1491 (71 page)

 

Díaz de Castillo: This line is not in any recent English translation, all of which are abridged; it is the last sentence of chapter 174 in the Spanish original.

 

Argument in Spanish court: Detailed in Pagden 1990: Chap. 1.

 

Spanish view of sickness: Porter 1998; interviews, Crease, Denevan, Lovell.

 

Salomon: Salomon 1993.

 

Las Casas: Las Casas 1992b:28 (“beehive”), 31 (“twelve million”). See also, Motolinía 1950:38–40.

 

Colonial accounts came to seem exaggerated: “Modern students commonly have been inclined to discount early opinions of native numbers, but rarely specified their reasons for doing so” (Sauer 1935:1). Responding to Sauer, the anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber simply said, without further explanation, “I am likely to reject most [sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents] outright” (Kroeber 1939:180). See also, Cook and Borah 1971 (vol. 1):376–410 (“Sixteenth-century,” 380).

 

Numbers creep down: Jennings 1975:16–20.

 

Forty or fifty million: Spinden 1928:660 (50 to 75 million “souls” lost); Rivet, Stresser-Pean, and Loukotka 1952 (40 to 45 million).

 

“Most of the arrows,” Henige’s estimate: Author’s interviews, Denevan, Henige.

 

“a very high population”: Zambardino 1978. Henige responded in Henige 1978a.

 

5 /
Pleistocene Wars

Discovery of Lagoa Santa skeletons: Calogeras 1933 (reproducing Lund’s initial letters of discovery); Mattos 1939. Lund and his successors did not well document their initial location (Soto-Heim 1994:81–82; Hrdlička et al. 1912:179–84).

 

Fifteen thousand years: Laming-Emperaire 1979. Other researchers got even older dates, e.g., Prous 1986. Other very early Brazilian dates include Beltrão et al. 1986.

 

Morphology of skulls: Neves, Meyer, and Pucciarelli 1996; Soto-Heim 1994:86–103; Neves and Pucciarelli 1991; Beattie and Bryan 1984; Mattos 1946.

 

North American scoffing: One example: “These claims [of great antiquity] have long been shown to be erroneous, although the proponents of early glacial humans in the area remain vociferous” (Bruhns 1994:62). No citation for the refutation is provided.

 

Botocudos history: Wright and Carneiro de Cunha 2000; Paraíso 1999 (
botoques,
423–24); Paraíso 1992:esp. 240–43 (“just war,” 241).

 

Botocudos’ purported similarity to Lagoa Santa Man: Interview, Pena; Soto-Heim 1994:84.

 

Two genomes: I borrow the phrase from Margulis and Sagan 2001. Margulis pioneered the contemporary theory of the origin of mitochondria.

 

Human genome project: Genome International Sequencing Consortium 2001; Venter et al. 2001. The announcement was in June 2000; publication followed seven months later. These genome maps were preliminary; biologists put together a 99.9 percent complete picture only in 2003.

 

Mitochondrial genome project: Anderson et al. 1981.

 

Mitochondria in sperm: Gyllensten et al. 1991.

 

History of mtDNA research: Richards and Macaulay 2001.

 

Four haplogroups: Schurr et al. 1990; Horai et al. 1993; Torroni and Wallace 1995; Bandelt 2003. In 1998 scientists reported a fifth, very rare haplogroup. Also found in Europe, it may be a legacy of Genghis Khan’s incursion (Brown et al. 1998).

 

Disdain for amateurs: As far back as 1893, William J. McGee reported with satisfaction that the Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was refreshingly free “of those pseudoscientific communications which tend to cluster about every branch of science in its formative period…anthropology is rapidly taking form as an organized body of knowledge no less definite than the older sciences” (McGee 1900:768).

 

Taino Letter, Columbus, C., to Santangel, L.D., 14 Mar. 1493, trans. A. B. Hart and E. Channing, in Eliot ed. 1909–14, online at http://www.bartleby.com/43/2.html.

 

Test of divinity: Benzoni 1857:77.

 

Motecuhzoma and Spanish “gods”: Restall 2003:108–20. For an example of the story, see Prescott 2000:171–73; Tuchman 1984:11–14 (“wooden,” 14).

 

Northeast and supernatural powers: Trigger 1991.

 

Choctaw and Zuñi origins: Cushman 1999:199; Bunzel 1932.

 

“mountains of Ararat”: Genesis 8:4 (King James version).

 

Christian befuddlement: Hallowell 1960.

 

José de Acosta wrestles with question: Acosta 2002:51–74 (“contradict Holy Writ,” “Europe or Asia,” 61; “must join,” 63; refutation of Lost Tribes theory, 71–72).

