Post by blackcrowheart on Oct 3, 2007 14:01:44 GMT -5
Arrowheads Reveal Native American Origins
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
June 5, 2007 — Like a popcorn trail left by hikers, stone arrowhead-type points map how and where prehistoric Native Americans first entered North America and the manner in which they populated the rest of the continent, according to a new study.
By analyzing the so-called Clovis points the same way other scientists use morphological or genetic data to track the dispersal of species, researchers Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard determined the first Native Americans came from the North.
"More specifically, the data supports an entry in the Northern Plains, close to where the southern opening of the ice-free corridor would have been," Buchanan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, told Discovery News.
He and Collard therefore think the study results "point toward an Asian origin of the Paleo-Indians."
The iceless corridor is thought to have opened around 12,000 years ago between two ancient ice sheets near the Great Plains. Prior to their trek to the Plains, hunter-gatherer groups are believed to have migrated to North America via a landmass between Siberia and Alaska that was exposed by falling sea levels during glacial intervals.
The study included 216 stone points found in a number of states, including Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Maine and Texas.
The researchers analyzed variations in angles, base size, tips, stone flaking and more. They then studied how the differences, and similarities, related to where the objects were excavated.
Their findings have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
"The underlying idea is that a Paleo-Indian population, let's call it Population A, arrives in North America," Buchanan explained. "It expands and then a population buds off from it. This new population, which we will call Population B, disperses into a new area and then produces projectile points that differ from those created by Population A."
He added that if a group from Population B then splits off and migrates, resulting in Population C, B and C stone points would then share novel characteristics that distinguish them from As, while Cs would have new qualities distinguishing them from Bs.
Buchanan and Collard believe the best explanation for the differences between Clovis points is a rapid colonization process of the Americas that involved repeated splitting of populations.
Early Paleo-Indian specialist Todd Surovell, who is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming, told Discovery News that he is "intrigued" by the new findings, although he thinks sharing between existing populations could explain some of the projectile point differences too.
Surovell also said there is a debate among scientists about whether other ancient groups predated the Clovis (Paleo-Indian) culture and the opening of the ice-free corridor, but he still supports most of the paper's conclusions.
"Their paper raises an interesting question," he said. "Is it possible that Clovis represents a colonizing population, but not the first population to colonize the New World? Clearly we have more work to do."
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
June 5, 2007 — Like a popcorn trail left by hikers, stone arrowhead-type points map how and where prehistoric Native Americans first entered North America and the manner in which they populated the rest of the continent, according to a new study.
By analyzing the so-called Clovis points the same way other scientists use morphological or genetic data to track the dispersal of species, researchers Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard determined the first Native Americans came from the North.
"More specifically, the data supports an entry in the Northern Plains, close to where the southern opening of the ice-free corridor would have been," Buchanan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, told Discovery News.
He and Collard therefore think the study results "point toward an Asian origin of the Paleo-Indians."
The iceless corridor is thought to have opened around 12,000 years ago between two ancient ice sheets near the Great Plains. Prior to their trek to the Plains, hunter-gatherer groups are believed to have migrated to North America via a landmass between Siberia and Alaska that was exposed by falling sea levels during glacial intervals.
The study included 216 stone points found in a number of states, including Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Maine and Texas.
The researchers analyzed variations in angles, base size, tips, stone flaking and more. They then studied how the differences, and similarities, related to where the objects were excavated.
Their findings have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
"The underlying idea is that a Paleo-Indian population, let's call it Population A, arrives in North America," Buchanan explained. "It expands and then a population buds off from it. This new population, which we will call Population B, disperses into a new area and then produces projectile points that differ from those created by Population A."
He added that if a group from Population B then splits off and migrates, resulting in Population C, B and C stone points would then share novel characteristics that distinguish them from As, while Cs would have new qualities distinguishing them from Bs.
Buchanan and Collard believe the best explanation for the differences between Clovis points is a rapid colonization process of the Americas that involved repeated splitting of populations.
Early Paleo-Indian specialist Todd Surovell, who is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming, told Discovery News that he is "intrigued" by the new findings, although he thinks sharing between existing populations could explain some of the projectile point differences too.
Surovell also said there is a debate among scientists about whether other ancient groups predated the Clovis (Paleo-Indian) culture and the opening of the ice-free corridor, but he still supports most of the paper's conclusions.
"Their paper raises an interesting question," he said. "Is it possible that Clovis represents a colonizing population, but not the first population to colonize the New World? Clearly we have more work to do."