1 00:00:05,519 --> 00:00:09,280 Speaker 1: It's just it's just such mystery and that's the that's 2 00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:12,360 Speaker 1: why these are so cool. Yeah, and the fact that 3 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:17,520 Speaker 1: we could find these Clovis points, this technology that is 4 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:21,800 Speaker 1: indicative of this time period can be found from Alaska 5 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:25,480 Speaker 1: to Florida, from Maine to New Mexico. 6 00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:26,960 Speaker 2: Oh, even Central America. 7 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:30,600 Speaker 1: I mean they these people covered the continent. Yes, so 8 00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:32,800 Speaker 1: you could you could find one of these in your regard. 9 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:34,400 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely, one hundred percent. 10 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:40,839 Speaker 1: If you consider yourself a connoisseur of wild places, wild history, 11 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:44,279 Speaker 1: and the wild human story on this continent, this episode 12 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:47,400 Speaker 1: is for you. We're diving into the mysteries of the 13 00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:50,240 Speaker 1: Clovist people, and if you don't know who they are, 14 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:55,240 Speaker 1: Brent Reeves, no problem, because the experts don't really know either. 15 00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:01,080 Speaker 1: But modern archaeology is uncovering some incredible new stuff. We're 16 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:03,959 Speaker 1: gonna learn about the Clovis type site in New Mexico, 17 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:08,240 Speaker 1: what a Clovis point is, We're gonna dismantle the Clovis 18 00:01:08,319 --> 00:01:12,760 Speaker 1: first theory, and we'll get into how archaeology can be 19 00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:16,760 Speaker 1: used as the political weapon. The ride will be rocky, 20 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:19,559 Speaker 1: but I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss 21 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:25,399 Speaker 1: this one. One quick thing before we get started. Brent Reeves, 22 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:29,679 Speaker 1: Bear Newcomb and I will be at BHA's Black Bear 23 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:33,800 Speaker 1: Bonanza in Bentonville, Arkansas, on March first. We'll be there 24 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:38,000 Speaker 1: all day. This is an event all about black bear hunting. 25 00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:42,400 Speaker 1: Ton of Fun and Bear nukelem and E's Bear Hunt 26 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:45,760 Speaker 1: Spring Bear Hunt in Montana. The film for that will 27 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: be up on the Meat Eater YouTube channel on February twentieth. 28 00:01:49,760 --> 00:02:01,600 Speaker 1: Don't miss it. My name is Clay nukemb And. This 29 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten 30 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:10,160 Speaker 1: but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where 31 00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:14,120 Speaker 1: we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives 32 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:19,920 Speaker 1: close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, 33 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:23,800 Speaker 1: purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be 34 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:39,320 Speaker 1: as rugged as the place as we explore. I'm in Ohio. 35 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:44,280 Speaker 1: I'm at Kent State University. I'm here to meet doctor Metton. 36 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:48,400 Speaker 1: Aaron Meton's going to take me into his lab. He 37 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:52,880 Speaker 1: is the expert of the country on Clovi style stone 38 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:57,520 Speaker 1: points and really just the stone age there. He is. 39 00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:01,239 Speaker 1: Hey man, I'm good. Good to see you, bro, you too, 40 00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:03,880 Speaker 1: Come on in heck yeah, thanks for meeting me on 41 00:03:03,919 --> 00:03:04,520 Speaker 1: a Saturday. 42 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:07,120 Speaker 2: Oh God, this is Henry bad Way. 43 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:09,959 Speaker 1: He looks like a cross between a beagle and a 44 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:10,720 Speaker 1: basket of hound. 45 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:13,959 Speaker 2: He is a cross between a beagle and a Cavalier Spaniel. 46 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:20,519 Speaker 1: Oh really, Henry com what are you daring? Doctor Aaron 47 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,080 Speaker 1: is more personable than you might envision a stuffy archaeologist. 48 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:27,079 Speaker 1: He leads me to the fourth floor and we enter 49 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: through a metal framed door with one of those tall 50 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:34,920 Speaker 1: rectangular windows with wire in the glass. Meton's given off 51 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:37,800 Speaker 1: the energy of a second grader taking his parents into 52 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:41,320 Speaker 1: his homeroom class for the first time. I've traveled from 53 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:46,760 Speaker 1: the Ozarks to Ohio to see his experimental Archaeology lab. 54 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,920 Speaker 1: It's the only one like it in the world. Here 55 00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:53,800 Speaker 1: they test ancient weaponry and tools. 56 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:58,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome to the Kent State Experimental Archaeology Lab. 57 00:03:59,120 --> 00:03:59,880 Speaker 1: It's the whole wing. 58 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:02,560 Speaker 2: We're pretty lucky because this used to be storage before 59 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:04,920 Speaker 2: I got here. But then they gave me the whole 60 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:06,880 Speaker 2: wing and said to build the love of your dreams, 61 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:12,000 Speaker 2: and so everything you see, everything's a replica from either 62 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,600 Speaker 2: I've made, or my students have made, or doctor Michelle 63 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:15,680 Speaker 2: Beber's made. 64 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:20,120 Speaker 1: And yeah, so it's like part library, part stone age 65 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:24,080 Speaker 1: hunting storage shed. I think I'm looking at maybe fifty 66 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:29,480 Speaker 1: adelaid darts over there. This place is a real nerd hut, 67 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:35,320 Speaker 1: walled wall, bookshelves, filing cabinets, five gallon buckets, with flint flakes, maps, 68 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:39,320 Speaker 1: and random stone points lying around everywhere. It's just the 69 00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:42,560 Speaker 1: kind of place to begin to tell the big story 70 00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:45,719 Speaker 1: of ancient America. But when you're here, it's kind of 71 00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:50,320 Speaker 1: weird calling this place America because the Paleolithic world knew 72 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:54,880 Speaker 1: nothing of such a place. Calling this place America is 73 00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,920 Speaker 1: like someone getting a new name after they've become an 74 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:03,039 Speaker 1: old old man, because human history here is deep, and 75 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:07,400 Speaker 1: this lab is dedicated to the scant but telling details 76 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:11,080 Speaker 1: we have about this old man we now call America. 77 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:14,640 Speaker 1: The main thing I noticed that makes this different than 78 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:18,120 Speaker 1: just like a standard library is the dirt on the floor. Yeah, 79 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:22,800 Speaker 1: it's like a workshop slash library. There's like boot tracks 80 00:05:22,839 --> 00:05:25,480 Speaker 1: and flint chips and stuff laying around. 81 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:28,120 Speaker 2: That's the whole lab, right, I mean, this is this 82 00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:34,400 Speaker 2: is very much like a working archaeology and engineering laboratories. 83 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,800 Speaker 2: People are always making stuff and breaking stuff, and you know, 84 00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:41,039 Speaker 2: we usually do like a big clean once or twice 85 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,240 Speaker 2: a year, usually once a year. 86 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,800 Speaker 1: But it looks awesome. I love it. I love it. 87 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:49,560 Speaker 2: So it's yeah, we're real lucky. 88 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:53,400 Speaker 1: Where there are no oxen, the stables are clean, and 89 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:56,320 Speaker 1: it's clear there's some real science going on here. He's 90 00:05:56,320 --> 00:06:00,760 Speaker 1: got machines for smashing stuff. He's got chronographs, life size 91 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:05,960 Speaker 1: animal archery targets, and enormous collections of ancient stone points. 92 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: And there's a pottery shop in here. So you guys 93 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:14,440 Speaker 1: are are trying to understand even like a lot of 94 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:19,000 Speaker 1: the physics of how people use stone tools to survive, 95 00:06:19,279 --> 00:06:20,960 Speaker 1: to kill stuff, to butcher animals. 96 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:23,600 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Like so we want to understand, like what 97 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:27,960 Speaker 2: makes an optimal spear point. You have to understand that, Like, 98 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:30,400 Speaker 2: you know, we're dealing with time periods in the Stone 99 00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:34,200 Speaker 2: Age that are hundreds of thousands or millions of years. 