Monday, August 18, 2014

Did Clovis Culture Originate in Central or South America?

Of the scores of North American archaeological sites claimed to provide evidence of human hunting of now-extinct Pleistocene mammals, only about a dozen have compelling evidence of such predation. In all instances, the animals involved were mammoth and mastodon (1). In PNAS, Sanchez et al. (2) contend that a third genus of proboscidean (elephants and their near relatives), the gomphothere Cuvieronius, should be added to the small list of large mammals pursued by Clovis hunters. It is an intriguing claim; skeptics, however, might require more proof than is currently available.

No comments: