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- Title
Why Are There No Pre-Clovis Mammoth Sites in the Columbia Plateau?
- Authors
Sappington, Robert Lee
- Abstract
The remains of extinct elephants have been encountered in the Columbia Plateau since 1876. Since the 1930s the earliest accepted evidence for the First Americans has been Clovis culture, which has long been characterized by an association with mammoths. Recent evidence from the Manis site near Sequim, Washington, and at Paisley Caves, Oregon, demonstrates that pre-Clovis populations were hunting and processing elephants in the Pacific Northwest by 14,000-13,000 BP. Clovis culture is minimal in the Columbia Plateau and it appears to have arrived after Western Stemmed Tradition technology had become widespread. The best means for demonstrating a pre-Clovis presence in the Columbia Plateau is to treat the next discovery of a mammoth as an archaeological site and to follow explicit criteria during excavation and subsequent analyses.
- Subjects
COLUMBIA Plateau; PLATEAUS; ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavations; MAMMOTHS; ARCHAEOLOGICAL discoveries; GRAVETTIAN culture; EASTER egg hunts; ARCHAEOLOGICAL site location; ELEPHANTS
- Publication
Journal of Northwest Anthropology, 2019, Vol 53, Issue 2, p271
- ISSN
1538-2834
- Publication type
Article