100 00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:40,640 Speaker 2: So people had the opportunity to have natural experiments over 101 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,800 Speaker 2: generations to figure out how stuff works. 102 00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:46,640 Speaker 1: And we're just playing around. This is like life and death, 103 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:48,880 Speaker 1: life and death. So they figured out what works. 104 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:51,520 Speaker 2: And what's amazing is it takes in a lot of 105 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:57,000 Speaker 2: cases twenty first century cutting edge engineering technology to figure 106 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:02,800 Speaker 2: out what these folks learned just throughout paying attention and 107 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:07,000 Speaker 2: really just being observant to what's around them. 108 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:11,560 Speaker 1: Stone age technology is astonishing. You may remember a meat 109 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:14,760 Speaker 1: eater video we did with doctor Aaron and doctor David 110 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,239 Speaker 1: Meltzer where myself along with the crew, butchered an entire 111 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: bison using stone tools. It's on YouTube. We thought it 112 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:24,280 Speaker 1: was going to take all day, but we finished in 113 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:27,480 Speaker 1: a couple of hours. It was almost as fast as 114 00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:31,240 Speaker 1: using modern knives. Doctor Aaron published a paper on it. 115 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,040 Speaker 1: We're about to dig into this deep history, but I 116 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:39,160 Speaker 1: first need a little refresher on what archaeology actually is. 117 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:46,200 Speaker 2: Archaeology is the study of ancient technology, and then we 118 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:50,200 Speaker 2: can use what we learned from ancient technology to make 119 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:55,480 Speaker 2: inferences about ancient people's behavior, how they lived, sometimes in 120 00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:58,800 Speaker 2: rare cases, maybe what they believed, stuff like that. 121 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:03,280 Speaker 1: So this is a hard hitting question. What was Indian Jones? 122 00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:07,880 Speaker 1: He was an archaeologist, Now, how was he studying ancient technology? 123 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:08,280 Speaker 2: Hee? 124 00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:10,960 Speaker 3: With that word is a whole part for me to understand. 125 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:14,800 Speaker 1: Yeah, all of archaeology would be considered studying ancient technology. 126 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:19,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, because a pot, a table, a building, the holy Grail, 127 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:21,680 Speaker 2: the holy grail, that is technology. 128 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:28,760 Speaker 1: The holy Grail. Technology was amazing, But archaeology studies human 129 00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:33,520 Speaker 1: made stuff that's left behind called artifacts. Future archaeologists will 130 00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:37,439 Speaker 1: be studying iPhones, but the iPhone of the Ice Age 131 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:40,560 Speaker 1: was a tricked out style of point that we're going 132 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:44,080 Speaker 1: to learn about called the Clovis point. Archaeology fits under 133 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:49,080 Speaker 1: the bigger umbrella of anthropology, which is the study of humans. 134 00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:53,440 Speaker 1: Forgive my ignorance, but I need some more clarification on 135 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: something else. So, okay, where does paleontology fit into go? 136 00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:03,280 Speaker 2: So, paleontology is the study of ancient animals, but palantell. 137 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:05,560 Speaker 1: The intelligence is the study of essentially bone, essentially bone 138 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:06,679 Speaker 1: in the fossil record. 139 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:09,439 Speaker 2: That's exactly right. You know, people always you know ASKO, 140 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:11,920 Speaker 2: do you study dinosaurs? Right? And what I will say 141 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 2: is I wish I did because that'd be sweet. But 142 00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:21,199 Speaker 2: the last dinosaur went extinct around sixty five million years ago, right. 143 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:26,040 Speaker 2: The first creature that really kind of is a human 144 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:30,600 Speaker 2: human like is six to seven million years ago. So 145 00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:35,880 Speaker 2: sixty million years separates the last dinosaur and the first 146 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:37,439 Speaker 2: human like creature. 147 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:41,840 Speaker 1: If we were biting into a chicken leg, we've just 148 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,920 Speaker 1: been nibbling on the crispy skin, but we're about to 149 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:49,120 Speaker 1: get into the meat. I want to understand the chronology 150 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:53,120 Speaker 1: of our understanding of the peopling of America, where they 151 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:57,280 Speaker 1: came from, and win. This involves a term we're going 152 00:09:57,360 --> 00:09:59,479 Speaker 1: to come to understand intimately. 153 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,559 Speaker 2: There was a huge debate in the late eighteen hundreds 154 00:10:06,559 --> 00:10:09,320 Speaker 2: early nineteen hundreds as to whether or not there was 155 00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,720 Speaker 2: a Stone Age period in the New World, right, because 156 00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:17,240 Speaker 2: the Stone Age is generally defined as the Pleistocene period, 157 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:21,600 Speaker 2: which is ten thousand years and earlier. At this point 158 00:10:21,679 --> 00:10:25,360 Speaker 2: in Europe, they were pretty confident, right, they had start 159 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:30,120 Speaker 2: to uncover Neanderthal remains. A Dutch pale anthropologist named Eugene 160 00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:35,880 Speaker 2: Dubois had uncovered Homorectus in Southeast Asia. You know, America 161 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,160 Speaker 2: wanted to have as old in antiquity as Europe. There's 162 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:43,319 Speaker 2: kind of some competition there, and so there's this huge 163 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:47,400 Speaker 2: debate and Dave Meltzer's book The Great Paleothic War, it's 164 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:51,600 Speaker 2: several hundred pages going into that debate, and it's pretty entertaining. 165 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:54,440 Speaker 2: It's just like just gossip and pretty good. 166 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,319 Speaker 1: I want to stop you right there. Why were people 167 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:00,920 Speaker 1: so worked up about that, Like, why would we want 168 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,480 Speaker 1: to have as deep a history as Europe? I mean, 169 00:11:03,559 --> 00:11:06,400 Speaker 1: is it literally just like we just want to think 170 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:08,040 Speaker 1: we're as old as them? Or is there some something 171 00:11:08,040 --> 00:11:11,560 Speaker 1: I don't understand, some economic benefit or some cultural benefit. 172 00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:15,240 Speaker 2: No, no benefit other than ego. I mean, we're American, 173 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:16,920 Speaker 2: so we got to be first, and we got to 174 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:17,600 Speaker 2: have the oldest. 175 00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:33,480 Speaker 1: Like I've been holding out on you, I didn't just 176 00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:36,760 Speaker 1: go to Ohio to Meton's lab, but I also went 177 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:43,200 Speaker 1: to Dallas, Texas to the campus of SMU. Doctor David 178 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:47,560 Speaker 1: Meltzer is an og archaeologist and author, and he's going 179 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:50,800 Speaker 1: to give us a granular walkthrough of the deep story 180 00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:55,040 Speaker 1: of America. But first we've got to talk about Foalsome, 181 00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:55,800 Speaker 1: New Mexico. 182 00:11:56,920 --> 00:11:59,720 Speaker 4: So when we were last talking, Clay, you remember we 183 00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:02,439 Speaker 4: were in Fulsom New Mexico. And Fulsom New Mexico was 184 00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:06,040 Speaker 4: a turning point in the story of the peopling of 185 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,640 Speaker 4: the Americas, because up to that moment in time, nobody 186 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:13,040 Speaker 4: was really confident that we had any evidence whatsoever that 187 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:17,880 Speaker 4: people had been and arrived in the Americas in Ice 188 00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:23,480 Speaker 4: age times. Fulsom broke that barrier after literally fifty years 189 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:27,280 Speaker 4: of controversy, Fulsom came along and we had clear cut 190 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:33,280 Speaker 4: evidence for the first time of human artifacts, genuine human artifacts. 191 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:36,880 Speaker 4: There was no question about these in direct association with 192 00:12:36,920 --> 00:12:40,280 Speaker 4: what we're known to be now extinct Ice age bison. 