Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture

by Dennis J. Stanford, Bruce A. Bradley, Michael Collins (Foreword)

Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. Distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture established the presence of these early New World people. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional—and often subjective—approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.

Genres: History, Archaeology, Nonfiction, Science, Anthropology, Prehistory, Ancient History

319 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2012

Reviews

[Iset · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s worth stating from the get go that the idea that the Solutreans (from south-west France) became the Clovis culture (in North America) is not a crackpot idea. We aren’t talking conspiracy theories or ancient aliens here. It is a hypothesis that is not widely accepted by the archaeological community, but it’s one that is put forward using genuine scientific method and enquiry. Bradley and Stanford present thorough and objective research to support the proposition, including Clovis settlement patterns, comparison of tool knapping techniques, and climate and geography data that definitely give them a case. And indeed, I agree with them on certain points – the idea that the Clovis people, c. 13,000 BCE, were the first Americans is a theory that has been on the out for well over a decade now, with more and more discoveries of sites across the Americas that date to much earlier than this, and genetics markers that attest to a greater antiquity of the people. But I’m not convinced by the Solutrean hypothesis. The evidence at this stage seems too circumstantial, and an alternative hypothesis, which is replacing Clovis First, is gaining ground in peer review through both archaeological and genetic evidence: the first wave of colonisation may have taken place from Asia, but 40,000 to 30,000 BCE, and skirting the North Pacific coastline rather than traversing the ice-free corridor. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Bradley and Stanford’s arguments have not won me over, I credit the book for being well-written and well-researched. It may be a little too technical for beginners though, so of more interest to fellow archaeologists rather than the general reader.

7 out of 10

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best written archaeology book I have encountered. Congratulations to the authors for clarity, good writing and lack of jargon - a standard often not met. Stanford and Bradley argue convincingly in my opinion for a Solutrean (northern Spain, southern France) origin for the Clovis culture of North America. Their argument is based on similarities of a very complex lithic technology, the likelihood that these people exploited the ice age sea in a manner similar to the Inuit, that they most likely had boats and that the voyage from Spain to the Cheasepeake Bay area where the largest concentration of pre-Clovis sites are could have been made at that time. The fact the Paleolithic coastline is now under water and that no human remains have been found of either Clovis or Solutrean people made it hard to close the argument. The fact that that no human remains have been found is actually another argument for the similarity of the cultures. These people, unlike other paleolithic people, disposed of their dead in a manner which did not leave any remains. Intriguing.

[Shawn Deal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great hypothesis. But one must understand that that is all it is. The book makes a great argument, but admits it will never be able to provide enough evidence to prove its case. So this is the beginning of a good talking point. With that said what this book really lacks is a better presentation. It sounds like someone's thesis. For a thesis I would have given it an A for mass consumption a C.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

It made a good point for pre-clovis paleo-indians in eastern North America, a theory that I have supported for years. Someday this will be accepted as rational thought.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We recognize that the idea that Clovis may have had a European ancestor is not new, but in view of recent advances we disallow the conclusion that it has been adequately tested."

If that quote gets your blood racing then this richly-footnoted and carefully-scholarly book is just what you are looking for!

The "Solutrean hypothesis", simply stated, holds that eastern North America was first peopled during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) by hunters originating from present-day northern Spain and south-western France. This is in opposition to the conventional hypothesis that all North American peoples originate from Asia via the land bridge that existed between Asia and North America during glaciation (the now-submerged landmass known as Beringia).

Since the vast majority of "Clovis" artifacts consist of stone implements, the authors spend a great deal of time discussing the fine details of their characteristics. The authors themselves have dedicated a good portion of their lives to developing their own "flintknapping" skills. (Who knew that working stone was hard? Actually this is obvious if you really consider the practical matter of turning an obdurate stone into a functional weapon, to say nothing of the subsequent issues of securing it to a spear or arrow shaft.) A major point about Clovis "technology" is that it is damn hard to do, and as such, represents a highly developed technology that must have had a long history of developmental antecedents. Painstakingly developing a very technical argument, the authors show fairly convincingly (impossible to critique without acquiring very specific and highly technical expertise) that stone tools found in Solutrean sites dating from around the LGM are technologically similar to Clovis and constitute a more plausible antecedent than the "microblade" technologies found in Beringia.

Although evidence of Solutrean exploitation of marine resources is relatively scant, what must be taken into consideration is the fact that the LGM coastlines were tens of kilometers out from present-day coastlines. Studies of comparable hunter-gatherer populations show that marine foodstuffs are very rarely transported more than a kilometer inland. Since we do find a very small percentage of marine organisms in the studied Solutrean sites, it is reasonable to conclude that other sites, now lost under the ocean, would show a great deal more exploitation of the sea. Moreover, the contents and distribution of midden remains from the Solutrean sites support the hypothesis that they were seasonal hunting outposts. Winter and spring would have been for hunting seals on the ice, walrus, etc; while summer and fall would have been good times for hunting deer in the highlands.