 

Candidate ancestors: Wauchope 1962:3. The full list of candidates is even longer, but some pride of place should be given to the Welsh, who have had a widespread following for two hundred years. As Lewis and Clark began their journey across the continent, Thomas Jefferson tried to put them in contact with a man who had come from Wales to search for errant bands of Welsh-speaking white Indians (Letter, Jefferson, T., to Lewis, M., 22 Jan. 1804, available from the Library of Congress at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(je00060)). See also, Williams 1949a, 1949b. In an earlier article (Mann 2002c), I incorrectly wrote that Jefferson himself had instructed them to look for Welsh Indians.

 

Most widely accepted answer: Hrdlička 1912 (“the most widespread theory, and one with the remnants of which we meet to this day, was that the American Indians represented the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel,” 3); Kennedy 1994:225–31 (Mormons); Hallowell 1960:4–6 (Penn, Mather). See also, Parfitt 2002.

 

Lost Tribes of Israel: II Kings 17:4–24, 18:9–12 (“So was Israel,” 17:23); II (or IV) Esdras 13:39–51 (“a distant land,” 42–48); Ezekiel 37:15–26 (“take the children,” 21); Jeremiah 13:11, 33:7–8. All quotes except Esdras from King James version; Esdras is from
New English Bible,
as it is not in the King James version.

 

Ussher’s calculation: Ussher 1658:1 (23 Oct. 4004); 68 (721 b.c.).

 

Ussher’s authority: White 1898:Chap. 6 (“his dates”). One modern history says that although few endorsed “the exact detail” of Ussher’s chronology, its precepts ruled “general thought about man’s past” (Daniel and Renfrew 1986:22).

 

Discovery of European Pleistocene remains: Grayson 1983. I have simplified the story somewhat. In 1858 British geologists, Sir Charles Lyell among them, unearthed tools and Pleistocene fossils in an English cave. Twenty-one years before, Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes, a French customs officer and amateur scientist, had made a similar but larger find near Abbéville, in northern France. His announcement was met with ridicule, some of it from Lyell. A year after the British discovery, Lyell and other scientists went to Abbéville, decided that Boucher de Perthes had been right all along, and issued gracious public apologies. From that point on, the scientific consensus was in favor of an early origin of humankind.

 

Abbott’s finds, proselytizing: Abbott 1876 (“driven,” 72); 1872a (“so primitive,” 146); 1872b.

 

Bureau of American Ethnology: Meltzer 1994; 1993:chaps. 3, 5; Judd 1967. The Smithsonian’s brief history of the Bureau of American Ethnology is at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro/outreach/depthist.html.

 

Holmes critique: Interview, Meltzer; Meltzer 1992; 1994:9–11; Hough 1933.

 

Abbott, McGee, and the Paleolithic Wars: Abbott 1892a (“The stones are inspected,” 345); 1892b (“scientific men of Washington,” 270); 1883a (“high degree,” 303); 1883b (“more ‘knowing,’” 327); 1884 (“neither among,” 253); Meltzer 2003; 1994:11–12; 1993:41–50; Cultural Resource Group 1996.

 

Hrdlička’s life work: Meltzer 1994:12–15; 1993:54 (“respectable antiquity”); Montagu 1944; Loring and Prokopec 1994:26–42.

 

“favorable cave”: Quoted in Deuel 1967:486.

 

Folsom: Meltzer 1994:15–16; 1993:50–54; Roberts 1935:1–5; Kreck 1999.

 

Brown’s announcement: Anon. 1928; Chamberlin 1928.

 

Whiteman: Anon. 2003; McAlavy 2003; Cotter and Boldurian 1999:1–10.

 

“driving mania”: Eiseley 1975:99.

 

Howard at Clovis: Cotter and Boldurian 1999:11–20 (“EXTENSIVE BONE,” 11; “One greenhorn,” 14; 130ºF, 15); Anon. 1932; Howard 1935 (I thank Robert Crease for helping me obtain this article).

 

Discovery of Clovis culture: Cotter 1937; Roberts 1937.

 

“So far”: Hrdlička 1937:104. Other skeptics were less careful. Writing in 1933, Walter Hough, of the U.S. National Museum, flatly claimed that “archaeologists now agree that there are no American paleolithic implements” (Hough 1933:757).

 

Lack of skeletons: Interview, Petersen; Steele and Powell 2002 (ten skeletons); Preston 1997:72 (interview with Owsley).

 

More than eighty Clovis and Folsom sites: Hannah Wormington lists ninety-six sites in the 1957 edition of her well-regarded
Ancient Man in North America.
But she describes some as small and uncertain, so I have hedged and said “more than eighty” (Wormington 1957). Grayson and Meltzer (2002) tally seventy-six paleo-Indian sites in the continental United States.

 

Cosmic-ray race: Crease and Mann 1996:Chap. 10.

 

Detection of organic C
¹⁴
and halflife: Anderson et al. 1947a, 1947b; Engelkemeier et al. 1949.

 

First radiocarbon dates: Arnold and Libby 1949 (“seen to be,” 680); Marlowe 1999.

 

“You read books”: Libby 1991:600.

 

UA C
¹⁴
lab and Haynes’s background: Author’s interview, Haynes; Feldman 1998.