193 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:44,800 Speaker 1: I have no doubt that you remember Bargrea's Hall of 194 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: Famer George mcjunkin, who discovered the Falsome site in nineteen 195 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:52,160 Speaker 1: oh eight. It's here where they found the first falsome points, 196 00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:57,280 Speaker 1: which were beautifully crafted, lanceolate shaped, thin sharp stone points 197 00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:01,400 Speaker 1: that are fluted on both sides. Fluting means that with 198 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,280 Speaker 1: a single strike they flaked off the entire side of 199 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:08,240 Speaker 1: a point. They do this on both sides to create 200 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:12,560 Speaker 1: a mysteriously thin point. Might be best to like google 201 00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:14,560 Speaker 1: it if you want to envision what it looks like. 202 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:17,280 Speaker 1: We did a whole series on Fulsome starting with episode 203 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:19,800 Speaker 1: twenty eight to Bear Grease, and we have a meat 204 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,440 Speaker 1: eater film on YouTube where I killed a bear with 205 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:28,640 Speaker 1: a falsome point. But after the Fulsome discovery, a new, unidentified, 206 00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:32,440 Speaker 1: slightly different type of fluted points started showing up all 207 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,760 Speaker 1: over the country. These newly found points had smaller flutes 208 00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:40,640 Speaker 1: than falsome, but they were using the same napping technology. 209 00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:44,920 Speaker 1: It was kind of like a grandson making a variation 210 00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:47,240 Speaker 1: of his grandfather's design. 211 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:52,160 Speaker 4: Well, in the wake of fulsome and those very distinctive 212 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:56,240 Speaker 4: fluted points that we've talked about before, suddenly everybody realized 213 00:13:56,360 --> 00:13:59,000 Speaker 4: these things are all over the continent, and you know, 214 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:02,120 Speaker 4: you can go to Ohio, you can go to Florida, 215 00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:04,720 Speaker 4: you can go to the state of Washington, and they've 216 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:07,920 Speaker 4: all got these very distinctive fluid points. Except they didn't 217 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:11,800 Speaker 4: actually quite look like fulsome, and so there was a 218 00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:15,800 Speaker 4: little bit of confusion. You know, they used terms like 219 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:19,440 Speaker 4: generalized fulsome because they didn't quite it didn't quite fit 220 00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:22,520 Speaker 4: the type right. Well, what happens after that is, you know, 221 00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:25,400 Speaker 4: suddenly everybody's looking for these sites. Everybody wants to dig 222 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,240 Speaker 4: up these sites. About half a dozen years later, fella 223 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:32,160 Speaker 4: by name of Edgar B. Howard, who was at the 224 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:36,560 Speaker 4: Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, have been working on 225 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:41,560 Speaker 4: these old sites and he'd gotten wind about a locality 226 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:46,880 Speaker 4: outside of Clovis, New Mexico, and he'd been told he'd 227 00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:51,560 Speaker 4: gotten word that in these dunes along the term is 228 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:56,720 Speaker 4: blackwater draw that these dunes along Blackwater Draw were producing 229 00:14:57,040 --> 00:14:58,160 Speaker 4: large animal bones. 230 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,880 Speaker 1: TD. B. Howard was a real deal Indiana Jones type, 231 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,080 Speaker 1: and he was headed to check out these bones near 232 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:13,400 Speaker 1: Clovis and Blackwater Draw. And this guy was a he 233 00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:16,320 Speaker 1: hadn't been an archaeologist's whole career. He was like an 234 00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:20,040 Speaker 1: adult onset archaeologist. Yeah, he was like, there's. 235 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:24,200 Speaker 2: Forties or oh yeah. So he had heard that megafonnel 236 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:28,560 Speaker 2: remains had been kind of uncovered in this gravel quarry 237 00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:31,960 Speaker 2: that was being excavated. So it's thought that the Clovis 238 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:35,240 Speaker 2: site is a spring and there would have been lots 239 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:38,320 Speaker 2: of water resources around kind of been like a watering hole. 240 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,560 Speaker 2: So all sorts of animals would have been coming to 241 00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:45,200 Speaker 2: that spot. And you know, sometimes that would make a 242 00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:48,160 Speaker 2: really good hunting locale, right, do you take advantage of 243 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:51,480 Speaker 2: these animals because they need water? But sometimes they would 244 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:54,520 Speaker 2: also die just naturally through natural causes at that spot. 245 00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:58,720 Speaker 2: And when he went and started to explore and he 246 00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:02,800 Speaker 2: got teams looking around, they start to find these points 247 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:07,560 Speaker 2: that were larger than Falsom points. At the time, they 248 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:11,840 Speaker 2: thought they were cruder. And the flutes, you know, those 249 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:16,040 Speaker 2: grooves that extend from the base upwards rather than Falseom, 250 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:19,160 Speaker 2: where they go the whole way. These flutes would only 251 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:21,560 Speaker 2: go a third of the way up the spearhead right, 252 00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,920 Speaker 2: sometimes half, sometimes a little bit less. And what's amazing 253 00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:29,560 Speaker 2: about Blackwater draw this site is they were finding Clovis 254 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:34,200 Speaker 2: points underneath Falsome points. And so this was the first 255 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,640 Speaker 2: time where they actually had really concrete evidence based on 256 00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:41,760 Speaker 2: the law of superposition that, wow, Falsom isn't the oldest. 257 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:45,280 Speaker 2: There are older cultures and Falsome because when we dig deeper, 258 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:48,000 Speaker 2: we're finding different artifacts. And that's what the law of 259 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,360 Speaker 2: superposition is. It's just basically generally the deeper you go, 260 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:54,520 Speaker 2: the older things get. 261 00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:58,840 Speaker 1: It wasn't just these unusual points that made the Clovis 262 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:02,040 Speaker 1: site different. There were other types of bones here that 263 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,840 Speaker 1: really put Clovis on the map. This place would become 264 00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,480 Speaker 1: known as the Clovis type site, which is a term 265 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:14,000 Speaker 1: used to describe the original place that something important is found. 266 00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:17,520 Speaker 1: Did you hear him say that this famous place, this 267 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:20,199 Speaker 1: Clovis site as it would be come known, was a 268 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:24,920 Speaker 1: commercial gravel pit. Talk about two different types of folks 269 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:31,280 Speaker 1: interested in digging gravel miners and archaeologists. These guys are 270 00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:34,400 Speaker 1: on like completely different spectrums. Oh, no question, I mean 271 00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:37,320 Speaker 1: like as far apart as you could possibly be. 272 00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,159 Speaker 4: And you know what, the situation, it's actually kind of 273 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:43,440 Speaker 4: sad because it gets worse in the nineteen fifties. They 274 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,400 Speaker 4: bring in these giant road graders and trackos and everything, 275 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:50,399 Speaker 4: and there's photos that you can see of bulldozers in 276 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:52,640 Speaker 4: the background and a bunch of folks in the foreground 277 00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:55,040 Speaker 4: frantically excavating bones. 278 00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:59,600 Speaker 2: Wow, I'm just looking now at one of the books 279 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:03,240 Speaker 2: on clothes and it says the New Mexico Highway Department, 280 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:07,800 Speaker 2: prospecting for gravel to use in local road improvements, struck 281 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:11,360 Speaker 2: a deposit on the Anderson Carter ranch, not far from 282 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:15,600 Speaker 2: where Whitman and Anderson had made their discoveries. To other archaeologists, 283 00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:20,440 Speaker 2: mammoth bones were dislodged and pulled up by heavy construction machinery. 284 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:23,920 Speaker 2: Soon thereafter, some of the fossils were placed on display 285 00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:27,960 Speaker 2: in nearby portales. Other bones were carted away by workers 286 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:32,080 Speaker 2: and curious onlookers. Some people were taking stuff away only 287 00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:35,640 Speaker 2: to show up later on porches, in cupboards, and in garages. 288 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,800 Speaker 2: One local farmer who made off with a hefty chunk 289 00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:42,520 Speaker 2: of mammoth bone eventually used it as a doorstop. Luckily, 290 00:18:42,800 --> 00:18:46,400 Speaker 2: eb Howard caught word of these happenings and rushed back 291 00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:47,159 Speaker 2: to Clovis. 