Volume 28, Number 3 Center for the Study of the First Americans Department of Anthropology July, 2013 Texas A&M University, 4352 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4352 ISSN 8755-6898 World Wide Web site http://centerfirstamericans.org and http://anthropology.tamu.edu TONE TOOLS and butchered mammoth bones are important clues to solving the question of how and when the Americas were peopled, but the only way S to gain insights into the people themselves is 6 A milestone event that’s well by studying their physical Early Skeletons Point remains—their skeletons worth your trip to Santa Fe! Posters that encapsulate and their ancient DNA that to a Single Source just about everything new in is sometimes recoverable archaeology and anthropology, from their bones and from Population for the a dazzling collection of artifacts human coprolites. from four continents, thought- Benjamin Auerbach, a First Americans provoking presentations by biological anthropologist at leaders in their fields, workshops the University of Tennessee and discussions on seminal issues in Knoxville, has studied and developments that touch on peopling of the Americas: Come a set of the most complete to learn, or just to be delighted! human skeletons from N North America dating from 15 Not ready to climb aboard the 10,000–8000 RCYBP to bet- STITUTIO boat from Iberia In ter understand the physical N The second of our 2-part series IA variation among the earli- N voices scientists’ objections to the Solutrean Migration theory of est preserved inhabitants of ITHSO Sm Stanford and Bradley. The areas North America. His study of contention are lithic technol- has implications for the ori- ISTORY, ogy—where are overshot flakes gins of their ancestors and H and fluting?—and genetics— the migratory route they why isn’t European DNA better followed. represented in Native Americans? His results, published in OF NATURAL M 20 Charting a precarious existence the December 2012 issue of in the land of receding glaciers American Journal of Physi- ALMUSEU Occupying a narrow spit of land cal Anthropology, confirm N in southern Ontario between the basic model developed Archaeologist Al Redder (left) and Smithsonian glacial lakes Minong and Agassiz, by geneticists of a single anthropologist Doug Owsley investigate the tough Paleoamericans had to source population, most Horn Shelter in east-central Texas. make do with a toolstone that’s devilishly hard to work. likely located in the high CHIPCLARK, NATIO latitudes of eastern Asia, as “the ancestor The First Americans for all of the colonizers of North America” Auerbach selected for analysis the five Beach from Nevada, dating to about at a date no earlier than about 15,000 years most complete and most ancient male 9515 RCYBP; Horn Shelter burial 2 ago. skeletons in North America: Wizard’s from Texas, about 9500 RCYBP; Spirit 2 Volume 28 n Number 3 Cave Man, also from Nevada, about 9415 skulls of modern populations living cestors came from high-latitude cold RCYBP; Kennewick Man from Wash- around the world in high-latitude cold environments. ington, about 8370 RCYBP; and Gore environments, the kind of environment According to some scholars, this sug- Creek from British Columbia, Canada, thought to have been occupied by the an- gests an early and rapid migration of about 8250 RCYBP. Dr. Auerbach chose cestors of early Americans. The skulls people into America that originated in these male skeletons because the most of later-Holocene Americans, however, the lower latitudes of Asia and apparently complete female skeletons dating to the do show these traits. Surprisingly, even passed through northern Asia, but the early Holocene have either been reburied the skulls of skeletons found in lower- people didn’t dwell there for enough gen- (Gordon Creek) or are taphonomically latitude warmer climatic zones exhibit erations to develop physiological adapta- distorted (Wilson-Leonard Woman). characteristics that suggest their an- tions to the colder environments. They Although none of these skeletons date to the period of the initial discovery and colonization of the Americas, which oc- curred between about 20,000 and 11,000 RCYBP, Auerbach argues, based on other studies of change in body shape and size among colonizing human groups (such as in Europe or Japan), that these five individuals likely “retain the morphologi- cal traits of their colonizing ancestors.” The Mammoth Trumpet (ISSN 8755-6898) is published quarterly by the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4352. Phone (979) 845-4046; fax (979) 845-4070; e-mail [email protected]. Periodical postage paid at College Station, TX 77843-4352 and at ad- ditional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Mammoth Trumpet Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University 4352 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4352 Copyright © 2013 Center for the Study of the First Americans. Permission is hereby given to any non-profit or educational organization or institution toreproduce without cost any materials from the Mammoth Trumpet