 

Consistency of C
¹⁴
dates: Haynes 1964.

 

13,500 and 12,900 years ago: I use the calibrations in Stuiver et al. 1998 (online at http://depts.washington.edu/qil/datasets/intcal98_14c.txt.). These calibrations are essentially applied to Clovis and Folsom in Fiedel 1999b:102. They have been attacked as based on unreliable data (Roosevelt, Douglas, and Brown 2002; Roosevelt 1997).

 

Beringia: For a general physical description, see Fiedel 1992:46–47. Although now a little dated, Fiedel’s book remains one of the best expositions of the basic issues.

 

Beringia insects: Elias 2001; Elias et al. 1996; Alfimov and Berman 2001; Colinvaux 1996.

 

Temperature rise: Alley 2000.

 

Ice-free corridor and 1950s investigations: E.g., Elson 1957.

 

“ice-free” and “700 years”: Haynes 1964:1412. The potential relevance of the ice-free corridor was first described in Johnston 1972:22–25, 44–45. I am grateful to Josh d’Aluisio-Guerreri for helping me obtain this book.

 

Pleistocene bestiary: Anderson 1984; Kurtén and Anderson 1980.

 

11,500 and 10,900
B.C.:
Corrected radiocarbon dates from unpublished data provided to the author by Stuart Fiedel.

 

“zoologically impoverished”: Wallace 1962 (vol. 1):149–50.

 

Martin’s overkill thesis: Martin 1984, 1973 (“thoroughly superior predator,” “swift extermination,” 972), 1967.

 

Other extinctions: Wilson 1992:244–53.

 

“Paradigmatic image”: Fiedel 1992:63–84. The image is summed in Easton 1992 (“stout-hearted,” 31).

 

Northwest Coast salmon wars: Wilkinson 2000. The treaty language at issue (“right of taking”) is in Article 3, http://www.nwifc.wa.gov/tribes/treaties/tmedcreek.asp.

 

Hrdlička in Larsen Bay: Denny’s story can be augmented with the essays in Bray and Killion eds. 1994. Larsen Bay was not an anomaly. In 1902 Hrdlička visited Sonora, Mexico, where Yaqui Indians were fighting the Mexican army. On a battlefield Hrdlička found sixty-four fresh Yaqui corpses—men, women, and children. He lopped off their heads and shipped them to the Smithsonian (Hrdlička 1904:65–66).

 

Fifty shot down: Cited in Meltzer 1995:22. “The shelf-life of pre-Clovis claims seems little more than a decade,” Meltzer wrote (ibid.).

 

“Clovis police,” new Hrdlička: Author’s interviews, Meltzer, Haynes, Thomas Dillehay; Pringle 1999 (police); Alsoszatai-Petheo 1986:18 (new Hrdlička); Meltzer 1989:478–79. Clovis-firsters were attacked as the “Clovis Mafia” (Koppel 2003:147–50). Fiedel (2000:42–43) marshals evidence against the charges.

 

Landmark article: Greenberg, Turner, and Zegura 1986 (“the three,” 479; “we are dealing,” “28 key,” “dental clusters,” 480; “widely held,” 484; “tripartite division,” 487).

 

Languages of California: Mithun 1997 (fifteen families); Kroeber 1903 (five families).

 

180 language families: This rough figure for the linguistic state of the art in 1986 is created by adding together two then-recent tallies: Campbell and Mithun 1979 (62 families in North America) and Loukokta 1968 (118 in South and Central America).

 

Critiques of three-migrations paper: Campbell 1986 (“Neither,” “should be,” 488); Morrell 1990b (“zero”). See also, Campbell 1988; Laughlin 1986.

 

Geneticists pursued the question: Reviewed in Merriwether 2002.

 

Mitochondrial DNA indicates multiple migrations: Schurr et al. 1990; Horai et al. 1993.

 

Wallace and Neel timing estimate: Torroni et al. 1994.

 

Haplogroup A study: Bonalto and Bolzano 1997.

 

Size of founding groups: Schurr et al. 1990 (little mtDNA diversity, small group); Ward et al. 1991 (much diversity, big group).

 

Diverse possible origins: Merriwether et al. 1996 (Mongolia); Karafet et al. 1999 (Lake Baikal); Torroni et al. 1993 (east Asia); Lell 2002 (southern middle Siberia and Sea of Okhkotsk, in two major migrations).

 

“only one thing”: Cann 2001:1746.

 

Monte Verde: Meltzer 1997; Dillehay ed. 1989–97 (summary of dig history, vol. 2:1–24). See also Dillehay 2001; Gore 1997; Wilford 1998b, 1997b.

 

Dates: Dillehay ed. 1989–97 (vol. 1):18–19, 133–45, esp. Table 6.1. Dillehay did not use calibrated radiocarbon dates; I use the calibration in Stuiver et al. 1998. Fiedel says the likely occupation date is 13,500–14,100 years ago, if the data are correct (Fiedel 2000:50).