292 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:53,439 Speaker 4: But what they discovered, and this is what eb Howard 293 00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:57,719 Speaker 4: realized in November of nineteen thirty two, was we've got 294 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:02,200 Speaker 4: another instance kind of like full except it's not just bison. 295 00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:06,960 Speaker 4: There's also mammoth at this site. And so he excavates 296 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:11,119 Speaker 4: there in the early nineteen thirties over a series of 297 00:19:11,119 --> 00:19:16,240 Speaker 4: about half a dozen years, and they recover in association 298 00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:21,679 Speaker 4: Fulsome points with bison and what will come to be 299 00:19:21,760 --> 00:19:24,400 Speaker 4: called Clovis Points with mammoth. 300 00:19:25,119 --> 00:19:29,440 Speaker 1: And that's really important because the Fulsome site was with 301 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:33,840 Speaker 1: these bison antiquis, correct, which were an extinct species of bison. 302 00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:37,800 Speaker 1: But still there was some question amongst the people that 303 00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:42,679 Speaker 1: but like, well, maybe they weren't really bison antiquis, maybe 304 00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:46,080 Speaker 1: it was something different. But mammoth we knew for sure. 305 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,680 Speaker 4: That's an excellent point, because you know, bison, we're still 306 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:53,119 Speaker 4: wandering around, right And it was really a question of 307 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:57,400 Speaker 4: are these truly ancient bison or not? And people were 308 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:00,840 Speaker 4: reasonably confident in that. But when you've got projectile point 309 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:04,359 Speaker 4: associated with a mammoth, there's no ambiguity. Yeah, mammoths are 310 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,119 Speaker 4: not wandering around the American high planes. 311 00:20:07,359 --> 00:20:10,560 Speaker 3: And they're still trying to answer this question of were 312 00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:15,240 Speaker 3: their humans here during the Pleistocene. Do you remember where 313 00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:18,600 Speaker 3: you were in November nineteen thirty two when they discovered 314 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,320 Speaker 3: mammoth bones in association with Clovis points. Well, most of 315 00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:26,840 Speaker 3: us weren't alive, but you get the point. Pun intended 316 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:30,040 Speaker 3: that this was monumental and to bring us all up 317 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:35,120 Speaker 3: to speed. The Fulsome site dates back between ten thousand, 318 00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:39,040 Speaker 3: two hundred years and ten thousand, seven hundred years ago, 319 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:43,160 Speaker 3: but that site was found first, so it's a little confusing. 320 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:45,800 Speaker 3: But it was younger than the Clovis site, which was 321 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:49,840 Speaker 3: found in nineteen thirty two. And the Clovis period is 322 00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:55,240 Speaker 3: basically the prior one thousand years, dating it back to 323 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,760 Speaker 3: just under twelve thousand years old. But we need to 324 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:04,080 Speaker 3: know it exactly what it means when we say Clovist technology. 325 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:11,480 Speaker 2: So Clovist technology is comprised of stone and bone artifacts. Now, 326 00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:15,400 Speaker 2: the iconic Clovist artifact is what we call the Clovis 327 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:18,440 Speaker 2: fluted point right, and so this is a spear point 328 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,439 Speaker 2: that could have been used as a projectile for like 329 00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,040 Speaker 2: the Atlatl dart. It could have been used as a 330 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,400 Speaker 2: spearhead for thrusting spears. It could have been used as 331 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:29,320 Speaker 2: a knife in knife handles. 332 00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:32,080 Speaker 1: Right, it would not have been used in archery because 333 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:37,000 Speaker 1: it was way older than archery. Really, maybe you tell. 334 00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:39,000 Speaker 2: Me, Well, so this is the thing. People assume that 335 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,240 Speaker 2: the bow and arrow occurs very late in North America, 336 00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:46,280 Speaker 2: but I don't know. I mean, we get evidence of 337 00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,640 Speaker 2: the bow and arrow in South Africa. I want to say, 338 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,680 Speaker 2: something like seventy thousand years ago. Wow, So it's very 339 00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:58,280 Speaker 2: possible that, you know, because technologies are like biological species, 340 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,360 Speaker 2: they can emerge, they can also go extinct. So it's 341 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,879 Speaker 2: possible that at some point, as people are moving across 342 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,679 Speaker 2: Asia and Siberia, they lose bow and arrow technology and 343 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:10,719 Speaker 2: then when they come to the New World they have 344 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:11,560 Speaker 2: to reinvent it. 345 00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,600 Speaker 1: So a close point, it's within the realm of possibility 346 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:15,439 Speaker 1: that could have been. 347 00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:16,800 Speaker 2: Could have been used with a bone. 348 00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:19,000 Speaker 3: I can't wait for Steve Ornelle to hear this. 349 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:24,800 Speaker 2: Is it's now. I'm not saying they did. So it 350 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,520 Speaker 2: is possible. We don't know, I mean, and to be honest, 351 00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:30,520 Speaker 2: we also don't know that they use the at laddle. 352 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:34,399 Speaker 2: We don't. We've never found a Clovis at laddle. We've 353 00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:35,760 Speaker 2: never found a Clovis spear. 354 00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:39,600 Speaker 1: That's preservation bias potentially, that's yeah, So like an at 355 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:45,800 Speaker 1: laddle thrower would have been made of organic matter, would bone. Yeah, 356 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:47,840 Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Clovis folks use the bone arrow, 357 00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:50,320 Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is we can't say that they 358 00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:51,960 Speaker 1: didn't use the more. Yeah. 359 00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 2: But so this gets to that really pesky answer. I 360 00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:56,240 Speaker 2: don't know. 361 00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:04,119 Speaker 1: Oh, strings and aerow shafts are also organic matter. And 362 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,400 Speaker 1: a man whose name rhyme's with Cleves Stinella, once chotted 363 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,080 Speaker 1: me for shooting a Paleo point out of my bow, 364 00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:14,440 Speaker 1: saying it wasn't historically accurate. But that's water under the bridge. 365 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:19,840 Speaker 1: Let's get back to these presumed emphasis on presumed Clovis 366 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:20,800 Speaker 1: mammoth hunters. 367 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,080 Speaker 2: Now, the other thing to keep in mind is, do 368 00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:28,280 Speaker 2: you know how many sites on the entire continent of 369 00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:33,040 Speaker 2: North America we have with Clovis points in association. 370 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:33,480 Speaker 1: With mammoth thirteen? 371 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:40,200 Speaker 2: Fifteen, fifteen, you're close, yeah, fifteen. So let's say hypothetically. 372 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,359 Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot to me, but it's probably 373 00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:41,679 Speaker 1: really not. 374 00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:46,439 Speaker 2: Well, fifteen on the entire continent of North America, right, 375 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:47,960 Speaker 2: fifteen is not a large nub. 376 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,960 Speaker 1: Do we not have Clovis points lodged in mammoth. 377 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,119 Speaker 2: Well, that it's funny. That was exactly what's going to 378 00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,680 Speaker 2: bring up next. We've never found Clovis tips, Clovis point 379 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,320 Speaker 2: stone lodged in mammoth bones. Now that's really interesting to 380 00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:07,080 Speaker 2: think about because in Europe we find stone points, bone 381 00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:12,160 Speaker 2: points lodged in animals going back hundreds of thousands of years, right, 382 00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,800 Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of years. So the question is why, 383 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,840 Speaker 2: why in Europe during the Stone Age? I'm jealous, are 384 00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:23,879 Speaker 2: we getting direct evidence of shooting? We get that over 385 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,399 Speaker 2: and over and over again in Europe, not once in 386 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,879 Speaker 2: North America with a mammoth, with a mammoth. Why, I 387 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:32,159 Speaker 2: don't know we have something like that. 388 00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:32,720 Speaker 1: We don't know. 389 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,600 Speaker 2: We have over ninety Clovis points in association with mammoth. 