Sandweiss Comments in Science Magazine Story

Comments from Prof. Dan Sandweiss of the UMaine anthropology faculty are included in a Science Magazine story about new findings — reported this week in Science — about the earliest settlement of the Americas.  Lead author Michael Waters of Texas A&M University writes about a discovery in Texas that “tells us once and for all that we can abandon” the belief that people from the Clovis culture were the first to arrive in the Americas, from Asia, some 13,200 years ago.  Waters’ new findings, near Buttermilk Creek, Texas, provide evidence of pre-Clovis hunter-gatherers 15,500 years ago.  Sandweiss points out in the story that archaeologists have been noticing evidence of pre-Clovis presence but that the evidence had not previously been strong enough to fully support those theories.  Waters lectured at UMaine last fall as part of a Climate Change Institute seminar, and he discussed the site featured in this story and his publication. Heather Pringle, who wrote the news story with Sandweiss’ comments, will be UMaine’s Phi Kappa Phi lecturer on April 19.  Sandweiss also discussed this story with a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter on Thursday.