Arriving from the East

Clovis Origins: An Atlantic Route

European ancestry has been implicated once again based on the similarity of projectile points, stone working technology, and toolkits between the Solutrean and Clovis cultures (Stanford & Bradley, 2000). The Solutrean were maritime sea farers from the north coast of Spain (22,000-16,500 ya) who hunted and fished along coasts. Remains of sea mammals, birds, and fish found along the Northwest Coast date to 13,000 ya may indicate the presence of the Solutrean people along coasts that had been deglaciated for around 1,000 years by this time (Dixon, 2000). Since watercraft technology was available to these people by previous cultures (Australia was colonized 40,000 ya via watercraft), it is believed that the Solutrean travelled to the east coast of North America by watercraft. So far there has been no physical evidence to prove this theory. Perhaps this evidence was washed away... Another problem with this theory is that the Clovis fossils indicate that they arrived to North America around 11,500-10,900 ya. Why would it take the Solutrean people 4,500 years to cross the Atlantic? Dennis Stanford now believes that the Clovis were derived from a population that already existed in North America.