so long as they are then distributed at no more than actual cost. The Center further requests that notification of reproduction of materials under these conditions be sent to the Center. Address correspondence to the editor of Mammoth Trumpet, 2122 Scout Road, Lenoir, NC 28645. Michael R. Waters Director and General Editor e-mail: [email protected] IBBY COWGILL IBBY Ted Goebel Associate Director L Auerbach in the Smokies, 2009. e-mail: [email protected] James M. Chandler Editor, Mammoth Trumpet Of course these skeletons have been e-mail: [email protected] studied before, but the focus of most Christel Cooper Office Manager e-mail: [email protected] previous work has been on the crania, C & C Wordsmiths Layout and Design or skulls. Independent studies have con- Tops Printing, Inc. Printing and mailing cluded that the skulls of these early in- Web site: www.topsprinting.com dividuals differ significantly from those World Wide Web site http://centerfirstamericans.com of modern Native American populations. The Center for the Study of the First Americans is a non-profit organization. Subscrip- One aspect of those differences has tion to the Mammoth Trumpet is by membership in the Center. especially important implications for un- derstanding the area of origin of the first Mammoth Trumpet, Statement of Our Policy Americans and the time of their arrival in Many years may pass between the time an important discovery is made and the acceptance of research results by the scientific community. To facilitate communication among all parties interested in staying this hemisphere. abreast of breaking news in First Americans studies, the Mammoth Trumpet, a science news magazine, provides a forum for reporting and discussing new and potentially controversial information important to Cranial differences in early understanding the peopling of the Americas. We encourage submission of articles to the Managing Editor and letters to the Editor. Views published in the Mammoth Trumpet are the views of contributors, and do Americans not reflect the views of the editor or Center personnel. The skulls of early-Holocene Americans –Michael R. Waters, Director don’t exhibit the characteristics of the July n 2013 3 became the ancestors of early-Holocene North Americans. Accounting for cranial differences Later, these scholars theorize, a second migration of Asians Auerbach proposes three alternative hypotheses to resolve who had lived in the northern latitudes long enough to develop the conundrum of early people with skulls distinctively dif- those adaptations came into America, possibly in larger num- ferent from those of later people. Perhaps the early-Holocene bers, and replaced the descendants of those earlier people. The skeletons represent groups that separated early from a source members of this latter wave of migration became the ancestors population in Asia or Beringia that already had developed of the later-Holocene North Americans. the basic genetic variations that typify all North American An alternative explana- populations—ancient and modern. tion for the differences in Subsequent genetic drift operating the skulls of early- versus on the small groups migrating across later-Holocene Americans the vast geography of North America is that those differences produced the differences exhibited by are the result of a single the early- and later-Holocene crania. migration of people from Alternatively, if the changes in the Asia, which broke up into crania of later-Holocene skeletons in separate populations that fact reflect adaptations to a cold envi- then evolved different Beringian standstill cranial characteristics A Cold-climate morphologies Auerbach’s alternative hypotheses for through gene flow and ge- acquired origins and temporal patterns of mor- netic drift. Gene flow is the Spread from phological variation in North America. In addition or subtraction of Late-Pleistocene Beringia, followed A, the initial migration of the ancestral ancestral genetic variants in a popu- by population population from Asia acquires morpholo- population differentiation lation due to the move- gies associated with cold climate during ment of genes or people high-latitude isolation (the “Beringian from one group to another; standstill”), followed by migration, groups isolated from gene dispersion, and differentiation among de- flow might develop differ- scendant populations into the Americas. ences that set them apart Beringian standstill In B, the initial migration of ancestral New source population from other groups. Ge- B populations from Asia results in more netic drift refers gener- than one colonizing group; earlier groups Initial colonization, ally to the random change Late-Pleistocene replaced by populations do not develop cold-climate morpholo- in the range of genetic ancestral with cold-climate gies and are eventually replaced or bred variants in a population population morphologies out by later groups possessing cold- over time; this has greater climate morphologies. In C, ancestral effects in smaller popu- H groups in Asia already possess a suite lations.