a remarkable resemblance in tool-making? Could there have been contact to account for this? And what would be a plausible scenario? Just postulating that people on either side of the Atlantic – let’s not forget about the OOA-option – had no seafaring capabilities simply won’t cut it. Many arguments that have been brought against this idea don’t cut it simply because they are not arguments, much rather street-fighter jabs. And thus, as you pointed out, the real arguments (the ones we actually need for us all to get anywhere) are discredited. Let’s face it: the very existence of a Solutrean-looking laurel leaf made out of American rock is - off its own accord! - a huge question-mark that will not go away by shooting off the forwarded scenarios. And as to the racist angle: forget it! Them was blacks! Unrelated to modern Europeans, in fact by the time of Clovis they had long since disappeared from Europe (Cosimo Posth et al). Time to stop the raggedy-yeah and do a job here …

Bob Jase

2/21/2016 04:01:35 pm

I suppose it would be asking too much if the movie had a bunch of H. erectus greeting the Solutrean when he arrived.

Andy White

2/21/2016 06:06:46 pm

It doesn't hurt to ask.

Andy White

2/21/2016 06:08:16 pm

Maybe they could be holding a "Make America Great Again" banner.

Bob Jase

2/22/2016 09:09:43 am

More likely "There Goes the Neighborhood."

Scott Williams

2/23/2016 05:02:31 pm

Sadly, I think the appeal of the Solutrean Hypothesis among non-archaeologists is plain ol' racism-- out here in the West, the Jean-Luc Picard version of Kennewick Man was greeted by many with "see, the Indians weren't here first, so it's okay we did to them what they did to [insert group of your choice: Vikings, Hebrews, Druids, Solutreans]!" I'm not saying Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley are racist, but I think that's the popular appeal of their idea. As for the hypothesis itself, I have to say I'm in the "it's patently ridiculous" camp-- as far as I can tell, it rests solely on Clovis points and Solutrean points having a similar reduction technology, ignoring the fact that there are physically only so many ways to thin stone bifaces and the odds of cultures separated in time and space using the same limited set of techniques are actually pretty good- we see it all over the world. From my perspective as an archaeologist who studies lithic technology, the Solutrean Hypothesis is "objectively ludicrous"- there are no data to support it, other than a large series of "maybes" and "but what ifs".

John Conrick

3/3/2016 07:59:27 am

Imagine walking the trail of the people that travelled from Siberia to the heart of North America. All along the way making discoveries of the campsites of those adventurous people like the small chips of stone that they embedded in groves made in bones. At every stop you find the same blades. Then, suddenly, the only thing you find are biface stone points of amazing complexity and beauty, nothing like anything seen throughout your trek following the path of the first Americans. What to think? A sudden insight into making a completely new technology far in advance of anything that had been possible before? It would be like someone following the path of travelers and digging up the wagon wheels for thousands of miles then suddenly you find a jet engine. These people must have been amazing! Leaping suddenly from horse and buggy to jets!!

Then you find that these beautiful points are found all over the Eastern part of North America and that they often date to before the blades found amongst the refuse of the people coming from Siberia, the first Americans. But, how? The only similar points were in Europe thousands of years before it was possible for the Siberians to come to America. Could the Europeans have gotten to America somehow? The ice would have been there to travel across and plenty of seals were available to eat and sea animals do provide all the nutrients needed for life as long as you eat almost everything. Maybe they came by boat. But people didn't know how to build boats 20,000 years ago that could travel that far. Then you remember an article about the stone axes on Crete that would date to as long ago as 130,000 years ago! The only way people could have gotten to Crete was by sea and swimming was too far, from 25 to 125 miles. There were too many axes and they spanned almost 80,000 years in the strata of the island and they mirrored those being made in Africa. Maybe even early humans were far smarter than people give them credit for and they could build boats to take them step by step all across the Atlantic. Or maybe it was just an Early Arriver Einstein who just happened to discover how to create a complex point that also just happened to look really close to the ones being created in Europe at about the same time. I would like to meet that man!!

Normandie Kent

10/9/2017 07:18:22 pm

Except that the Clovis Points are better made and better looking than the plain Solutrean points. Clovis points are found all over the North America, not only on the east coast. The oldest proven peer reviewed site are on the west coast, they were found in situ, we can't say the same for the east coast finds. The Cin Mar blade was not found in situ, but supposedly found by a fisherman in his net on a trawler. None of the finds in his book are legit! That's why real scientists do not take it seriously.

Spark

3/8/2016 04:23:56 am

"But people didn't know how to build boats 20,000 years ago that could travel that far."

They did actually. The Skinboat people? Even the Romans knew of them. Plotemy wrote of them.

http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/uini-seagoingskinboats.html

http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/Farfarers.html

Even the Norse Vinland saga's spoke of them.

larry welch

5/14/2016 04:12:03 pm

It happened and it happened a lot earlier than speculated. Many thousands of years earlier. Travel took place in both directions and the artifacts found are from European stock. sites and travel route are found on the bottom of the great lakes. These sites/ routes and evidence thereof are much older than the supposed "ice age". More exploring for ancient sites should take place on tops of hill and mountains in the eastern United States. In depth studies of sites located in valley bottoms may reveal additional clues rather than being covered up. Many sites were covered and forgotten because evidence existed suggesting much older age. Ancient People lived in North and South America long before suspected. Evidence has been found and more evidence will surface. Th experts just have to admit it and forget old thought.

Andy White

5/26/2016 03:27:18 pm

That's a lot of assertions, but no evidence. I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to admit.

jaap link

5/27/2016 01:38:29 pm

It seems like some people have been going all out to suppress the evidence. Never mind, things are looking up! Both on the genetic and on the archeological front. The Topper site and Florida are only a start. It won't be long now and all the evidence will start cascading. What exactly this spells for the Solutrean idea I don't know, There seems to be something there, and if there is, there's no stopping it now ... There's also the issue of what exactly is the so-called Solutrean Hypothesis, as it has been consistently (and may I add often maliciously) misrepresented. There are various scenarios here, and there are problems with each. Personally I would like to opt for a 'Solutrean Connection Hypothesis', and go from there. But hypothetical it will probably remain for a long time to come. Once the connection has been established I don't care how they boated, because they simply did. Or they did not! How does one go about proving either way?? By what method? To my mind this is an intriguing issue! I would be very sorry to find a French peace of rock turning up in the US. That would kill the whole thing, leaving nothing really to be learned. For me this is the crux.

Normandie Kent

12/29/2019 01:18:56 pm

The Solutrean Hypothesis was plain old wishful thinking on the part of mainstream White America, and never had any real solid proof, just pure emotion and faith, that Europeans were capable of anything (even crossing a cold and stormy 6,000 mile ocean in a small canoe). It’s been over 20 years that the “Solutrean Hypothesis” has been revived, and has had not one bit of new evidence in this large timeframe. In the mean time the timeline for the Native American founders entering the Americas keeps getting pushed back farther and farther. Since the time of immigration and colonization of the Americas by the mass European hordes, there have been people from Europe who wish to write themselves into the past history of the Native American people, and write them out. This is exactly what’s happening here with the SH. European Americans need to face the fact that the Americas were the sole sole homeland, past and present, of the Native American people, and you can just write yourself into other people histories and achievements. It really makes the European settlers look desperate and pathetic.

"The Solutrean" Reportedly WILL Visit the Americas

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