Spread of fluted-point technology in Canada's Ice-Free Corridor

[Judi Lynn]

BY KAREN GRAHAM 10 HOURS AGO IN SCIENCE

Careful examination of numerous fluted spear points found in Alaska and western Canada prove that the Ice Age peopling of the Americas was much more complex than previously believed, according to a study done by two Texas A&M University researchers.

Texas A&M researchers Heather L. Smith and Ted Goebel analyzed numerous fluted spear points from Alaska, the Yukon, and artifacts from further south in Canada, the Great Plains, and the eastern United States.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide compelling evidence that may change how we view the traveling patterns of early humans as they populated the Americas.

Using new digital methods of analysis that examined the geometric and morphometric shape, as well as a phylogenetic analysis of technological traits on the artifacts, the researchers came to the conclusion that early settlers in the emerging ice-free corridor of interior western Canada "were travelling north to Alaska, not south from Alaska, as previously interpreted," says Goebel, a professor of anthropology at Texas A&M.




Migration out of Africa
Spreading homo Sapiens.jpg which is in the public domain

More:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/spread-of-fluted-point-technology-in-canada-s-ice-free-corridor/article/519330