Read Online Across Atlantic Ice The Origin of America Clovis Culture Dennis J Stanford Books

Product details Paperback 336 pages Publisher University of California Press; First edition (June 3, 2013) Language English ISBN-10 0520275780

Across Atlantic Ice The Origin of America Clovis Culture Dennis J Stanford Books Reviews

• It wasn't long after the discovery of the "New World" that men of science began wondering about the regions indigenous people. Had they always been here or had they migrated from other lands to settle in North America? The obvious choice was that family groups of Ice Age hunter-gatherers had walked over a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska about 13,000 years ago. From there our intrepid "Paleo-Indians" had followed a southerly route till they came to the fertile plains and forests of a new land just south of the ice-sheet. Game animals were abundant and there was lots of room for our travelers spread out and prosper. And spread out they did, from coast to coast and southward too, to yet another continent. While doing all this prospering, they took time out to invent the Clovis Point and to hunt the Ice Age Mega-Fauna to extinction. The rest, they say, is history. Or is it? For the most part, this scenario was accepted as "Gospel" by the Archeological community but early on, almost from the beginning, dissenting voices were heard. Throughout North and South America some Paleolithic sites were being dated as older than the 13,000 YBP mark, some as far back as 20,000 to 30,000 YBP. There may be more to this story after all. In "Across Atlantic Ice" authors Dennis J Stanford and Bruce A Bradley fill you in on a different hypothesis on how and when the first Americans may have gotten here. Is it possible that Ice Age Mariners had migrated west, along the edge of the ice floe, from somewhere in Europe, more specifically, the Iberian Peninsula? To reach this conclusion the authors have spent years studying and analyzing lithic and bone artifacts from sites in North America, from Alaska to Florida, searching for a time line tracing the development of the Clovis Culture. Traditionally Clovis was thought to have its roots in Siberia but was not fully developed until it's Ice Age inventors had crossed the Beringia Land Bridge and reached the southern plains of North America. Stanford and Bradley's research has led them to believe the opposite; Clovis was first developed along the "eastern" seaboard of Paleo-America and may have had its roots in and around the the Pyrenees Mountains of Southern France and Northern Spain. To explain their paradigm changing idea the authors start with a kind of Primer for making and analyzing stone tools that I found to be rather technical and kind of a tough read. But this Primer came in handy when it was time to compare the Clovis Culture, in the U.S., to the Solutrean Culture in Iberia. The second half of the book covers the authors's hypothesis and their interpretation of the data available. On the whole this is a well written and informative book that gave me plenty of "food for thought". Looks to me like we have three possibilities here One ice Age Mariners followed Atlantic currents along the sea-ice edge to colonize North America far earlier than previously suspected. Two a similar idea proposes that other Paleolithic Mariners from South East Asia/Siberia followed the ice front of the North Pacific to eventually settle on the western seaboard of the Americas, well before 13,000 YBP. Three then there's our heroic Mammoth Hunters crossing the Beringia Land Bridge and ending up in an "American Serengeti". To me a combination of the three makes sense, with far ranging travelers reaching North America in wave after wave, all from different sources. (*) This book was perfect for me and if you're at all interested in Natural History and how humans first came to North America then it may be a good fit for you too. I highly recommend it. I had no technical or formatting problems with this edition.
  
  (*) For more on this interesting subject see Tom Koppel's "Lost World" and "The First Americans" by J.M. Adovasio.
  
  Last Ranger
• The Stanford-Bradley Theory argues too timidly for a smacking-good idea that makes much common sense. Estimates of 1492 Indian population of the New World is estimated in the 10-20 million range. For long, their assumed single route of entry was the Bering Strait during the Ice Age. Little evidence to date supports a land-bridge theory for any heavy crossing. The authors spend too much time going over the sparse amount of Beringian finds. Most came by water, and fairly late. Some managed it earlier.
  
  Art and skull evidence for late Pacific crossings is clearer, mainly within the last few thousand years. More obvious, Pacific West Coast Indians were more Asiatic-traited; East Coast, more European-traited.
  
  The leading artifacts found are the unique Clovis, NM spearheads, exquisitely knapped to create a multi-faceted surface useless in a big-game hunting. They have now been found, of earlier date, along the U S Eastern Coast. They resemble those introduced in Paleolithic Europe c 18,000 BC by the Solutrean Paleolithic culture. The American Clovis points run from a somewhat later period down to c 12,000 BC. Does this mean late Solutreans crossed the Atlantic during the Ice Age?
  
  The Stanford-Bradley Theory suggests so. They assemble available evidence, such as recent ice-bore climate-change periods. In very cold Ice Age winters, an ice sheet virtually connected France and the UK to Newfoundland. In rare very warm brief summers, cod-fish hunters could have accidentally found their way, by foot or sea, to the cod-rich Grand Banks. Let alone, the North Atlantic current could reverse and, in summer, float huge pieces of land broken off from frozen Europe to the Grand Banks with groups of late Solutreans accidentally aboard.
  
  This is a cautious presentation of the theory. But why the multi-faceted spearheads that resemble huge cut diamonds? Found near small game. Those facets could catch the spare amount of sunlight peeking through the Ice Age overcast skies and may have been used as a combination clock-compass. The Alpine Solutreans received more light than coastal land did. They had to journey far over Alpine ice to find small game mountain goats, hare, wolves, birds, lake fish, etc. When food ran low, they descended to the Bay of Biscay. They became fishermen, chasing seal, auk and cold-water fish. Perhaps. We may never know. But in historic times, white Indians lived in Newfoundland. The Beotuk. They surely came by sea. But at a later date. They simply followed the trail of the tasty cod floating to Europe. The theory is highly plausible; the presentation not as strong as it could have been. But it's the only book of its kind.
  
  Al Sundel
• Interesting idea, and maybe it'll prove true, that early peoples migrated to the Atlantic shores of this country from the coast of France, around the edges of Ice Age Atlantic waters, hunting seals, etc. It's a theory, but so much starts out that way. There are many experts in the field who hold this impossible. Some theories hang in the balance for years, or generations, before being proved or shot down completely -- it depends on future archaeological findings. I really enjoyed reading this book.
• Very interesting and informative theory that N. America was populated by peoples from what is now known as Southern France and N. Spain, 10-15 thousand years before the asiatic peoples descended via Alaska and Canada. The book is a textbook, therefore written in this style, which can make it a slog to get through at times. The book also makes use of extensive terminology in reference to the construction of arrowheads which has led me to the dictionary and You Tube on many occasions to gain a better understanding of what the author is describing. I enjoy expanding my vocabulary, however I will never be able to throw in the myriad words used to describe arrowhead construction at a cocktail party.
  Nonetheless, an interesting theory being postulated by the author based on evidence of different technology collected along the east coast, mid-west and Texas areas.