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Radiocarbon tests on soil and twigs where artifacts were unearthed last May along the Savannah River in Allendale County by USC archaeologist Albert Goodyear indicate that the artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North American long before the last Ice Age.
The findings are significant because they suggest that humans inhabited North America long more than 24,000 years ago, a potentially explosive revelation in American archaeology.
Goodyear, who has garnered international attention for his discoveries of tools that pre-date what is believed to be humans’ arrival in North America, announced the test results, which were done by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Nov. 17.
The dawn of modern Homo sapiens occurred in Africa between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of man’s migration has been documented in Australia and Central Asia at 50,000 years and in Europe at 40,000 years. The fact that man could have been in North America at or near the same time is expected to spark debate among archaeologists worldwide, raising new questions on the origin and migration of the human species.
In 1998, Goodyear, nationally known for his research on the Clovis culture, named for people who lived in Clovis, N.M., around 11,000 years ago, dug two meters below the surface of the Pleistocene terrace at Topper. The excavation site is on the bank of the Savannah River on property owned by Clariant Corp., a chemical corporation headquartered near Basel, Switzerland. He recovered numerous stone tool artifacts in soils that were later dated by an outside team of geologists to be 16,000 years old.
For five years, Goodyear continued to add artifacts and evidence that a pre-Clovis people existed, slowly eroding the long-held theory by archaeologists that man arrived in North America around 13,000 years ago.
Last May, Goodyear dug even deeper to see whether man’s existence extended further back in time. Using a backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear’s team dug through the Pleistocene terrace soil, some four meters below the ground surface. Goodyear found a number of artifacts similar to the pre-Clovis forms he has excavated in recent years.
Then on the last day of the last week of digging, Goodyear uncovered a stain in the soil where artifacts lay, providing him the charcoal needed for radiocarbon dating. Goodyear sent several twigs and a soil sample from the stain area to Stafford Research Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., for initial review. From there, the samples were sent to the Livermore labs, the definitive source for carbon testing.
The revelation of Topper’s age is expected to cast speculation on the age other well-known excavation sites that have turned up evidence of pre-Clovis man. The most notable sites are in Meadowcroft, Pa., and Cactus Hill, Va.
From Oct. 23 to 29, 2005, archaeologists will convene at USC’s Colonial Center for a conference on Clovis and the study of earliest Americans. The conference will include a day trip to Topper, which is sure to dominate discussions and presentations at the international gathering.
11/04
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Al Goodyear makes measurements at Topper.
