American Archaeology is the magazine of the Archaeological Conservancy. Its web page is here The current issue contains some articles that I thought could be of interest to some readers of this site, so I decided to present a summarization of the information therein. The content of the web site's magazine archives may or may not be complete, but the "current issue" content is neither complete nor current, so I cannot link to the articles that I will be summarizing,
That said, let's hop the orange coprolite and get going.
More "Pre-Clovis" findings in Oregon.
Briefly, the Clovis culture is an ancient prehistoric culture of associated early human settlers of the Americas (the Clovis people) named after a site near Clovis, New Mexico. More can be found here. The finding of several Clovis sites of serious antiquity led to many adopting what became known as the Clovis First hypothesis (often quite dogmatically), which asserted that these were the first humans to arrive at and begin to settle the Americas.
Paisley Caves produce non-Clovis points
The Clovis First position has been challenged for some time now, and many would say actually disproved based on other findings that appear to involve artifacts of a non-Clovis type that appear to come from periods prior to the Clovis era. The Paisley Caves, in Oregon, are one such site. There they have found coprolites (fossilized feces) that DNA tests have established to be of human origin which were dated as being 14,300 years old by radio-carbon dating associated materials..
The latest findings at the Paisley Caves are some Western Stemmed Points, a type of projectile point that is of a clearly different design, style and technology than the distinctive Clovis Points which are a distinguishing characteristic of Clovis sites. The oldest of these points was found in a cave stratum containing human coprolites that were dated as 13,200 years old.The work was done by a team led by Dennis Jenkins of University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History and published in Science
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DeSoto Data
Florida Archaeologists announced that they had found the lost mission of Potano, pinpointing the midpoint of the explorer's 1539 romp through Florida. In the process they have found the largest and earliest collection of artifacts associated with DeSoto's expedition. The site is near Ocala, and pinning it down helps clarify the Spaniard's route from Tampa to Tallahassee. Principal researcher appears to have been Ashley White, a member of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Archaeology.
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Cahokia & Black Drink
Black drink residue has been found in beakers associated with Cahokia, a huge
Mississippian site in Illinois. The drink was made from Youpon Holly and was caffeinated. The finding dates the use of Black Drink for ritual purposes to as early as 1050 A.D. in an area roughly 300 miles north of the tree's range. It lends support to the hypothesis that Cahokia played a major part in the development and spread of rituals throughout the Southeastern U.S.
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Triple Migration of Native Americans
A team of researchers using DNA studies has found that Native Americans arrived in the Americas in not less than 3 separate migrations. They used DNA samples from 52 Native Americans and 17 Siberian groups. Most settlers of most of the Americas came from a single migration, but second and third migrations had an impact of Arctic speakers of Eskimo-Aleut languages, and the Canadian Chipewyan who speak a Na-Dene language. Most people expanded southward along the coast with groups splitting off at various points along the way.
The team was led by Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares of University College, London, and Professor David Reich of Harvarh Medical School. Since most of the samples were from South American sources, they state that there could've been more than 3 migrations and that more studies of North American populations need to be done.