Pre-Clovis sites in Americas dated 13,200 to 50,000 years old challenge Clovis First model

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Key facts

• Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania yielded radiocarbon dates of 16,000 years from the oldest layers and a cut section of bark potentially dated to 19,000 years ago; archaeologist argued 52 dates from the site were stratigraphically consistent and not from groundwater contamination
• Albert Goodyear excavated below the Clovis layer at the Topper Site on the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina in 1998, finding stone tools dated to 16,000 years old
• UC Irvine radiocarbon dating of soil at the Topper Site placed the deepest artifacts at approximately 50,000 years old, including a large Allendale chert piece called Big Red showing evidence of deliberate working
• Michael Waters from Texas A&M published the Buttermilk Creek Complex in Science in 2011, reporting 15,528 artifacts in clay sediment under the Clovis layer near Austin, Texas
• The pre-Clovis layer at the Buttermilk Creek Complex dated between 13,200 and 15,500 years old, with tools distinct enough from Clovis type material to represent a separate earlier technology
• Waters concluded in his 2011 paper that it was time to abandon the Clovis First model and develop a new model for the peopling of the Americas
• Divers from the Florida Museum of Natural History found stone tools and butchered mastodon bones in an underwater sinkhole in the Aucilla River in 2016, dated to 14,500 years ago

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