The oldest "boat" in the archaeological record dates from just 10,000 years ago (10kya). However we must similarly remember that earlier boat remains would now be irretrievably lost far out on the continental shelves. There is plenty of indirect evidence that watercraft were used by humans even before the LGM: the peopling of Australia, Polynesia, and Japan, is one strong indicator of this. It is also the case that certain stone points can be traced by trace-isotope analysis to far-distant origin sites. In such cases the indirect evidence of waterborne travel arises from the relative impossibility of lugging overland, on foot, a heavy bag of rocks.

Observations of Inuit peoples recorded in modern times well attest to the possibility of long-distance travel and survival on Arctic ice. Given the larger landmasses of the LGM, the probable game-seeking behaviors of ancient hunters, and their probable mastery of all the necessary technologies, it is not too hard to imagine that a summer hunting expedition would find it convenient to over-winter on land in a place like Labrador or what is now the Georges Banks.

I was afraid this book would be some kind of pseudo-scientific rant against the "archaelogical establishment," even as I looked forward to the exposition of a radical theory. It is certainly not that: what I quoted above is about as strong as it gets. The rest is extremely methodical development of the evidentiary supports for the Solutrean hypothesis. And I mean, extremely methodical. There was about twenty to forty pages too many of descriptions of stone tools, and their techniques of manufacture, for me. Imagination must come from the reader. But what great scope for imagination! For me, transcending all of the technical detail was a sense of high adventure that comes from imagining our distant ancestors making their way, and living their lives, in the almost unimaginably different world of the last ice age.

[Stefan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastically insightful, but full of specialized research analyses on tool making; something that bolsters its case but can bore the lay reader.

[Vivek KuRa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new and interesting hypothesis with scattered evidence. But the book is not for a casual reader like me. It is written like a thesis and it is very academic and dry. The whole book is about stone tool designs and flute feature comparison.I found it very boring even though the hypothesis is new and interesting.

[Jacques · Rating 4 out of 5]

But of a dry read, with lots of scientific evidence, so I skipped most of that and found many interesting passages. Such a destructive process, glaciation and retreat, with oceans falling then rising, no wonder most the easy archeology is from land left over after all the world’s coastlines were submerged.

[Nate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of good bits in the book, but overall it's pretty dry--reads a lot like a dumbed down academic paper. Fascinating topic though.

They explain a lot about flint knapping, which was interesting. I never realized it was potentially so sophisticated, even though I studied archaeology.

[Douglas Mears · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely detailed artifacts and well organized presentation of evidence will ruffle a lot of feathers.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating ideas, but very technical.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a good archaeology book but I couldn't finish this one.

[Richard Townsend]

Magical thinking at it's most dangerous and divisive

[Last Ranger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Iberian Connection:

It wasn't long after the discovery of the "New World" that men of science began wondering about the regions indigenous people. Had they always been here or had they migrated from other lands to settle in North America? The obvious choice was that family groups of Ice Age hunter-gatherers had walked over a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska about 13,000 years ago. From there our intrepid "Paleo-Indians" had followed a southerly route till they came to the fertile plains and forests of a new land just south of the ice-sheet. Game animals were abundant and there was lots of room for our travelers spread out and prosper. And spread out they did, from coast to coast and southward too, to yet another continent. While doing all this prospering, they took time out to invent the Clovis Point and to hunt the Ice Age Mega-Fauna to extinction. The rest, they say, is history. Or is it? For the most part, this scenario was accepted as "Gospel" by the Archeological community but early on, almost from the beginning, dissenting voices were heard. Throughout North and South America some Paleolithic sites were being dated as older than the 13,000 YBP mark, some as far back as 20,000 to 30,000 YBP. There may be more to this story after all. In "Across Atlantic Ice" authors Dennis J Stanford and Bruce A Bradley fill you in on a different hypothesis on how and when the first Americans may have gotten here. Is it possible that Ice Age Mariners had migrated west, along the edge of the ice floe, from somewhere in Europe, more specifically, the Iberian Peninsula? To reach this conclusion the authors have spent years studying and analyzing lithic and bone artifacts from sites in North America, from Alaska to Florida, searching for a time line tracing the development of the Clovis Culture. Traditionally Clovis was thought to have its roots in Siberia but was not fully developed until it's Ice Age inventors had crossed the Beringia Land Bridge and reached the southern plains of North America. Stanford and Bradley's research has led them to believe the opposite; Clovis was first developed along the "eastern" seaboard of Paleo-America and may have had its roots in and around the the Pyrenees Mountains of Southern France and Northern Spain. To explain their paradigm changing idea the authors start with a kind of Primer for making and analyzing stone tools that I found to be rather technical and kind of a tough read. But this Primer came in handy when it was time to compare the Clovis Culture, in the U.S., to the Solutrean Culture in Iberia. The second half of the book covers the authors's hypothesis and their interpretation of the data available. On the whole this is a well written and informative book that gave me plenty of "food for thought". Looks to me like we have three possibilities here: One: ice Age Mariners followed Atlantic currents along the sea-ice edge to colonize North America far earlier than previously suspected. Two: a similar idea proposes that other Paleolithic Mariners from South East Asia/Siberia followed the ice front of the North Pacific to eventually settle on the western seaboard of the Americas, well before 13,000 YBP. Three: then there's our heroic Mammoth Hunters crossing the Beringia Land Bridge and ending up in an "American Serengeti". To me a combination of the three makes sense, with far ranging travelers reaching North America in wave after wave, all from different sources. (*) This book was perfect for me and if you're at all interested in Natural History and how humans first came to North America then it may be a good fit for you too. I highly recommend it. I had no technical or formatting problems with this Kindle edition.

