Cooper’s Ferry Revisited

PaleoAmerica, 2020

Davis et al. (2019) recently presented the results of excavations at the Cooper's Ferry site, located beside the Salmon River in Idaho. They claim that initial occupation of this site dates from ∼16,000 calendar years ago, that the first inhabitants came from northern Japan, and that this site conclusively demonstrates that "humans initially migrated into the Americas along the Pacific coast." Here, we critically examine the chronological, geoarchaeological, and artifactual evidence for the claimed antiquity of the Cooper's Ferry site and show that this evidence remains inconclusive. We also show that the coastal migration theory proposed by Davis et al. is incompatible with emerging paleogenomic evidence. We conclude that the oldest demonstrated occupation of Cooper's Ferry dates to ∼11,500 calendar years ago, although ambiguous evidence might (but probably does not) indicate an earlier episode of occupation at ∼14,600-14,100 calendar years ago.

American Antiquity, 2019

Forty years ago, Knut Fladmark (1979) argued that the Pacific Coast offered a viable alternative to the ice-free corridor model for the initial peopling of the Americas—one of the first to support a “coastal migration theory” that remained marginal for decades. Today, the pre-Clovis occupation at the Monte Verde site is widely accepted, several other pre-Clovis sites are well documented, investigations of terminal Pleistocene subaerial and submerged Pacific Coast landscapes have increased, and multiple lines of evidence are helping decode the nature of early human dispersals into the Americas. Misconceptions remain, however, about the state of knowledge, productivity, and deglaciation chronology of Pleistocene coastlines and possible technological connections around the Pacific Rim. We review current evidence for several significant clusters of early Pacific Coast archaeological sites in North and South America that include sites as old or older than Clovis. We argue that stemmed po...

Quaternary Science Reviews, 2008

Landscape, Monuments, Arts, and Rituals Out of Eurasia in Bio-Cultural Perspectives, 2021

The colonization of the Americas by the ancestors of today’s First Nations has been a central theme of investigation for centuries. In the last 20 years, archaeologists working on the issue of initial arrival in North and South America have shown the increasingly high probability of an entry from Asia via a coastal route along the North Pacific continental edge (Davis et al., 2012; Madsen, 2015; Davis et al., 2019). The first human communities of the Americas were recent migrants and, in turn, were the descendants of trailblazing populations that rapidly radiated out of the mother continent of Africa sometime after 70,000 years ago (Lopez et al., 2015). Following a route that passed through the ‘lost’ subcontinent of Beringia, these Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers left their homelands on the shores of the Western Pacific during a time of climatic and social instability. Recent investigations on Isla Cedros, Baja California (Des Lauriers, 2010; Des Lauriers et al., 2017; Des Lauriers et al. 2020) have discovered several sites that date to the Terminal Pleistocene and contain evidence for specialized technology for harvesting offshore marine resources. Combining the implications of recent research demonstrating that 1) the “ice-free” corridor was not available as a route for the initial migration to the Americas (Map 3); 2) that shell hooks were used during the last glacial period in southern Japan (Fujita et al. 2016) and across the Western Pacific Rim (Smith and Allen 1999; O’Connor et al., 2011); and 3) given that these were also used in Cedros Island in the final centuries of the Pleistocene, we must consider the possibility that the initial routes of movement into the Americas had at least some of their points of origin among the coasts and islands of the Western Pacific Rim, instead of exclusively originating in the interior of Siberia.

Quaternary Science Reviews, 2009

Science, 2001

2019

2020

This thesis has been an adventure, sometimes joyful and sometimes challenging, but always a thought-provoking puzzle to untangle. Many people have supported me and facilitated my research along the way, and I have nothing but gratitude for all of those who have been involved. First, I thank my supervisor and chair of panel, Matthew Spriggs. He has shown unfailing enthusiasm and support from the day he suggested I be involved in his Laureate project. He has inspired me with his passion for archaeology, and by always having confidence in my abilities. I am deeply thankful to my supervisor Hilary Howes, who's intellectually engaging conversations over coffee (coffee coffee) and perpetual encouragement and long-lasting friendship have helped me refine my ideas and kept me going through the challenging times. I also owe the deepest gratitude to my supervisor Bronwen Douglas, an inspiring woman of fierce intellect and unbounded kindness. Our discussions as we walked around Mount Ainslie challenged me to think deeply and have shaped my scholarly approach. Finally, I thank Liz Bonshek for her role as an advisor on my supervisory panel, particularly our conversations around museum collections early in the thesis, which reminded me of the centrality of 'things' in my own approach to research.

Asian Perspectives, 2005