New Sites Bring the Earliest Americans Out of the

[chase]

clovisoid wrote:

I was pretty skeptical about the Jobo -and- Cumberland connection that Gramly put forward a few years ago, especially since he hadn't handled any Jobo material until I sent him some points.  But when I saw some of the Cumberland preforms he has, I don't think he's too far off base.  Maybe not Jobo from South America, but an unfluted Cumberland biface looks a lot like a Haskett point.  I don't think you could flute a Haskett and end up with a Cumberland, the flaking is set up differently, but not that differently.Haskett has a couple of dates that are pre-Clovis but they also overlap with Clovis in other areas, as do their southern cousins the Jobo and Monte Verde bifaces.

From what I could see of what was called an unfluted  Cumberland really was a stretch to morph into what I know as a Cumberland with the full length flute. Compelling with the stages Dr. Gramley presented, But the coloration is a reach at best. when you may have a multi occupation campsite, then cultures may not descend from an original source   The Haskett/Jobo/Monte Verde  type I can follow to SA or the reverse. Just like the spread of Clovis.

[Reflector]

Bulltongue simpson kinda

[Charlie Hatchett]

For the most part, I agree with Baker's hypothesis:

http://www.ele.net/kunz/mesamonte.pdf

I think there is a very strong possibility that bipointed, stemmed, side-notched, and fishtail industries
were carried along with one or more coastal/ ice edge migrations from Japan>Alaska> West Coast
of the Lower 48 of North America> on down the West Coast of Central and South America (see attached)




.

[CMD]

What I found most interesting in the original article in this thread was the suggestion that the  fluted fishtail point tradition and Clovis point tradition both arose out of an earlier culture already making bifacial points.

[clovisoid]

Reflector wrote:

Bulltongue simpson kinda

  Yes, Simpson points do look a lot like these.  Some of of the different variations of Pelican points, San Patrice and Ross County Clovis in Texas -and- Louisiana also share a similar look.  Hard to tell how much of that look is direct relationship vs independent evolution from a common ancestor.
If Cuba ever opens up, I think it will be interesting to see what is found there as you could almost certainly see Cuba from the Yucatan peninsula during the ice age (even today, get a couple miles off shore, away from the city lights, and you can see the light from a light house in Cuba.)  The same probably went for Florida -and- Cuba.  I'd bet some of the paleo people that liked the coastal plains in South America and the Caribbean, also lived in Cuba.

[clovisoid]

CMD wrote:

What I found most interesting in the original article in this thread was the suggestion that the  fluted fishtail point tradition and Clovis point tradition both arose out of an earlier culture already making bifacial points.

  I think this was the logical conclusion once Clovis First became harder and harder to defend.  In hindsight, I'm surprised it stay on as long as it did.
Take the bookend dates for Clovis (the oldest acceptable C14 dates and the youngest acceptable dates),  then try to spread out across 48 states, parts of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and give rise to lots of other fluted points that range from Alaska down to the most isolated tip of South America, and you are talking about a task that would be hard for a group of colonizers to achieve.  Even if they popped out sets of twins once per year, walked 10 miles per day, and split up so they could keep covering land, it would be hard for an initial group of 1000 people to cover both North -and- South America in such a relatively short window of time.
It's easier to explain most fluted points as an idea (atlatl, core blades, ivory/bone shafts, foreshafts, fluted points, etc.) that spread over an existing population.  If the population knew how to make bifacial points, they could probably learn how to make a Clovis in hours.  It's a silly example, but look at the spread of car usage.  150 years ago cars didn't exist, and within a short period of time they exist almost everywhere used by people who don't necessarily have any cultural, genetic or ethnic ties.  The people who adopted cars used to walk, use bicycles, horses, sleds, wagons, trains, canoes, etc.  All different forms of technology for transportation.  Those forms of transportation didn't disappear, but the efficiency of a car made it the predominate mode of transportation over distances or for speed.

[clovisoid]

chase wrote:

From what I could see of what was called an unfluted  Cumberland really was a stretch to morph into what I know as a Cumberland with the full length flute. Compelling with the stages Dr. Gramley presented, But the coloration is a reach at best. when you may have a multi occupation campsite, then cultures may not descend from an original source   The Haskett/Jobo/Monte Verde  type I can follow to SA or the reverse. Just like the spread of Clovis.

  Chase, I agree.  I think Gramly might be over simplifying it, or skipping generations of missing links along the way.  But I am starting to come around to the idea that what Gramly is calling early Cumberland, might fit somewhere along the Haskett/Jobo/Monte Verde/Mesa type.
I'm cherry picking two points here, but if you found the Cumberland before it was fluted somewhere out in Nevada, it would probably be called a Haskett.  Not a classic Haskett, but it's about the only thing out there that fits the size, thickness, deep flaking (peg flaking as I understand it.)