(*) For more on this interesting subject see Tom Koppel's "Lost World" and "The First Americans" by J.M. Adovasio.

Last Ranger

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book puts forth the hypothesis that the origins of the Clovis culture in the America's originated from the Solutrean culture in France and Spain. I found the parts of the book discussing lithic technology fairly easy to read due to my previous knowledge in this area, however, there are other parts of the book that are outside my knowledge and I found those parts a little more difficult.
Overall though it is well written and I found it enjoyable to read as its a subject that interests me. If you are looking for a light read, however, this probably is not it.

As for the hypothesis, well they make a good argument. They present facts supporting their position as well as facts disputing the "set in stone" (pun) belief that the peopling of the Americas occurred through the Bering land bridge. It's a subject that people take personally, and therefore they will perceive facts and data in such a way to support their personal belief. The facts and data in this book support their claim. I wouldn't have expected anything different. After all, if you cannot create a study that gives you the results that you want from a set data then you are not using the data correctly. That may sound cynical, but the "sciences" have not given me a reason to accept what they put forth at face value. I can't think of a better example than global warming.

So, are the antecedents of the Clovis from the Solutrean culture? It's plausible.

[Beth Lapin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive look at a new idea that the first peoples to arrive in America were early Europeans (Solutrean)who came along the edge of the glacial ice. Full of technical examples related to flintknapping and blades, the book made excellent points (ha,ha).

As a mildly interested reader, I confess to skimming much of the technical descriptions, although I was awed by modern methods and techniques available for analysis. I was most intrigued by the fact that the authors (and others) learned to knap to understand the potential skills, substrate, and methods of early humans.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely not going to solve the question of who the first inhabitants of the Americas were, but (as the authors stated) will serve its purpose as an excellent basis for forming research questions in North American archaeology.

Some very interesting research is presented here, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the peopling of the Americas, the Clovis culture, or archaeology in general.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an alternate theory on the settlement of North America. The research sounds solid with some interesting points made. Unfortunately, the book was not what I was expecting, which is why the low rating. I was hoping for some interesting reading, but it was too technical for what I was looking for. Someone who does have some basic background in archeology would get more out of it.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the book was very well written. It presents a compelling argument; however, I remain skeptical of its lack of evidentiary support. That said, I applaud the authors for this groundbreaking hypothesis and for encouraging new research along the now drowned continental shelf. I look forward to the continued research and discussions regarding pre-Clovis trans-Atlantic migrations.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting skim (print), but far too dense for the layperson. I really wish the book had some color plates as the most interesting photos to me were unlabeled and on the back cover. It will be interesting to see if this theory stands up to the test of time. It seems reasonable, but I know so little about this field, it is hard to assess. Print book.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating theory about the origins of the peoples of America. As the author acknowledges, more work is needed, but some enticing indications exist that the Americas have always been something of a melting pot and gathering place for people from various places around the world.

[Kelli George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this book at the library and just had to read it. It is very well written and extremely interesting and I could scarcely put it down. It goes far to debunk the antiquated theory that the Native Americans came to America across the Bering Strait.

[Xarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thought-provoking. I found it very interesting the similarities between the Clovis and Solutrean cultures. I do agree that more research should be done to see if there is a connection, though I believe this could be very difficult since archaeological sites could now be under water.

[David Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've given this book a 5 because it is thought provoking and thoroughly researched. This book is way over my head and yet I persisted because I found their argument for an alternate perspective on the migration and immigration of the America Paleo-Indians so interesting.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely an educational read on American origins archaeology! At times it was very technical but overall a great read.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

lol

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic study of the Solutrean Theory. You can skip all the very technical parts about flintknapping if you want and still get a very clear understyanding of the theory.

[Rodney Henson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solutrean hypothesis

[Patricia Guyton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am stretching boundaries of this group perhaps, to include anthropology, archaeology. My hashtag would include all these genres as it's often impossible to separate them from one another.