Expert: John Shea - 2/23/2005

Question
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Followup To
Question -
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Followup To
Question -
Do you think, in spite of no evidence, that it is conceivable that hominids had crossed into what is now North America...?
Answer -
Hi Michael
I think it is improbable.  Cold seems to have been a limiting factor in this hominin's ability to colonize new habitats.
The northernmost frontier of Homo erectus's known geographic range in Asia is northern China (presumably during a relatively warm period). This is still pretty far from the southernmost extent of the Bering Sea land bridge (that would have been exposed in COLD periods).
The bottom line for me, though, is that there is neither fossil nor archaeological evidence for such a migration.
If Homo erectus populations made it to the New World, they would, one assumes, have littered the place (and especially caves) with stone tools in much the same way they did all over Africa, Europe and Asia.
Despite decades of people looking around North and South America for signs of human occupation older than 15,000 years, there are neither human fossils nor stone artifacts that are clearly recognizeable as such.
There is a lot of speculation about this in the "fringe" archaeology literature, but the consensus is that Homo erectus did not make it to the New World.
I hope this answers your question.
Cheers,
John Shea


Dr. Shea...If I may, I would like to follow-up on your response...

  While it is EXTREMELY doubtful, that old Homo erectus, or ' ergaster' made it to North America...

         As far as
the so-called ' ice-free-corridor'...Didn't this vary quite a bit... ? For example, the phase of Steppes', as far north as The McKenzie Region...The Taiga finds are
pertinent, and  interesting to me...

         Europe was not so warm, when H. Erectus was there, correct...?

         The recent finds of The Flores peopl in SE Asia have amazed so many...

         What if the population of these hominids--hypothetically--was very sparse...the evidence would, indeed be difficult to find/uncover...

         The earth changes...volcanic, earthquake activity...Might these, and other forces make locating 'bones', 'tools', and other possible evidence, extremely difficult...?

         I realize some in the Archaeological community are having their trouble, trying to connect The Solutrean Culture / Pre-Clovis to ...The Clovis Culture...[ of course, this was not really assumed possible, until the last decade, or two, right...?]
The idea, that there was a so-called ' Trans-Atlantic Bridge }--of sorts...during the Pleistocene seems increasingly feasible by many...in the 'mainstream'...

         Lastly...Considering the ' Out-Of-Africa 'evidence, for all humans, and pre-Homo sapiens...

         While very unlikely--of course...zero evidence, etc...---
         Is it at all conceivable, that hominids had evolved in the so-called ' New World "...only to have been wiped-out...?...theoretically...

Thank you for considering this response...

         respectfully...

         Mike Cloncs
Answer -
Hi Mike
The "Ice Free Corridor"between the Laurentian and Cordilleran Ice Sheets would only be relevant if Homo erectus made it to Beringia.  No evidence for that yet.
Homo erectus was in Europe mainly during interglacials and the transitions from interglacials to glacials.  Most of the fauna associated with Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis are warm-temperate species.
The first populations in the New World were undoubtedly sparse, but even so, one ought to expect to find signs of their presence at certain landscape features, lake edges, caves, that have been magnets for human settlement throughout the Pleistocene in the Old World. New World archaeologists have scoured such localities for decades and thus far recovered not a single pre-modern human fossil nor any stone tool, nor any cut-marked bone referable to human activity.  This has not been a casual search, literally hundreds of scientists have looked for this evidence.  If it were the case that early hominins were here but sparse, one would expect that over the years the evidence found while searching for them would get better and better. Instead, the evidence remains as weak as it was a hundred years ago.  The most parsimonious reading of the evidence is that there were no pre-modern humans here.
Volcanos, earthquakes, etc:  Yes, these reduce the geological record, but there are thousands of New World geological deposits of the appropriate age (20,000-500,000 years ago) in which bones of nonhuman species are preserved.  None of these sites, as noted, have any trace of human presence or activity.
The Clovis-Solutrean connection was actually postulated back in the 1930s, but pretty much discarded once radiocarbon dating showed these cultures were thousands of years apart.  The recent revival of this hypothesis by Bradley and Stanford has not been well received. See L. Straus, 2000 Solutrean Settlement of North America: A Review of Reality. American Antiquity 65 (1): 219-226.
Human origins in the New World. There is a "fringe" proponent of this hypothesis.  Can't remember their name, but the book might be titled "American Genesis".  Nobody with serious creditials in paleoanthropology takes this theory seriously.  All human precursor fossils (H. ergaster, H.erectus, H. heidelbergensis, etc.) are found in Africa or adjacent parts of Europe and Asia.
I hope this answer helps.
Sincerely.
John Shea

Thank you...No need to respond to this last follow-up of the follow-up...

I mistakenly wrote 'Taiga' for ' Saiga...my apologies...

When I wrote of any Solutrean Connection, I was thinking of those, whom you cited, but also of another team, which is exploring a site in Texas==The Gault Site...

I guess the " Multi=Region Hypothesis " has been totally buried by
" The Out Of Africa " research...

I recall, a Leakey finding supposedly worked stones, out West...and he indicated these were similar to lithics, they had found in Africa...

         Respectfully...Mike Cloncs

Answer
Hi Mike
Multi-Regional Continuity.  This model still has vigorous proponents.  The crux of the argument hinges on whether we can detect in skeletal remains clear evidence for gene flow (successful interbreeding) between morphologically-distinct hominin taxa, e.g., Neandertals and Homo sapiens.  There is some plausible evidence for this in Europe.  Look up recent papers by Milford Wolpoff, if interested.
Gault Site: Don't know enough about this to comment authoritatively, but I am deeply skeptical about the Solutrean-Clovis connection.
When he was very old and very ill, Louis Leakey visited California.  While there, some archaeologists showed him a collection of supposed stone tools from Calico Hills.  The obects he was shown bore some passing similarity to simple tools from Old World paleolithic sites, and he said so.  A variety of geophysical methods dated the site to around 100,000 BP.
Since that time, it has become clear to the minds of most who have examined them that these objects are rocks fractured by natural processes. Leakey was not shown the much larger number of stone objects from this site that are clearly natural in origin.  I saw a similarly selected collection of these things myself while I was in graduate school, and I am deeply skeptical of the claim that they are artifacts.
Sincerely
John Shea