In Search of the First Americans:
Recent Discoveries and the Role of Geology in the Pursuit of the Past
The 2009 HGS Guest Night program will focus on a very unique topic… GEOARCHAEOLOGY… a very specialized and fascinating area of research combining the best of two sciences!
The Houston Geological Society 2009 Guest Night highlight will be a presentation by Texas A&M’ resident geoarchaeologist, Dr.. Michael V. Waters, Professor of Anthropology and Geography, at Texas A&M university. Dr. Waters, holds the Endowed Chair in First American Studies and serves as the Director For the Studies of First Americans as well as the Executive Director of the North Star Archaeological Research Program.
Dr. Waters, who received his PHD in Geology from the University of Arizona has worked on a variety of integrated projects in the United States, Russia, Mexico, Yemen, and Jamaica. He is currently conducting archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations at the Buttermilk Creek site, Texas, which is yielding Clovis and potentially older cultural materials. In addition to his research on the subject of the First Americans, Waters has also worked on late Quaternary alluvial stratigraphic sequences in the American Southwest relating this research to understanding the impact of changing landscapes on prehistoric agriculturalists and the impact of landscape change on the preservation of the archaeological record. Waters has published extensively on geoarchaeology and early human migration to the Americas. Waters has published several books, most notably, Principles of Geoarchaeology. Waters, a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, was awarded the Kirk Bryan Award of the Geological Society of America in 2003 and the Rip Rapp Archaeological Geology Award of the Geological Society of America in 2004. is pre-eminent.
Click here to read more about Dr Waters on his Texas A&M University website, here to read his vita and to read more about Dr Waters' research click on the link for the Center for the Study of First Americans..
Dr. Water’s presentation entitled “In Search of the First Americans” Recent Discoveries and the Role of Geology in the Pursuit of the Past” will focus on the questions that have intrigued archaeologists over a century, as they search for clues to better understand the prehistoric colonization of the Americas. When did the first people enter the Americas? Where did they come from? What routes did they take into the New World? How did they cope with the new environments they encountered from Canada to Argentina?
Geologists have played a pivotal role in the pursuit of the first Americans. An understanding of the geological context, dating, and site formation are critical to the investigation of any early site. Geologists have worked side by side with archaeologists from the start and have provided the critical information needed for the acceptance of early sites.
Since the discovery of the Clovis complex at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, an elegant model developed that shaped thinking for decades about the origins of the First Americans. The Clovis First Model, states that a small band of hunters entered the Americas 13,500 years ago and populated the entirety of the New World within 800 years. According to the model, these people were the first and only early migrants to the New World and that all following New World cultures descended from the Clovis culture.
However, recent archaeological discoveries and advances in human genetics are calling the Clovis First Model into question and continue to shape a new understanding of the first Americans. New evidence suggests that people were in the Americas before Clovis and that we must rethink the Clovis model and develop a new model that better explains the peopling of the Americas.
Texas A&M’s Center for the Study of the First Americans, under the direction of Dr. Waters (http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/) is on the forefront of this revolutionary thinking about the origins of the First Americans.
To learn more about early mans' migration click on the link for the National Geographic Society: Genographic Project.
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