The Emerging 13,000 to 15,000 cal yr B.P. Archaeological Record of North America South of the Continental Ice Sheets

Summary

Ruth Gruhn was an early advocate for a human presence in the Americas prior to Clovis. Gruhn and her late husband, Alan Bryan, excavated and reported on early sites in both North and South America and championed the Pacific coast as the route taken by the earliest people to reach the Americas. Their predictions have become a reality. Genetic and geological evidence is supporting a coastal migration route into the Americas. Recent discoveries at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas, and other sites, as well as a number of genetic studies support an occupation of the Americas by at least 15,000 cal yr B.P.; some 2000 years before Clovis emerged on the North American landscape. The revision in our understanding of the timing of the arrival of humans to the Americas at the end of the late Pleistocene and the route they took has its roots in the early pioneering work of a courageous and visionary woman–Ruth Gruhn.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Alternative Perspectives on the Peopling of the New World: A Symposium in Honor of Ruth Gruhn, the "First Lady" of First Americans Studies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14396