I'm sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree with the thesis of this article. Clovis first has more than a few holes in it at this point. This is generally accepted. It's not hinging on a few singular 22k BCE finds, or even South American finds. Nenana, Bluefish, Triquet, Meadowcroft, Saltville, Cactus Hill, Topper, Page Ladson, Buttermilk Creek, Paisley and that's just North America pre-Clovis sites. Monte Verde in Chile is well established, and it's very evocative that the very oldest finds are down the coast from the first megalithic American sites in Caral ~4000BCE. Almost certainly not related - not with 10k y separation - but, as I said, evocative.
Lord knows I have my problems[1] with today's reactionaries, but at the same time, I also have a gut revulsion at any knee-jerk rejection of early Homo distribution. I'm not saying this piece is guilty of that specifically, but it's a stated bias at conferences: we'd rather find recent Homo spreading recently. My counterargument: Nazis aren't going to give a strained s#!t when America or Asia was peopled, they're going to latch on to whatever they want to. More crucially, they'll use your bad judgement to undermine all of science and the fucking Enlightenment while they're at it. Don't let their nonsense taint your judgement, as noble as you might think it is.
[1] Which I am in no way drawing false equivalence with. One of these parties is guilty of bad judgement applying aesthetics to archaeology, and the other . . well, we come from all sides here, so enough said.
Lord knows I have my problems[1] with today's reactionaries, but at the same time, I also have a gut revulsion at any knee-jerk rejection of early Homo distribution. I'm not saying this piece is guilty of that specifically, but it's a stated bias at conferences: we'd rather find recent Homo spreading recently. My counterargument: Nazis aren't going to give a strained s#!t when America or Asia was peopled, they're going to latch on to whatever they want to. More crucially, they'll use your bad judgement to undermine all of science and the fucking Enlightenment while they're at it. Don't let their nonsense taint your judgement, as noble as you might think it is.
[1] Which I am in no way drawing false equivalence with. One of these parties is guilty of bad judgement applying aesthetics to archaeology, and the other . . well, we come from all sides here, so enough said.