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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.  

Don spohn
11/5/2015 02:35:50 pm

The graver looks like an obvious graver, but I understand that some archaeologists feel authentic tools recovered from a 50,000 year old geological layer might have been placed there much later by burrowing animals, growing tree roots or other forms of nature.
Archaeologists may be eager to find the oldest sites, while some peer review professionals may be ultra conservative. Time will tell.

mansayman
9/15/2023 07:25:41 am

ok buckaroo

Greg Little
11/5/2015 02:56:53 pm

I've followed Goodyear's work since he started at Topper as well as following the "similar" work of others in Brazil and many other places. I have great respect for him. After spending time at Meadowcroft alone with the archaeologist in charge there and seeing how they accumulated the evidence, this much is clear to me. People like me, despite having advanced degrees and scientific training, despite having the ability to do statistics and also having an understanding of the terminology and what was done at the sites, are at a loss to make any real judgments on such findings. Because "we" (those of my "ilk") like the assertion that many sites were inhabited 25-50,000 years ago, we will generally accept such findings, whether it is cherry picking or not is not really a concern to us. Honestly, cherry picking happens on all sides. Yet we still know that the supporting evidence is a bit less than totally convincing to all archaeologists. There is certainly a perceptual bias in many of the "alternative historians" but what becomes convincing to us is the fact that particular mainstream archaeologists have spent a lot of time and effort on these sites. What they find is often picked apart not only because of possible issues in interpretation, but because it is completely against the accepted view. A lot of us have been exposed to "Clovis First" for so long that its eventual collapse created a distrust of the mainstream. Thus, to many of the writers like me, it's pretty easy to surmise that the same might be happening with the findings at such sites. That is, that the mainstream just sees such data and interpretations as impossible, so every possible conflicting piece of evidence is thrown up as a counter argument. In any event, when I was at Meadowcroft I realized that the archaeological work that had happened there is simply beyond my expertise and grasp. Last, I will say that this is the sort of area that the general population finds so fascinating and is why so many alternative history shows are so popular. Mainstream archaeology could well turn such speculations into fodder for genuine "education" of the public. As I have before written, physics essentially did that and created numerous TV series that included a lot of fantastic stuff.

Andy White
11/6/2015 03:27:14 am

Hi Greg.

Thanks for the comment, and thanks for your perspective. I wish more on "your" side shared your appreciation for the work that professionals do and the lengths to which many of us go to to collect and interpret data, develop lines of evidence, and try to arrive at plausible explanations of the past. As you know, it's not a simple or easy process, and it often takes a lot of hard work over a very long time. I think we could be doing a better job of communicating with the public and presenting our work in ways that resonate better with public interests, but I also worry that the public already perceives archaeology as being all about fantastic "discoveries." In the vast majority of cases, as you know, that's just not accurate. I'm not sure how we could better package (i.e., for public consumption) the excitement and importance of what we actually do, but I'm sure there's a way. The appetite is certainly out there.

Bob Jase
11/6/2015 01:27:54 pm

Wouldn't surprise me ifthere were numerous pre-Clovis peoples in the Americas, heck, even H. erectus might be possible. It's the attitude of modern Humans to pretend that earlier people's existance constitutes a 'claim of ownership' for their self-selected group that's my problem.

Andy White
11/10/2015 10:31:46 am

Homo erectus is possible, sure, but so are unicorns. As far as I'm aware there's not a scrap of evidence for either in the New World.

Bob Jase
11/10/2015 10:57:25 am

Oh I'm not claiming that erectus reached the Americas just that I wouldn't be surprised. I think we all underestimate our ancestors.

Andy White
11/10/2015 10:58:24 am

Talk about a game changer . . .

William Reager
10/17/2020 07:39:56 pm

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/kansas/kansas.htm ) scraps of evidence including the fifty plus flakes with bulb of percussion towards the camera

Stuart Fiedel
11/13/2015 11:32:08 am

If you read Sain's thesis closely you'll see that new OSL dates indicate that the lower "artifact"-bearing zone is more than 60,000 yrs old. At that date NE Asia was still inhabited mainly by the mysterious Denivosans and Australia had not yet been settled by early H. sapiens. The unparalleled bend-break industry (nothing like it in China, Siberia, SE Asia, Europe, or W. Africa) would have to have been made by non-sapient humans. As for processes that might have transported actual tools down from the Clovis or Early Archaic components above, Al G thought for a while that he had a circular postmold feature in the deep zone, but this has since been identified more credibly as a pattern of pine taproots. No doubt many more now-disintegrated and invisible roots have penetrated to similar depths in the past 13,000 yrs.

