SETTING THE ENVIRONMENTAL STAGE:
THE PLEISTOCENE SCENE
(MODULE 04)
Read: Fagan (2000:69-77).
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A.To better understand the dynamics involved in the initial colonization of the New World and subsequent early
cultural developments, we must consider a number of factors:
1. The cultural staging area in Asia,
2. The temporal considerations for dealing with ecological and cultural considerations,
3. The ecological settings of Northeast Asia, and
4. The ecological settings of the New World.
B. Cultural staging area in Asia:
1. What could have been the people like who originally might have come over?
a. Such a question involves consideration of when we hypothesize the first people came.
b. Northeast Asia can be perceived as a sort of "cultural filter" that "tests" potential migrants:
c. Through much of Pleistocene times northeast Asia was COLD.
d. Thus, merely to make it to such a gateway to the New World would have required cultural
adaptations to cold climates.
2. The earliest human colonizers of cold areas were Homo erectus.
a. Thus, conceivably Homo erectus living in China at least some 300,000 years ago could have
made it to the gateway.
b. If they made it, what kinds of evidence would we expect?
(1) Physical evidence in the form of fragments of their bones.
(2) Technological evidence in the form of their tools, such as chopper bifaces.
3. We know that peoples following Homo erectus clearly had the technology and did people northeast Asia,
as indicated by the following archaeologically documented areas:
a. Soviet archaeologists working in East Asia and the Soviet Maritimes
b. Chinese archaeologists
c. Japanese archaeologists
d. Korean archaeologists
4. The "Gateway" also—at least today—denies passage to those who have no boats (unless they are members of
the "Polar Bear Club" with international transit visas!).
5. What about the possibilities of ancient peoples having crossed the waters of the Bering Straits?
6. What evidence do we have of ancient successful attempts to cross large bodies of water (that were never
emergent during periods of global ice advances)?
a. Boats themselves have never been found
(1) Australia was populated by 40,000 years ago (an oceanic depth existed even between
Sunda and Sahel).
(2) The Philippines were populated 45 to 50,000 years ago.
(3) Okinawa was settled by ca. 32,000 years ago
b. Thus, some kind of "sailing" must have been done in those areas.
c. Thus also, transport technology was at least possible for early inhabitants of East Asia during
ancient times.
C. Ecological settings of Northeast Asia during the Pleistocene:
1. Today Northeast Asia is viewed as the "Icebox of the World" and produces some of the coldest temperatures in the world.
a. Yakutia and what happens to rubber tires in the winter
b. "Siberia" of the old clichés
2. Yet, today it is still seasonal and much of it is not an arctic desert, but an area of variety and diversity:
a. Deciduous Forests:
(1) Soviet Maritimes
(2) Near North Korea and Japan
(3) Extensive areas of deciduous forest like the Eastern Woodlands of the United States
b. The Taiga:
(1) Boreal coniferous forests found in much of northern Asia and extending west to Scandinavia
(2) Similar boreal forest can be found relatively nearby in Canada
c. Tundra/Steppe Tundra:
(1) Found north of the boreal forests
(2) Also found in Canada, especially around Churchill near Hudson Bay
d. Arctic Desert:
(1) Found in higher elevations and above the Arctic Circle
(2) This most likely conforms to most general stereotypes of "Siberia."
3. Thus, seasonal variations still mean that winters can be harsh, but summers quite warm and nice
(Minnesotans should have no trouble with this idea!).
4. Such conditions can be seen to improve or deteriorate when we add considerations of past climatic change.
a. Pleistocene (ca. 3.3 million to 10,000 years ago) should not be seen as a static time of cold—an
"Ice Age"—but:
(1) A time of glacial advance and retreat—
(2) Times colder than today interspersed with some periods warmer than today.
b. Thus, we should recognize that the ecological and geographical conditions of the Pleistocene
were also dynamic.
c. Thus, both the "props" as well as the "characters" change (and their "scripts" as well) as our
"drama" of colonization unfolds.
(1) (Reiterate horizontal and longitudinal ramifications of warming and cooling trends)
(2) (Also reiterate issues of global "precipitation budget" and how this affects the emergence
and subsidence of land bridges.)