390 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,040 Speaker 2: Not one stone point is lodged in any of the bones. 391 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,120 Speaker 1: Could it not just be simple statistics that there were 392 00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,080 Speaker 1: less people here for a shorter period of time, So 393 00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:47,280 Speaker 1: statistically us. 394 00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,480 Speaker 2: Find in that it could be another. 395 00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,359 Speaker 1: I mean humans have been there longer, Yeah, most likely. 396 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,800 Speaker 2: But I think the question though, is even at the 397 00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:00,600 Speaker 2: equivalent period, which would be the Magdalenian period in Europe, 398 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:02,679 Speaker 2: which is a Stone Age culture right before the end 399 00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,879 Speaker 2: of the Ice Age, right, you'll get stone points and 400 00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,800 Speaker 2: stuff embedded in bone. Then, so why not at the 401 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,520 Speaker 2: equivalent period in northern America. So I think when we 402 00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:17,080 Speaker 2: do find Clovis points in association with mammoth remains, it 403 00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,639 Speaker 2: is very possible that that animal is hunting. But you 404 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,440 Speaker 2: also have to remember that these animals, mammoths, they were 405 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:27,960 Speaker 2: going extinct, right, and ten thousand years ago we were 406 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,280 Speaker 2: facing a climate change that is kind of hard to comprehend. 407 00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,240 Speaker 2: We were going from the Ice Age to the Holocene, 408 00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:38,720 Speaker 2: so these animals environments were kind of collapsing around them. 409 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:43,320 Speaker 2: So there may have been more frequent dead mammoths then 410 00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:45,440 Speaker 2: for people to scavenge the right. 411 00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:47,840 Speaker 1: Because it was a population in the klon, it was 412 00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,200 Speaker 1: a population in decline. They were dying, they were dying. 413 00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,960 Speaker 2: So again, I think a lot of folks have seen 414 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,600 Speaker 2: research that my cell and my colleagues have done and 415 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,159 Speaker 2: they immediately like, oh, you thinkvist didn't hunt mammoths. No, 416 00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:05,359 Speaker 2: not at all hunting mammoths. What I don't believe is 417 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,160 Speaker 2: Clovis did not hunt mammoths to extinction. 418 00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. You called it a stereotype 419 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,720 Speaker 1: that closed people hunted mammoths. You could you could almost 420 00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,720 Speaker 1: see that being used as like a like a stereotypical 421 00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:22,159 Speaker 1: slur back in the day those mammoths and the mammoth 422 00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,800 Speaker 1: and the Clovist people are like, man, we we're just 423 00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:25,560 Speaker 1: finding them dead. 424 00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:26,640 Speaker 3: We're not even killed. 425 00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:27,080 Speaker 1: Them at offen. 426 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:27,840 Speaker 2: We didn't do it. 427 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:34,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, those dirty mammoth hunters. Yeah, I love a good mystery. 428 00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,480 Speaker 1: Why do you think that we don't find points lodged 429 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,040 Speaker 1: in mammoth bones in America? And this is relevant to 430 00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:45,040 Speaker 1: the story because in modern times Clovis culture became synonymous 431 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:49,040 Speaker 1: with MegaFon of hunters and even known to only hunt 432 00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,760 Speaker 1: mammoth and that just isn't true. They were hunting all 433 00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,760 Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. It's just intriguing to think about these 434 00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:00,840 Speaker 1: people killing giant, ancient wooly elephants with these Clovis spear points. 435 00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,320 Speaker 1: But we really don't have any hard evidence of that. 436 00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,439 Speaker 1: But that brings up a theory that's becoming less and 437 00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:13,080 Speaker 1: less relevant, and it has to do with humans causing 438 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,600 Speaker 1: the extinctions of the Pleistocene megafauna. 439 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,840 Speaker 4: And in fact, there's a whole body of claims out 440 00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,480 Speaker 4: there that humans were actually fairly voracious hunters to the 441 00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:26,480 Speaker 4: degree that they were the cause of the extinction of 442 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,560 Speaker 4: these animals, because of course these animals are no longer here. 443 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,600 Speaker 1: Yeah. Do they call it plastiscene overkill? 444 00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,600 Speaker 4: They do, indeed, blitz grieg model, Yeah, and that all 445 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,240 Speaker 4: ties back to that sort of traditional notion. You come 446 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:39,320 Speaker 4: down through the ice free corridor, you look out out 447 00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,679 Speaker 4: in front of you, and it's just the landscape teeming 448 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,080 Speaker 4: with these large animals that have never peered down the 449 00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,680 Speaker 4: shaft of a spear, have no idea how to respond 450 00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,200 Speaker 4: to a human, and just stand around while they get 451 00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:50,560 Speaker 4: well shafted. 452 00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,440 Speaker 1: Okay, archaeology, dad joke, Yeah, exactly. 453 00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,760 Speaker 4: So I don't buy it, and I don't buy it 454 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:00,600 Speaker 4: for a number of reasons. 455 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,560 Speaker 1: Here's the reasons why it's unlikely human hunters caused what's 456 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:10,440 Speaker 1: called the Quaternary megafaunal extinction or the ice Age extinction, 457 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,360 Speaker 1: that took place between fifty thousand to nine thousand years ago. 458 00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,560 Speaker 1: Number one, human hunters lived high on the hog killing 459 00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,520 Speaker 1: naive animals and killing the final animals in the population 460 00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,680 Speaker 1: could be difficult. They'd probably just move on when the 461 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,480 Speaker 1: hunting got hard, leaving some stragglers for seed. Number two, 462 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,760 Speaker 1: Hunting these huge animals was risky. They're hard to kill. 463 00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,600 Speaker 1: It was a low success rate type hunt, and you 464 00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,120 Speaker 1: might get killed doing it, so it was just risky. 465 00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,160 Speaker 1: The last reason is the most compelling to me, and 466 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,880 Speaker 1: we only have hard evidence that these Clovis people killed 467 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,480 Speaker 1: five types of big megafauna. 468 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:57,320 Speaker 4: Here's doctor meltzer, mammoth, mastod on, gompethier, horse, and camel. Yeah, 469 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:02,120 Speaker 4: so five genera. We have reasonably good evidence that people 470 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,360 Speaker 4: killed the animals at those sixteen sites. Thirty eight different 471 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,680 Speaker 4: genera went extinct. So what about the other thirty three genera? 472 00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,880 Speaker 4: We don't have any evidence that people were hunting giant peckery's, 473 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:18,080 Speaker 4: giant tapers, giant beavers, giant ground sloths. Right, there's all 474 00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,160 Speaker 4: these other animals that went extinct. So why is it 475 00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,640 Speaker 4: that we don't have any evidence If people were responsible 476 00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,800 Speaker 4: for coming into this continent and blasting their way through 477 00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,960 Speaker 4: and hunting in the sort of bloodthirsty rage all the 478 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:35,240 Speaker 4: way through the hemisphere. Where's the evidence. It's just not there. Now, 479 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,760 Speaker 4: take that and contrast it with bison. Bison started getting 480 00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:44,520 Speaker 4: were hunted as early as Clovis times. We have Clovis 481 00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:48,280 Speaker 4: age bison kills at the Clovis type site. Bison will 482 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,160 Speaker 4: then be hunted for literally the next twelve thousand years, 483 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:54,120 Speaker 4: but they don't go extinct. 