jaap
11/24/2015 12:55:57 pm

Hi Stuart. There are some claims in your post that cannot be substantiated with hard evidence and one that was recently contradicted by hard evidence. We don't know where Denisovans mixed with humans, or when Australia was reached by modern humans, or how for that matter (they just did!) ... If we go on in your vain we'll never know! Please take those blinkers off and stop ignoring converging pointers, and look! If you can show it was all BS, well then, fine! But you're just being contrary, or you seem to be … Conjecture is useful when it is educated, as is intuition. I’m not asking for you to consider foolish people’s fancies. With your track-record you could do so much better: we need your intuition! What if? Wouldn't it be cool? Obviously for you it wouldn't ...
What I'm putting to you is a pretty basic question of methodology.

Stuart Fiedel
12/6/2015 08:56:58 am

1. Denisovans mixed with moderns somewhere in Asia. There are no remnant Denisovan genes in Europeans, a few in Native Americans and East Asians, and a lot (relatively speaking) in Melanesians.
2. Conservatively, humans arrived in Australia about 48,000 BP; arrival about 10,000 years earlier is possible. They came by sea.
3. I don't know what "claim" you think has been disproven.
4. What you pose is a question of epistemology--how do we really know what we think we know about the past? It's always possible that there's something we haven't found yet. Maybe there was a Martian colony in North America 70,000 years ago that lasted for a week, and one of these days we will stumble upon the remains of their camp. But don't hold your breath.

Susan Solomon
1/20/2017 01:26:06 pm

The volcanic explosion called 'Toba' was aprox 74k years ago, and it almost completely wiped southeast Asia free of humans for some time, who had been plentiful. Humans were fully human as far as I know by aprox 150,000 BC. It should not be impossible to imagine humans making their way by ice, boat or any floating object to the new world at some point. My surprise is that there's been so much doubt regarding a very plausible scenario that makes that leap.

Normandie Kent
10/16/2020 02:58:57 pm

Which ‘New World’?! The whole damn world was a ‘New World’! People were not crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean at 6,000 miles in a damn canoe! The only people who were in place 50,000 years ago to cross into the Americas were the direct ancestors of the Native Americans. If their is evidence that people were in the Americas 50,000 years ago, it only stands to reason that they were the Native American people, otherwise there is zero evidence that any other humans ever populated any part of the Americas. What I find staggering is the never ending need to displace the Native American race as second or third entrance after Europeans, Africans, Australians, Melanesians, and Asians or even Archaic humans, even though there is not one iota of evidence that anyone ever made it to the Americas, other than the Native American indigenous people. If any one made here it’s documented to be the indigenous people who populated every square inch of the two American continents, when the late coming Euros and Africans came in 1492.

William Reager
9/24/2020 01:13:15 pm

Grasping for straws to justify what the eyes don't want to believe, been there done that with my trace fossil footprint on 1.6 million years old surface

William Reager link
2/17/2017 08:52:58 am

Website is by professor to help show a small number of artifacts to elicit help to investigate my discovered site, the material pile consists of all the rocks lying on the surface in plowed fields surrounding the "footprint " washed out from between the Wellington and McPherson Formation ( 1/2 million years )

Doug
12/1/2022 06:46:20 am

Very intrigued by the site you've linked details of. Has there been any further study or documentation of it? I can't find any other mentions online. The footgear is especially interesting, is it a piece of leather, or just an imprint?

John Locke
9/24/2020 09:18:44 am

seniP

William Reager link
9/24/2020 09:54:42 am

Having visited the museum and viewed Goodyears rocks, my collection blows away any doubt mine were hominid manufactured except for professionals guarding their ground

William Reager
9/24/2020 01:38:45 pm

I also have a brain at the other end, shows lack of maturity

William Reager
10/17/2020 07:07:08 pm

In reply to Normandie Kent's reply claiming not one iota of evidence is exactly why I had posted earlier about the system of denial if it is controversial bury it don't look you don't want to find anything like that. However I hope we do not find out the hard way why there weren't any horses here. With Yellowstone providing the sterilizer 2.1, 1.6, & 640,000, they survived in Europe and mastodons made it here from Africa without a canoe, I just happen to think Erectus followed them here before Yellowstone removed most traces.


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