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The publication of the second and final volume on the Monte Verde site in southern Chile by Dillehay of the University of Kentucky (1) marks a milestone in American archaeology. For over half a century, and with increasing rancor over the last few decades, archaeologists have sought and disputed evidence of a human presence in the Americas that predates the Clovis archaeological culture (-11,500 years before the present). Scores of pre-Clovis contenders have come forward, only to wither under critical scrutiny. So many have failed that the archaeological community has grown highly skeptical of any and all pre-Clovis claims (2, 3). Few archaeologists would exclude the possibility that earlier evidence might be found, but most were unwilling to take such claims at face value. In the face of that accumulated skepticism, it was clear that the first site to break the Clovis barrier would have to effortlessly hurdle the traditional criteria by which early sites are judged (4): unambiguous artifacts or human skeletal remains in unimpeachable geological and stratigraphic context, chronologically anchored by secure and reliable radiometric dates.
The Monte Verde site was excavated from 1977 to 1985 and subsequently analyzed by Dillehay and an international and interdisciplinary team of nearly 80 collaborators. The remains they recovered are extraordinary. The Pleistocene occupants of Monte Verde camped on the sandy banks of Chinchihuapi Creek. Soon after their departure, water and fibrous peat spread over the site, blanketing the living surface, slowing the normal processes of decay and richly preserving many organic remains. Excavations recovered parts of nearly 70 species of plants (most unusually, in the form of chewed leaves), many of which have economic or medicinal value and were gathered from sources up to 400 km distant. Other remains included mastodon (Gomphothere) meat and bone with soft tissue adhering; wooden lances and mortars, as well as planks and stakes that formed the foundation of a tentlike structure evidently draped with mastodon hide; and hundreds of stone artifacts, including distinctive projectile points, spherical stones interpreted as bolas, and cutting and scraping tools that lack inherent attributes marking them as obviously the work of human hands but occur in a context bespeaking a cultural origin ( 1 ).
This material was found on a complex occupational surface representing...