484 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:58,960 Speaker 1: They're still here today. Absolutely, it seems clear that humans 485 00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,920 Speaker 1: didn't cause the court extinction. I want to ask doctor 486 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,840 Speaker 1: Aaron more about this overkill hypothesis once again, you're gonna 487 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,240 Speaker 1: need to know something going in. The Anzac child that 488 00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,880 Speaker 1: he's about to talk about was a two year old 489 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,840 Speaker 1: from the Pleistocene found buried on a Montana ranch in 490 00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:24,560 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. Is that idea still pretty well received? 491 00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,280 Speaker 2: Oh it's yeah. I mean, in fact, there was a 492 00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:32,320 Speaker 2: paper published recently in Science Advances where they did an 493 00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:37,600 Speaker 2: isotopic analysis of the Anzik baby skeleton and they found 494 00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:43,360 Speaker 2: that the diet was consistent with a plysisne big cat right, right, Yeah, 495 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:44,120 Speaker 2: you might have seen that. 496 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,160 Speaker 1: Yeah, Well so where they analyzed the DNA, Yeah, this 497 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,040 Speaker 1: two year old child and decided that the mother was 498 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:52,800 Speaker 1: basically eating a diet. 499 00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,880 Speaker 2: Of mammoth and yeah, of meat, right, mammoth and stuff, 500 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,960 Speaker 2: and great, that's fine. But the paper then says because 501 00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,880 Speaker 2: of that one, fine, humans cause the extinction of mammoths 502 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:04,800 Speaker 2: the North America. 503 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:06,560 Speaker 1: Is that I mean, do you think some of that 504 00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,920 Speaker 1: is informed by just the modern bias of like human 505 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,200 Speaker 1: intrusion on the landscape. So it's like an environmental statement 506 00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:15,840 Speaker 1: of like we're wrecking the planet. 507 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,480 Speaker 2: They're trying to use that as a signal to point 508 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,000 Speaker 2: to a very good cause. Preserving the environment and species 509 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:28,520 Speaker 2: is so important. And showing that the Anzac baby and 510 00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,120 Speaker 2: its mother ate meat, that's a huge leap then to say, well, 511 00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,160 Speaker 2: because they ate meat, well, we cause the extinction of 512 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:39,680 Speaker 2: the mammoths in North America. 513 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:54,120 Speaker 1: It's kind of bewildering to hear about archaeology being used 514 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,800 Speaker 1: as a political tool. But we're about to hear a 515 00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,920 Speaker 1: lot more about this, But let's get back into Clovis. 516 00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,400 Speaker 1: This site would become the prominent American discovery of the 517 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,840 Speaker 1: twentieth century, and for the next forty years there would 518 00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:14,239 Speaker 1: be an idea called Clovis First, meaning these people that 519 00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:18,720 Speaker 1: make these Clovis style points were the first Americans Clovis First. 520 00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,640 Speaker 1: So this Clovis First thing answered the big question we'd 521 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,800 Speaker 1: been asking for a long time about how long people 522 00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,680 Speaker 1: had been here, and this ceiling that the Clovis First 523 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:32,200 Speaker 1: theory put on, this thing was about that thirteen thousand 524 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:32,960 Speaker 1: year mark. 525 00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:38,560 Speaker 4: But there was trouble, and so the argument that sort 526 00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,360 Speaker 4: of emerged in the nineteen sixties was that Clovis groups 527 00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:43,160 Speaker 4: were first. 528 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,640 Speaker 1: And they came from Asia, and they came. 529 00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,480 Speaker 4: From absolutely yeah, they came from Northeast Asia, come into 530 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,360 Speaker 4: the Americas and basically start eating their way from one 531 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,760 Speaker 4: end of the continent to the other. But what also 532 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,880 Speaker 4: was happening simultaneously in the nineteen sixties was that people 533 00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:02,560 Speaker 4: were saying, are we absolutely certain that Clovis's oldest? Could 534 00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:06,640 Speaker 4: there be stuff evidence of people here prior to Clovis, 535 00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,920 Speaker 4: And that triggered a huge kerfuffle in debate. A lot 536 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,280 Speaker 4: of it was because people would make claims about sites 537 00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:19,160 Speaker 4: of great antiquity and the claims simply did not pass 538 00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:24,360 Speaker 4: critical muster, and so archaeologists, I mean, we have long memories. 539 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,880 Speaker 4: It's an occupational hazard, right, And so we got really 540 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,160 Speaker 4: kind of skeptical and even maybe cynical about the idea 541 00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:31,960 Speaker 4: of pre Clovis. 542 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,960 Speaker 1: My friend Taylor Keene is a Cherokee in Omaha. He's 543 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,960 Speaker 1: a graduate of Harvard and a professor of business at 544 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:45,240 Speaker 1: Crichton University. He's also an Indigenous historian and author. He 545 00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:49,760 Speaker 1: wrote a book called Rediscovering Turtle Island, which is about 546 00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,560 Speaker 1: the peopling of the Americas. He and many others believe 547 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,800 Speaker 1: that the original persistence of the archaeological community in denying 548 00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,200 Speaker 1: the deep antiquity of human here was rooted in bias 549 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:07,680 Speaker 1: that helped build the justification narrative for America's westward expansion. 550 00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:11,920 Speaker 5: So, if there's anything I learned from writing a book 551 00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,839 Speaker 5: on this topic, to me, it started with some very 552 00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,640 Speaker 5: basic human questions of how long have my indigenous ancestors 553 00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:25,799 Speaker 5: been here? And pretty quickly, especially in the academic narratives, 554 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,120 Speaker 5: what you're going to find is some fairly fixed biases 555 00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,680 Speaker 5: around different theories. Primary one of those is around the 556 00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:37,120 Speaker 5: baron straight theory and then the Clovis first theory, and 557 00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:41,680 Speaker 5: that was embedded in anthropology as a barrier to anything 558 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:47,000 Speaker 5: being before those time frames. For sure, I think that anthropology, 559 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,040 Speaker 5: especially the Bureau of American ethnology was created at a 560 00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:55,320 Speaker 5: time when we were experiencing the vanishing race of indigenous peoples, 561 00:34:55,800 --> 00:35:00,080 Speaker 5: and I think it was a hopeful prophecy for the 562 00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,319 Speaker 5: European settlers who had colonized this, because that would have 563 00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,040 Speaker 5: been much easier than having to deal with the people 564 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,200 Speaker 5: for a long time. So whatever we could do reasonably 565 00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,719 Speaker 5: within science to limit how far indigenous peoples have been 566 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,440 Speaker 5: here seemed to be the cultural norm. 567 00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,960 Speaker 1: Taylor believes the dogma and persistence of the Clovis First theory, 568 00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:28,560 Speaker 1: which remember helped break this ice age barrier, was politically motivated. 569 00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:33,160 Speaker 1: It's complicated though, because Meltzer is saying the theory was 570 00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:36,640 Speaker 1: simply based on the evidence that we had at the time. 571 00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,680 Speaker 1: I have a feeling that both of these things could 572 00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,720 Speaker 1: be true at the same time. But I'm still trying 573 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,719 Speaker 1: to understand why this is political. 574 00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:52,080 Speaker 5: So much of manifests destiny. There's a famous painting, and 575 00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,840 Speaker 5: I always forget the name of it, but it shows 576 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,680 Speaker 5: basically Lady Liberty floating as a ghost across the plains, 577 00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:04,160 Speaker 5: and you see the advancing railroad. You see a handful 578 00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,400 Speaker 5: of indigenous peoples. But it's a god given right for 579 00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:13,000 Speaker 5: European colonization to happen here. And I think the mindset 580 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,080 Speaker 5: is that, you know, this was the new Jerusalem for 581 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:21,000 Speaker 5: some of the Rosicrucian thinkers coming out of the Enlightenment 582 00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:25,279 Speaker 5: and all this New Atlantis type of theory, and all 583 00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,680 Speaker 5: of a sudden, it was a view that America could 584 00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,919 Speaker 5: become that and it was the God given right of 585 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,400 Speaker 5: the colonizers to take it and to do with it 586 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,400 Speaker 5: what they were. But to get there you need a narrative. 