"Proto Clovis" or "PreClovis"? Investigating the Cultural Antecedents of Clovis at the Gault Site, Texas

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。谁第一次在美洲定居，什么时候？它们从哪里来，又是如何来到这里的？他们的生活方式是怎样的？这些都不是微不足道的问题，因为美洲占地球陆地面积的24%，是人类居住的最后一个主要地区。在过去60年的大部分时间里，人们一直认为，大约13500年前，来自俄罗斯中北部草原的游牧猛犸象猎人穿过西伯利亚，走过一座陆桥到达阿拉斯加，这是上一个冰河时期海平面下降造成的，他们沿着加拿大西部的一条无冰走廊找到了自己的路，然后作为克洛维文化的传播者，在北美各地传播。在过去的十几年里，大多数学者都接受了在克洛维斯之前就有人在美洲的证据，但关于更早的考古时间的细节是粗略的，而且对大部分证据和对这些证据的大多数解释都充满了争议。一些人否认美洲有克洛维人的文化祖先的所有证据，许多人认为亚洲是最早的美洲人和文化的唯一家园，还有一些人提出欧洲在很早的时候也为新大陆贡献了人口和文化的可能性。克洛维文化是完全在美洲发展起来的，还是从欧洲或亚洲的祖先进化而来的，这是有争议的。关于人类最早到达西半球的时间没有达成共识。早期的美洲文化，在克洛维之前，但在历史上与克洛维不同且明显无关，可以恰当地称为“前克洛维”，而在历史上与克洛维有关的早期美洲文化则可以称为“原克洛维”。“在德克萨斯州高尔特遗址的第15区，在下面的地层中，经过时间测定，一层克洛维斯文物在两次小型测试挖掘中暴露出来，并产生了相当大的石器制造碎片样本。”这些碎片不同于克洛维斯工具制造者制造的碎片。它完全没有任何可以被认为是克洛维人技术祖先的方面，它似乎是“前克洛维人”。这与美国东海岸的几个遗址形成鲜明对比，在那里，克洛维斯人之前的文化证据确实有足够的技术细节，可以暂时被认为是“原始克洛维斯人”。了解美洲的早期文化历史是相当复杂的，必须从可靠的证据开始。该项目建议在Gault的15区挖掘一个12平方米的地块，确定考古序列的地层完整性，确定克洛维斯和更早的组成部分的年龄和持续时间，并获得足够大的早期材料样本，以揭示它们的技术和类型特征。克洛维与早期人工制品之间激烈而详细的比较将旨在解决他们在该遗址的亲缘程度问题，然后将从半球的角度考虑这一解决方案。一旦完成并传播，这项研究将为我们了解美洲人类的稀少记录增加一个重要的、经过彻底审查的证据样本。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Who first populated the Americas and when? Where did they come from and how did they get here? What was their lifeway like? These are not trivial questions since the Americas, comprising 24% of the Earth's land surface, were the last major area to be inhabited by humans. For most of the past 60 years dogma has held that about 13,500 years ago nomadic mammoth hunters from the steppes of North Central Russia migrated through Siberia, walked across a land bridge to Alaska created by lowered sea levels of the last Ice Age, found their way down an ice-free corridor in western Canada, and then spread out across North America as bearers of a culture called Clovis. Over the last dozen years, most scholars have embraced evidence that there had been people in the Americas before Clovis, but details of that earlier archaeological time are sketchy and controversy abounds over much of the evidence and over most interpretations of that evidence. A few reject all evidence of cultural antecedents of Clovis in the Americas, many consider Asia to be the sole homeland of earliest American people and cultures, and a few raise the possibility that Europe also contributed people and culture to the New World at a very early time. It is debated whether Clovis culture developed entirely in the Americas or evolved from antecedents in Europe or Asia. There is no consensus on the timing of the earliest arrival of people in the Western Hemisphere. An early American culture, predating Clovis but unlike and clearly unrelated historically to Clovis might properly be referred to as 'PreClovis,' whereas one predating and historically related to Clovis might qualify as 'Proto Clovis.'In Area 15 of the Gault Site, Texas, a stratigraphic layer below, and chronometrically predating, a layer of Clovis artifacts was exposed in two small test excavations and yielded a sizeable sample of debris from the manufacture of stone tools. This debris is distinct from that produced by Clovis tool makers. It completely lacks any aspect that would be considered a technological progenitor of Clovis technology it seems to be 'PreClovis.' This stands in contrast to several sites on the eastern seaboard of the United States where cultural evidence antedating Clovis does share enough technological detail to be tentatively considered 'Proto Clovis.' Understanding the early cultural history of the Americas is quite complex and one must begin with solid evidenceThis project proposes to excavate a 12m2 block in Area 15 at Gault, ascertain the stratigraphic integrity of the archaeological sequence, establish the age and duration of the Clovis and earlier components, and obtain a sufficiently large sample of the early materials to reveal their technological and typological characteristics. Intense and detailed comparisons between Clovis and earlier artifacts will aim to resolve the issue of the degree of their relatedness at this site and this resolution will then be considered at the hemispheric perspective. When completed and disseminated this research will add an important, thoroughly vetted sample of evidence to the sparse record that we have for understanding the peopling of the Americas.