Solutrean-American Artifacts

[Reflector]

I agree.

Its funny , a handful knew what they think now 25 years ago.

[clovisoid]

Interesting thread.

Clovis ultra-thin platter bifaces are created by removal of outre' pass flakes which are then used to produce a range of tools upon them, filling out the Clovis tool kit.

Clovis made platter bifaces, Folsom made Ultra-thin bifaces. I think the confusion of the terms comes when describing Folsom deposits at famous Clovis sites. (Blackwater Draw, Gault, others.) Folsom Ultra thins usually have flaking that stops in the middle of the biface, creating a very thin filet knife profile (and thought to be used to slice meat into very thin slices for drying.) Clovis platters are very large, usually hefty bifaces were probably knives, cores, trade blanks, etc. Two very different things.

Obvious outre' pass flaking is clearly present--there is no evidence to suggest this technique survived beyond the paleo, no other cultures but Solutrean and Clovis are known to have used this difficult technology, nor derived a majority of their toolkit from outre' pass flake blade technology.

There is lots of evidence that it happened in later periods. Harahey knives were usually built to be flat and beveled, and often show a couple of nice overshots. In Texas several types can show overshots, Pedernales (Perds), Andice on occasion, San Patrice points. Out in the Great Basin a lot of different points can show overshots because Obsidian is so prone to it...

Obviously the distinction is controlled overshot flaking as a consistent strategy vs an accident or lucky hail-mary whack. Personally, I think that Stanford & Bradley are on to something. There is a lot more to their model than a couple of bifaces, but the bifaces are certainly a visual part of the story. I think it will eventually settled down with the little points vs the larger bifaces as people realize the Cactus Hill, Meadowcroft, and Millers complex points are old (and not always found with large bifaces.)

I've seen platter bifaces 3mm thick--the purpose of a platter biface was to produce useful flakes. it is a core-tool which can have served a variety of purposes as it was reduced--see "Across Atlantic Ice" or Dr Bradley's "Clovis Technologies"

Flaking to the mid-line as practiced in Clovis is called diving flaking, and was used in conjunction with outre' pass; diving flaking removes steps and stacks along the mid-line of a blace that were left from opposite edge flake removals that did not feather out or over-shoot the form. A close friend has a VA platter bi-face--not so large as many western examples, but quite evenly thinned with outre' pass and diving flaking in clear evidence.

Regards Cactus Hill, et al point sizes is one consideration offered here: Cobbles, nodules and impure outcroppings of the lithics available and used seldom ever produced large blades and flakes in any number to contribute the more massive paleo artifacts known from regions possessing massive formations, beds and outcroppings of high-grade lithics. Material available in Virginia's Nottoway River Drainage and surrounding areas produce quality lithics but not in massive formations. Much of Virginia's lithics are like that. One of the largest nodules of Williamson Chert ever recovered was the size of a childs head; impurities result in a knapper having to pare down a core to find a useful quality of material. Quartzites can produce very large blades and preforms but it was not a prefered material.

As a final note, I question the overall technique applied to any later culture's achieving an overshot flake with any consistency. The same argument goes with fluting--fluting is a process, not just the presence of a thinning flake at the base. This distinction is an important one--from preparation of blade edge to produce a striking platform, the platfom's construction and how it is struck either make it a flute or a fluke

I would argue the same principle with supposed outre' pass flaking seen on any typology later than Paleo

[Guest]

...and among all of the cultures emerging from across the proposed Asiatic land-bridge, not a single one can be shown as ancestral to Clovis.

It appears that Solutrean emerged as a fully developed industry as it arrived in Europe--without any recognized ancestral origin. A highly adaptive and highly mobile new culture emerges and establishes itself yet remains isolated from and seemingly unaltered by co-existing cultural technologies. After a few thousands of years, Solutrean technology vanishes in Europe, leaving apparently little impact upon succeeding technologies

During that same period of occupation, a possible migration route to the new world opened up, and we are now discovering artifacts bearing consistencies with Solutrean on our LGM Atlantic shores; surface found and excavated artifacts from deposits dating to that period add more evidence that basics of the Solutrean technologies were used.