587 00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,319 Speaker 5: The land needs to be a wilderness. The people that 588 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,080 Speaker 5: were there before need to be savages, and it was 589 00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,360 Speaker 5: our manifest destiny to take over the West. That's the backdrop, 590 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:52,920 Speaker 5: that's the psychology within the academy. Anything that was before 591 00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:54,840 Speaker 5: theory was rejected. 592 00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:59,960 Speaker 1: It's possible that America wanted a narrative that people hadn't 593 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,240 Speaker 1: been here that long, and on the other side, many 594 00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:07,279 Speaker 1: indigenous people wanted to give their ancestors full credit for 595 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,360 Speaker 1: how long they'd actually been here. Taylor believes it's possible 596 00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,680 Speaker 1: that humans have been here in the Americas for as 597 00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,960 Speaker 1: long as one hundred thousand years, but that's like the 598 00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,640 Speaker 1: furthest extent. But he thinks for sure forty or fifty, 599 00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,440 Speaker 1: but at this time there really isn't hard evidence to 600 00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:31,600 Speaker 1: support that yet and none may exist, but that thing 601 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,680 Speaker 1: could still be true. It's possible for something to be 602 00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:39,279 Speaker 1: true but there be no evidence. And my analysis and 603 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,840 Speaker 1: personal opinion is that at one time these biases to 604 00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:47,120 Speaker 1: build this pro American narrative were probably real, but modern 605 00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:51,520 Speaker 1: archaeologists like Meltzer and air and are humble, realistic, and 606 00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,320 Speaker 1: seem to be open to whatever the real evidence shows. 607 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,879 Speaker 1: At some point, I'd like to talk about modern journalists 608 00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:02,120 Speaker 1: and popular TV host Graham Hand, who believes the archaeological 609 00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,799 Speaker 1: community is still not wanting the human arrival dates to 610 00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,239 Speaker 1: be too deep In time. We'll get to that, But 611 00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,560 Speaker 1: to get back to the mission of this podcast, here's 612 00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:16,520 Speaker 1: doctor Meltzer talking about when the Clovis first theory began 613 00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:17,840 Speaker 1: to crumble. 614 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,360 Speaker 4: But then starting in the late seventies and early eighties, 615 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,360 Speaker 4: there were some sites that came online that were actually 616 00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:31,800 Speaker 4: pretty impressive and that provided pretty compelling evidence that indeed 617 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:37,120 Speaker 4: people were here a whole lot earlier. Fast forward to today, 618 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:41,000 Speaker 4: we've got a number of sites now that give us 619 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:47,000 Speaker 4: reasonably confident evidence and data that make it clear that 620 00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,200 Speaker 4: folks have been here a lot earlier than Clovis. What's 621 00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:55,480 Speaker 4: a lot earlier minimally, we think that folks are here 622 00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:59,960 Speaker 4: around fifteen sixteen thousand years ago. Now that actually had 623 00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:01,880 Speaker 4: implications for how they got. 624 00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:06,200 Speaker 1: Here, Now that that would predate Clovis by like two 625 00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:14,320 Speaker 1: three thousand years exactly right. Clothes first began to crumble 626 00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:18,719 Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, but it takes decades for theories 627 00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,560 Speaker 1: and sights to gain credibility. And that's exactly why Meltzer 628 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:28,320 Speaker 1: didn't mention White Sands, New Mexico, that has footprints dating 629 00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:33,360 Speaker 1: back over twenty three thousand years. Many people just don't 630 00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,000 Speaker 1: believe all the questions about those prints have been answered. 631 00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:41,359 Speaker 1: And if this podcast is a fried chicken leg and 632 00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,719 Speaker 1: we've already had one meaty bite, we're now at the 633 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,319 Speaker 1: meat close to the bone. And if you're opposed to 634 00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,680 Speaker 1: learning some stuff, I'd suggest you just turned this podcast 635 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,480 Speaker 1: off right now. We're about to talk about the ideas 636 00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:58,760 Speaker 1: around the ice Free Corridor, which for decades people believed 637 00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,319 Speaker 1: the Clovis people traveled through this ice free Corridor to 638 00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:06,920 Speaker 1: get from Alaska's burying land bridge into the interior of America. 639 00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:12,480 Speaker 1: The corridor was created by two abutting glaciers, my beloved 640 00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:18,280 Speaker 1: Laurentidde and the Coridialian ice Sheet. Here's some hard hitting knowledge, boys. 641 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,719 Speaker 1: So what site is the most definitive site today that 642 00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,360 Speaker 1: bumps it back to that fifteen. 643 00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:31,520 Speaker 4: Well, there's several. You've got some here in Texas, the 644 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:35,000 Speaker 4: Gault site, which is just outside of Austin. We've got 645 00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,920 Speaker 4: sits in the Pacific Northwest, like Cooper's Ferry. We've got 646 00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:42,480 Speaker 4: sits in southern South America like Monteverde, and so in 647 00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:46,960 Speaker 4: monta Verde dates you know, fourteen six, fourteen seven, And 648 00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:48,719 Speaker 4: if you think about it, if they're down there by 649 00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,239 Speaker 4: fourteen six or fourteen seven, they came across the land 650 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,480 Speaker 4: bridge a hell out earlier. 651 00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,640 Speaker 1: And we and oh man, we're like moving so fast. 652 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,960 Speaker 1: We know that the people, the peopling of South America 653 00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,080 Speaker 1: came through the North American continent through genetics exactly. 654 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,160 Speaker 4: But let me actually throw a wrinkle into this first. Okay, 655 00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,480 Speaker 4: remember we were talking about the ice Free Corridor, and 656 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,960 Speaker 4: I'm gonna bring genetics into it. By the way, So 657 00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,000 Speaker 4: the Ice Free Corridor, it was traditionally thought, you know, 658 00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,479 Speaker 4: it opened just about the time of Clovis well doing 659 00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:23,719 Speaker 4: some work. We obtained several cores from the center of 660 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,800 Speaker 4: the ice free Corridor region. The ice free corridor runs 661 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:32,920 Speaker 4: from slightly northwest to slightly southeast, and it opened like 662 00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,680 Speaker 4: your winter coats where the zipper comes down from the 663 00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:38,640 Speaker 4: top and up from the bottom. 664 00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,920 Speaker 1: And it's gone from Alaska to Montana basically exactly. 665 00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,640 Speaker 4: So if you can imagine, then you're unzipping your winter 666 00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,400 Speaker 4: coat from the top and the bottom. The central portion 667 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,160 Speaker 4: of that coat is going to stay closed latest. Okay, 668 00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,840 Speaker 4: So we obtained cores from lakes in that central portion, 669 00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:03,120 Speaker 4: and we looked at the vironmental ancient DNA. There's been 670 00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:08,319 Speaker 4: a revolution in our ability to understand past environments. We 671 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,080 Speaker 4: can take a sediment core, So think about drilling a 672 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,799 Speaker 4: core down into the sediment at the bottom of a lake. 673 00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:18,640 Speaker 1: You then extrude. 