Beyond Pre-Clovis: Human Occupations in the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Perpetual Debate

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Beyond Pre-Clovis: Human Occupations in the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Perpetual Debate" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The peopling of the Americas is an ongoing debate that has been stuck for decades in the “Clovis-first” stigma. It is now predominantly accepted by archaeologists that humans were on the continent before 13,000 years ago. However, the timing of the first human migrations into the Americas is still debated, particularly whether it happened during or before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), as well as their migration routes and chronologies (single or multiple waves of human dispersal). Evidence for early human migration (< 18,000 years ago) comes from archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, paleogenomics, and paleontology. Besides piquing the curiosity of academics and the nonacademic audience, this topic can easily provoke disagreements within the archaeological community. Therefore, we believe it is important to communicate the evidence for LGM human occupation of the Americas more effectively among archaeologists, since it persists neglected despite the increase in evidence from North to South America. This symposium aims to bring together researchers to present their work on the early peopling of the Americas (LGM or pre-LGM) and to provide a platform for discussion and networking among different specialists, which can lead to new collaborations and multidisciplinary studies on this topic.