Solutran migration to the new world posses similar problems with its migration from Africa--absolute confirmation of the technology's ancestry is still sought.

IMO, putting 2 and 2 together offers a culture who twice in its history leaps continental boundaries and evolves into something that leaves us guessing as to who and what their ancestral origins really are as result of their adaptive abilities

Accodring to some critics, Solutrean technology was invented in Europe, was re-invented to produce Solutrean-American artifacts on these shores, then is re-invented again as a foundation for Clovis in the same region but 10,000 years later

I put my money on highly mobile and highly adaptive groups of Solutrean peoples making considerable changes to their technologies with each continental leap over a thrice re-invented technology that keeps dying out

[CMD]

"...and among all of the cultures emerging from across the proposed Asiatic land-bridge, not a single one can be shown as ancestral to Clovis."

Yet, this Clovis child burial in Montana seems to suggest otherwise:

http://archaeology.about.com/od/pale...ontana-USA.htm

In 2014, a DNA study of the human remains from Anzick was reported in Nature (see Rasmussen et al.). Bone fragments from the Clovis period burial were subjected to DNA analysis, and the results found that the Anzick child was a boy, and he (and thus Clovis people in general) is closely related to Native American groups from Central and South America, but not to later migrations of Canadian and Arctic groups.

Archaeologists have long argued that the Americas were colonized in several waves of populations crossing the Bering Strait from Asia, the most recent being that of Arctic and Canadian groups; this study supports that. The research (to an extent) contradicts the Solutrean hypothesis, a suggestion that Clovis derives from Upper Paleolithic European migrations into the Americas. No connection to European Upper Paleolithic genetics was identified within the Anzick child's remains, and so the research lends strong support for the Asian origin of the American colonization."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture13025.html

Clovis, with its distinctive biface, blade and osseous technologies, is the oldest widespread archaeological complex defined in North America, dating from 11,100 to 10,700 14C years before present (BP) (13,000 to 12,600 calendar years BP)1, 2. Nearly 50 years of archaeological research point to the Clovis complex as having developed south of the North American ice sheets from an ancestral technology3. However, both the origins and the genetic legacy of the people who manufactured Clovis tools remain under debate. It is generally believed that these people ultimately derived from Asia and were directly related to contemporary Native Americans2. An alternative, Solutrean, hypothesis posits that the Clovis predecessors emigrated from southwestern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum4. Here we report the genome sequence of a male infant (Anzick-1) recovered from the Anzick burial site in western Montana. The human bones date to 10,705 ± 35 14C years BP (approximately 12,707–12,556 calendar years BP) and were directly associated with Clovis tools. We sequenced the genome to an average depth of 14.4× and show that the gene flow from the Siberian Upper Palaeolithic Mal’ta population5 into Native American ancestors is also shared by the Anzick-1 individual and thus happened before 12,600 years BP. We also show that the Anzick-1 individual is more closely related to all indigenous American populations than to any other group. Our data are compatible with the hypothesis that Anzick-1 belonged to a population directly ancestral to many contemporary Native Americans. Finally, we find evidence of a deep divergence in Native American populations that predates the Anzick-1 individual.

You are correct--my statement should have properly read "......can be shown as ancestral to Clovis technologies"...and there is the rub.

[Guest]

While DNA claims precedence, the realities are more complex--lithic industries are like fingerprints. One cannot deny the consistency demonstrated between Solutrean, American Solutrean and Clovis regards lithic technologies. There is no established nor surmised origins for Solutrean technology itself. There are no other reasonable antithesis for AmericanSolutrean or Clovis.

The divide on this issue has surely generated a lot of speculation, none of which explains the presence of technologically Solutrean manufacturing attributes contrasting with Asiatic bloodlines--and with no rosetta stone to answer for both.

This is a sort of mexican stand-off--neither side has an adequate answer. For my part, and given that the first efforts at deciphering Neanderthal DNA all denied our having interbred with them. We know now that such was not the case. I have the feeling that DNA from Florida burials presents a portion of the picture not much welcomed by DNA proponents