674 00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,000 Speaker 4: That tube of sediment and then you find slice it 675 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,000 Speaker 4: and you look at the DNA fragments that are preserved 676 00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:32,200 Speaker 4: in that mud. Because a square centimeter of dirt will 677 00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,799 Speaker 4: contain billions of fragments of DNA. Billions with a. 678 00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:42,120 Speaker 1: Beak of animals that urinated, defecated, did. 679 00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:45,560 Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely anything that was hanging around that lake. Okay, 680 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,359 Speaker 4: and what we discovered that organic life does not come 681 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:55,840 Speaker 4: to this lake until around twelve thousand, six hundred years ago. Okay, 682 00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:57,600 Speaker 4: So wait a minute. We just said people were in 683 00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:01,640 Speaker 4: the America sixteen thousand years ago. If there's nothing growing 684 00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:06,400 Speaker 4: in the ice Freak Corridor until twelve six how the 685 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,520 Speaker 4: heck did people get through that corridor? They didn't, right, 686 00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:14,520 Speaker 4: That corridor stayed closed relatively late, and when it did 687 00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,839 Speaker 4: finally open, it was not biologically viable. If you're coming 688 00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,560 Speaker 4: from Alaska down to Montana, you're not packing a lunch 689 00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:24,200 Speaker 4: and doing it in a day, Okay, You've got to 690 00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,680 Speaker 4: have resources. Those resources weren't available. So what does that 691 00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,279 Speaker 4: tell us they didn't come down the ice free corld. 692 00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:32,400 Speaker 3: It would have been like a ice hallway. 693 00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:34,720 Speaker 1: I mean, there wouldn't have been a bunch of animals 694 00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,440 Speaker 1: there and nope, nope, and even vegetation maybe. I mean 695 00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:40,480 Speaker 1: it would have been much flat through an ice. 696 00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:47,280 Speaker 4: Box exactly, and through mud and lakes and just glacial debris. 697 00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:48,879 Speaker 4: It would not have been a pleasant So. 698 00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,279 Speaker 1: The ice free Corridor was That's the way that we 699 00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:57,719 Speaker 1: believed people got into the interior of the continent. Traditionally, 700 00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,799 Speaker 1: until like ten years ago, pretty much with basically with 701 00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,960 Speaker 1: these mud, these dirt cores and them saying, hey, there 702 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,879 Speaker 1: was nothing here right until twelve thousand years ago. 703 00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:08,400 Speaker 4: Yeah. 704 00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, So what does that mean? 705 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,280 Speaker 4: Well, that means they got here some other way. Wow. 706 00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,520 Speaker 4: And the other way is down the Pacific coast. 707 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:24,840 Speaker 1: So the first Americans undoubtedly came by water period. Interestingly, 708 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:30,120 Speaker 1: decades ago, the head honcho leaders said this wasn't a possibility. 709 00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:36,440 Speaker 5: Here's Taylor John Wesley Powell, who was the original inaugural 710 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:41,400 Speaker 5: director for both the Smithsonian but more importantly the Bureau 711 00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,720 Speaker 5: of American Ethnology. The very first paper that was written 712 00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,880 Speaker 5: on the academy. So think like legal case law. If 713 00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,160 Speaker 5: you write the first piece of case law, everyone else 714 00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:53,840 Speaker 5: has to follow you. And I'm going to paraphrase the 715 00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:58,040 Speaker 5: title of it. On the Limitations of certain Anthropological data 716 00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:02,160 Speaker 5: is what it was called. Since he laid out the 717 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:06,560 Speaker 5: burying straight theory and a very calculated line. He said 718 00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:10,359 Speaker 5: something along of the lines of we will entertain no 719 00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:16,240 Speaker 5: extra limital diffusion, meaning people didn't come from across water 720 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,040 Speaker 5: or from somewhere else. Now, this is to the people 721 00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:27,880 Speaker 5: that invented the canoe and seafaring canoes up in the Arctic. Obviously, 722 00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:31,200 Speaker 5: we've navigated waterways for a very long time. 723 00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:36,040 Speaker 1: Many in the indigenous communities believe these statements to be 724 00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:40,719 Speaker 1: politically motivated, But I think modern archaeologists would just say 725 00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,600 Speaker 1: that we didn't have the data, we didn't have the 726 00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:48,120 Speaker 1: hard evidence. And I can sympathize with both sides. The 727 00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,960 Speaker 1: field of archaeology is limited to hard evidence, and it 728 00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,600 Speaker 1: just didn't have it. But we've seen even in modern 729 00:45:55,640 --> 00:46:00,719 Speaker 1: times how people are politicizing science, and the ancient stories 730 00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,760 Speaker 1: of indigenous people just seem to get truer and truer 731 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:09,719 Speaker 1: as time goes by. As we wind down, I've got 732 00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:15,160 Speaker 1: a Clovis point in my hand, and I'm mesmerized by it. 733 00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:19,000 Speaker 1: It's just it's just such mystery, and that's the that's 734 00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:20,080 Speaker 1: why these are so cool. 735 00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:23,480 Speaker 6: Yeah, such a mystery, and the fact that we could 736 00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:29,319 Speaker 6: find these Clovis points, this technology that is indicative of 737 00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:33,080 Speaker 6: this time period can be found from Alaska to Florida, 738 00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,720 Speaker 6: from Maine to New Mexico. 739 00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:37,600 Speaker 2: Oh even a Central America. 740 00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,279 Speaker 1: I mean they these people covered the cont Yes, so 741 00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,120 Speaker 1: you could you could find one of these in your yard? 742 00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:49,919 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely, one hundred percent. The cool thing about 743 00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:54,239 Speaker 2: the stone Age is the stone Age is everyone's history, right, 744 00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,640 Speaker 2: That is the story of our species and how the 745 00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:03,160 Speaker 2: modern world looks the way it does today. 746 00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,799 Speaker 1: We've learned so much on this episode. I hope our 747 00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,920 Speaker 1: brains don't overheat from all this new knowledge. But I 748 00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,960 Speaker 1: think this will give us a good foundation for understanding 749 00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,799 Speaker 1: some of this continent's earliest history. And I find this 750 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,960 Speaker 1: stuff valuable when I'm in a wild place alone, and 751 00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:23,440 Speaker 1: the thoughts of humans in the Ice Age chasing mammoths 752 00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:27,879 Speaker 1: and the great mystery around their lives is just almost overwhelming. 753 00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:35,239 Speaker 1: I really love this stuff big thanks to my distinguished guests, 754 00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:40,040 Speaker 1: Doctor Aaron, Doctor Meltzer, and Taylor Kean. Thank you so much. 755 00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,400 Speaker 1: I can't thank everybody enough for listening to Bear Grease 756 00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:49,560 Speaker 1: and Brent's This Country Life podcast Keep the Wild Places Wild, 757 00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:51,120 Speaker 1: because that's where the bears live. 758 00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,600 Speaker 2: You know, we've been talking about extinctions and hunting and stuff. 759 00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,920 Speaker 2: What I want someone out there to do, if you're 760 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,560 Speaker 2: into like movie are TV shows. I want someone out 761 00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:07,160 Speaker 2: there to combine the stone Age genre with the zombie 762 00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:11,680 Speaker 2: apocalypse genre. And what I want is I want a 763 00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:16,719 Speaker 2: TV show where the megafaunam have been zombified and that 764 00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,680 Speaker 2: is the reason why they went extinct. And like Clovist 765 00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:25,480 Speaker 2: folks have to defend themselves against a zombie mammoth or 766 00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:29,040 Speaker 2: a zombie short faced bear. But I'm just like, why 767 00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,640 Speaker 2: hasn't anyone combined zombies with stone age. 768 00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:36,920 Speaker 1: If Hollywood, somehow ever gets into this lab, they're going 769 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:37,439 Speaker 1: to get there. 770 00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:39,919 Speaker 2: Can we do like an audio trademark, so if someone 771 00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,840 Speaker 2: wants to pick up this idea, we get the royalties. 772 00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:44,560 Speaker 1: I mean, I'll give it all to you man, I mean, 773 00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:46,520 Speaker 1: this is your brain chilt.