D. During major glacial advances of the Pleistocene one land bridge in particular was exposed above the water—
today referred to as Beringia.
1. When during the major glaciations of the Pleistocene could the Beringia "Gateway" have been open?
a. 60-50,000 years ago (Early Wisconsin advance)
b. 44-41,000 years ago (First Mid-Wisconsin advance)
c. 32-29,000 years ago (Second Mid-Wisconsin advance)
d. 23-13,000 years ago (Late Wisconsin advance)
e. 11-10,000 years ago (Valderan advance)
f. 8-7,000 years ago (Cochrane advance)
2. "Catch 22"—entry was possibly by foot from Asia, but ahead in North America lay the vast Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets.
a. These ice sheets were intermittently fused and opened again at the "Ice-Free Corridor."
b. Thus, population movement routes could have followed:
(1) The Ice-Free Corridor (probably the main population conduit into the heart of
North America); or,
(2) The Pacific Coast.
E. Given the above considerations of ecology and geophysics, what do we know archaeologically about the earliest people
of the New World—both North and South America?
1. Ancestry of the American Indian was considered recent until the 1920s and 1930s.
2. In the 1920s-1930s, archaeological evidence was found associating people with extinct Pleistocene fauna indicating:
a. Dates of ca. 12,000
b. That such animals were being hunted
3. Current appraisals:
a. By 11,000 years ago, during the retreat of the ice sheets, we consider the various hunting-and-
gathering traditions to have already been flourishing and developed.
(1) Thus, one assumes that a fully developed society has gotten that way based upon a
long developmental sequence.
(2) Thus, given that, we should expect to find much earlier dates.
(3) How far back?
4. The following somewhat controversial sites are pertinent to this discussion:
a. Lagoa Santa site, Brazil
b. Soumidouro Cave site, Brazil
c. Texas Street site, California
d. Calico Hills site, California (discuss controversy here!)
e. San Diego site, California
f. Santa Rosa Island site, California
g. Taber site, Alberta
h. Meadowcroft Rock Shelter site, Pennsylvania
i. Tlapacoya site, Mexico
j. Valsequillo site, Puebla
k. El Bosque site, Nicaragua
l. Pikimachay site, Peru (we will discuss this one more later)
m. Old Crow Flats site, Northwest Territories, Canada
5. Lagoa Santa:
a. Fragment of part of a cranium—the "Lagoa Santa Calotte"
b. Of questionable stratigraphic origin
c. Homo erectus-like beetle brow with a low vault
d. Bryan believes it was real and probably not "salted" from an original Old World source
e. If the specimen is of Homo erectus:
(1) May be 1.5 million to 300,000 years old
(2) Thus, it may be pre-Pleistocene!
f. Further investigation is needed because the Lagoa Santa callote has disappeared!
6. Soumidouro Cave:
a. Another nearby site in Brazil
b. Produced a fossilized skull
c. Found ca. 1938
d. Not generally accepted as valid yet
7. Old Crow Flats:
a. Classic case of problems with primary versus secondary archaeological context
b. Area is allubial; thus objects in the sediments are prone to redeposition
c. Worked-bone artifacts are apparently true artifacts—not ecofacts
8. Calico Hills:
a. In an ancient alluvial delta deposit in California
b. "Artifacts" are simple and some suggest that they are not truly artifacts, but ecofacts produced
through natural bumping and abrading of stones
9. Other sites in periglacial areas have problems basically because they are subject to geophysical disturbance:
a. Movements of glacial ice and moraine formation
b. Outwashes of glaciers
c. Wind erosion and loess soil deposition
d. Examples of periglacial sites would be:
(1) Taber, Alberta
(2) Meadowcroft Rock Shelter
(3) Also sites in Minnesota (i.e. the Itasca Bison Kill site)
F. Dating of artifactual materials may be inaccurate because:
a. Old carbon from coal or limestone may skew Carbon-14 dates (e.g., as some have suggested
for Meadowcroft)
b. Artifacts may have been intruded into early datable deposits, e.g.,:
(1) Tepexpan, Mexico
(2) Old Crow Flats, where artifacts are redeposited through alluvial action
G. Given the above warnings (caveats) it is probable that the antiquity of people in the New World stretches back
considerably further than the previously held 12,000 B.P. date because we know that people had already reached
and settled in as far south as Tierra del Fuego by at least that time (10,500 B.P. or 9000 B.C.)
