The controversial Solutrean hypothesis proposed in 1999 by Smithsonian
archaeologist Dennis Stanford and colleague Bruce Bradley (Stanford and
Bradley 2002), suggests that the Clovis people could have inherited
technology from the Solutrean people who lived in southern Europe between
about 21,000-17,000 years ago, and who created the first Stone Age artwork
in present-day southern France. The link is suggested by the similarity in
technology between the spear points of the Solutreans and those of the
Clovis people. Such a theory would require that the Solutreans crossed via
the edge of the pack ice in the North Atlantic Ocean that then extended to
the Atlantic coast of France. They could have done this using survival
skills similar to those of the modern Inuit people. Supporters of this
hypothesis suggest that stone tools found at Cactus Hill (an early American
site in Virginia), that are knapped in a style between Clovis and Solutrean,
support a possible link between the Clovis people and Solutrean people in
Europe. The idea is also supported by mitochondrial DNA analysis (see Map in
Single-origin hypothesis) which has found that some members of some native
North American tribes have a maternal ancestry (called haplogroup X) (Schurr
2000), which appears to be more closely linked to the maternal ancestors of
some present day individuals in Europe and western Asia than to the
ancestors of any present-day individuals in eastern Asia.
Opponents of the hypothesis that the Solutreans crossed the Atlantic point
to the difficulty of the ocean crossing, as well as the lack of art work
(such as that found at Lascaux in France) among the Clovis people, as
indicative that no such link exists. Significantly, there is also a 5,000
radiocarbon year time difference between the Solutrean of France and the
Clovis of the New World, and there are no archaeological sites in Europe
north of Paris to have been the origin of the alleged Solutrean populations
who crossed the Atlantic to become the Clovis (Straus 2000). However,
evidence suggests that canoes built previous to 9500 BC have been found.
Supporters of the hypothesis suggest that stone tools found at Cactus Hill
(an early American site in Virginia) indicate a transitional style between
the Clovis and Solutrean cultures. Artifacts from this site are estimated to
date from 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, although some researchers dispute
their definitive age. Other sites that may indicate transitional, pre-Clovis
occupation include the Page-Ladson site in Florida and the Meadowcroft
rockshelter in Pennsylvania.
Europeans were here first and thus have Indigenous Rights under the United
Nations Charter on Indigneous International Rights!
Go back to Mongolia you freaks!
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