- A contentious theory that the first Americans came here
from Europe - not Asia - is challenging a century-old consensus among archaeologists,
and a dig in Kenosha County is part of the evidence.
-
- The two leading proponents of the Europe theory admit
that many scientists reject their contention, instead holding fast to the
long-established belief that the first Americans arrived from Siberia via
a now-submerged land bridge across the Bering Sea to Alaska.
The first of the Europe-to-North America treks probably took place at the
height of the last Ice Age more than 18,000 years ago, said Dennis Stanford,
curator of archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum
of Natural History, and Milwaukee native Bruce Bradley, an independent
archaeological consultant and research associate of the Carnegie Museum.
Stanford and Bradley contend that if the original migration came from Europe,
it would be logical to find more older sites in the eastern United States,
as has been the case in recent years.
The Kenosha County digs show that woolly mammoths were butchered by humans
here more than 13,000 years ago - at least 2,000 years older than what
was once thought to be the oldest site in the U.S.
Stanford and Bradley also point to recent DNA analysis involving a particular
genetic marker known as haplogroup X. The marker is found in a minority
of American Indians, including some in the Great Lakes region, and Europeans,
but is not found in Asians, suggesting an ancestral link between Europe
and North America.
The two plan to publish a book laying out their findings in about a year,
they said. They believe evidence in the book will win converts to their
theory.
"There are several competing theories," said Milwaukee archaeologist
David Overstreet. "All I know is people were here (in southeastern
Wisconsin) several thousands of years earlier than previously thought."
Overstreet, director of the Marquette University-affiliated Center for
Archaeological Research, has analyzed several southeastern Wisconsin sites
where piles of bones of mammoths that had been butchered by people date
back as far as 13,500 years ago.
The Kenosha County sites are among several eastern U.S. Ice Age sites that
have fueled the growing controversy over whether North America's first
people came from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe or from Asia.
"Whatever their source, Paleoindians appear to have reached the mid-continent
by 13,500 (years ago) and successfully exploited the Pleistocene biomass
(animals and plants) there for at least a millennium," Overstreet
writes in a paper soon to be published in the international journal Geoarchaeology.
It was a time when the inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere lived in
an icy environment of vast glaciers, boreal forests, mastodons, saber-toothed
tigers and 1,000-pound cave bears.
In the more-accepted Asia theory, people migrated across a land bridge
over the Bering Sea and down an ice-free corridor to the American Southwest,
where they established a culture known as Clovis.
However, while artifacts unearthed near Clovis, N.M., date to more than
11,000 years ago, several sites in the eastern U.S., including the Kenosha
County sites, date to between 13,000 and 19,000 years, long before Clovis.
"In the last half-dozen years, all this stuff is popping up in the
eastern U.S.," Overstreet said. "There is no question that somebody
was in this area (southeastern Wisconsin) mucking around with mammoths
12,000 to 13,000 years ago. The question is, where did they come from?"
Prehistoric travelers
In separate interviews, Stanford and Bradley offered some of the strongest
arguments:
With much of the world's water having been evaporated and converted to
ice, sea levels during the last Ice Age were as much as 400 feet below
today's levels.
An expanded coastal region probably extended from the Iberian Peninsula
in southwestern France and northern Spain to the southern tip of Ireland.
In addition, the Grand Banks, a series of submerged plateaus extending
several hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland, probably were above
water.
The geological conditions meant the prehistoric travelers would have needed
to pull off only a 1,500-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing along sheltered ice
sheets teeming with easily hunted marine mammals and fish, Bradley and
Stanford said.
Stanford noted that 50,000 years ago or more, humans had become skilled
enough at open sea travel that they were able to arrive on the continent
of Australia. They most likely used small, animal-skin boats, taking advantage
of favorable sea currents.
"There would have been huge reserves of food," Bradley said.
The food, which probably included fish, seals, walruses and the now-extinct
great auk, actually may have been the motivation for their wanderlust.
Overstreet added that the European glacier may have been cutting off hunting
areas, forcing those inhabitants to find new food sources.
"They certainly were on the move," he said. "These people
were capable of making that trip if they needed to."
'Completely crazy'
While Overstreet said he still has not completely accepted the new theory,
others flatly reject it.
"It is a highly improbable theory," said James Stoltman, a professor
emeritus of North American archaeology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Stoltman said he did not think Stanford and Bradley presented credible
evidence to support their hypothesis.
Stanford and Bradley also point to the similarity between the bifaced stone
spear points found in the U.S. and the Solutrean area off the north coast
of Spain and dating to between 16,500 and 22,000 years ago.
However, while Solutrean and Clovis points are both bifaced, there are
major differences, said Thomas Pleger, who teaches Great Lakes archaeology
at UW-Fox Valley.
Pleger said there just is no credible evidence to support a theory of an
Ice Age migration from Europe.
"It is a completely crazy and unsupported hypothesis," said Lawrence
Guy Straus, a professor in the anthropology department at the University
of New Mexico and an expert on the Upper Paleolithic period in Western
Europe. He also serves as editor of the Journal of Anthropological Research.
Straus said there are major differences between bone and stone technology
used by Solutrean people and the Clovis culture of North America.
In addition, he said most of the British Isles, the supposed jumping-off
point for the migration, was covered with ice between 13,000 and 27,000
years ago.
There also is no evidence that the Solutrean people had acquired skills,
such as navigation, deep-sea fishing and marine mammal hunting, that would
have been needed to pull off such a migration, he said.
Ancestry in question
Straus also said the Stanford/Bradley theory has angered some American
Indian groups whose ancestry has been tied to Asia, not Europe.
"It is basically saying they weren't here first," Straus said.
However, at the same time traditional religious beliefs of many American
Indians fail to acknowledge any migration from another part of the world,
said John Norder, an assistant professor of anthropology who specializes
in American Indian matters.
Norder, who also is a member of the Dakota Sioux, said a common religious
belief among many American Indians is that their ancestors' land was either
created for them or that they came to it from an underworld.
Recently, some American Indians have incorporated the idea of their ancestors
crossing a Bering Sea land bridge, he said.
In the meantime, the theory of Stone Age Europeans discovering America
dominates the debate.
"People discuss it as being crazy and wish it would go away,"
said Straus. "I'm amazed at the amount of attention."
- Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on March 4,
- 2002. Journal Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of Journal
- Communications, an employee-owned
- company. http://www.jsonline.com/features/
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