H. What was life in the Americas like for those early pioneers?
1. Environment and vegetation varied over the Americas as today, but the pattern was different.
a. Glacial moraines existed as far south as the mountains of Costa Rica (an idea that still amazes me!).
b. Mountains and uplands of South America had their own glacial sheets.
c. South America was generally drier than today, with much of Amazonia taken over by savanna and
some woodland with only pockets of the ancestors of the high tropical forests of today.
d. Exposed continental shelves extended land in:
(1) Florida
(2) Yucatan
(3) Nicaragua
(4) The Bahamas
(5) Along northeast South America
(6) Perhaps along the eastern seaboard of southern South America (the area of the
Falklands/Malvinas Islands)
2. People hunted Pleistocene animals associated with such habitats:
a. Mammoth
(1) In the American West and in South America
b. Glyptodont
(1) Giant armadillo
(2) South America
c. Cameloids
(1) Hunted in North America
d. Bison
(1) Bison antiquus hunted in the North American West
e. Horse
(1) Hunted in both North and South America
f. Giant Sloth
(1) Hunted in South America
g. Rhea
(1) Giant bird like an ostrich
(2) Hunted in South America
3. Probably ancient inhabitants made use of some wild plants as well, but little evidence of them has persisted from
such early times.
4. Ancient colonists probably had an interest in exploiting the resources of coastal areas and around the mouths
of rivers, but these now are under around 300 feet of sea water.
5. By the end of the Pleistocene ancient Americans had developed chipped-stone technologies of graceful
sophistication for use in:
a. Hunting
b. Butchering
c. Carving meat, bones, wood, etc.
6. Art objects are rare but appear:
a. ca. 22,000 B.P
(1) Mexico
(2) Engraved bone carving of a mastadon and a large cat
b. ca. 12,000 B.P.
(1) Bone of Tequixquiac
(2) Mexico
(3) Carved cameloid vertebra
7. At this point at least, it appears that settled village life must await the final end of the Pleistocene when:
a. Environmental conditions more approximate to present "normals" appeared
b. ca. 3-2000 B.C.
c. People shifted their subsistence strategies more toward the plant world
8. One of the earliest settled communities may be Monte Verde in Chile
a. Monte Verde
(1) Community of wood and mastodon bone structures
(2) ca. 12-14,000 B.P.
I. If Monte Verde is not mixed and associations are valid:
1. Life in southern South America was established and settled in organized communities at a date when
(only a few years ago) we were told that the first migrants were just beginning to cross the plains of Beringia!
J. Thus, impressions are always changing and what I have told you here will eventually be seen as "old hat" and conservative—
Let's hope so!
K.Terms related to discussion of SETTING THE ENVIRONMENTAL STAGE: THE PLEISTOCENE SCENE:
1. The "cultural staging area in Asia"
2. "Cultural filter"
3. Ecological settings of Northeast Asia and the Americas during the Pleistocene:
4. When during the major glaciations of the Pleistocene could the Beringia "Gateway" have been open?
5. Beringia: what is it? where? how extensive?
6. The "Ice-Free Corridor"
7. Archaeological sites in periglacial areas
8. Sites of early humans in the New World:
9. Lagoa Santa site, Brazil
10. The "Lagoa Santa Calotte"
11. Soumidouro Cave site, Brazil
12. Texas Street site, California
13. Calico Hills site, California
14. Controversies associated with Calico Hills site?
15. San Diego site, California
16. Santa Rosa Island site, California
17. Taber site, Alberta
18. Meadowcroft Rock Shelter site, Pennsylvania
19. Tlapacoya site, Mexico
20. The "Bone of Tequixquiac"
21. Valsequillo site, Puebla
22. El Bosque site, Nicaragua
23. Pikimachay site, Peru (we will discuss this one more later)
24. Old Crow Flats site, Northwest Territories
25. Pleistocene fauna hunted
26. Monte Verde site: nature of it and implications?
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