A UNM anthropology professor will challenge a rethinking of human migration theory during a PBS program.
Professor Lawrence Straus appears on tonight's "Nova" to dispute a new theory about North American migration based on spearheads discovered in Europe.
The episode, titled "America's Stone Age Explorers," will trace the human migration route to North America after the Ice Age.
Previously, scholars had assumed people migrated from Asia.
"People have long argued, on the basis of physical appearance, and more recently linguistic, genetic evidence and archaeological evidence, that people came across the Bering land bridge and became what everybody thought was the Clovis people," Straus said.
Spearheads found near Clovis, N.M., in the 1930s are the oldest evidence of life in the Americas. The spearheads date back about 13,500 years, Straus said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
But that doesn't necessarily mean they were first, said UNM graduate student David Kilby, who will also be featured on the show.
Kilby was filmed and interviewed over the summer about his dissertation work on Clovis stone tool technology and caches.
He said there are two polarized views, Clovis and pre-Clovis, but he does not sit at either extreme.
Similar spearheads were found in excavation sites in Europe, sparking debate on whether the original hypothesis was true.
The similarities in the spearheads are in the design, Straus said.
"There are some Solutrean points that have a concaved base for hafting them onto the spear shaft, as did the Clovis points," he said.
Straus said just because similar hunting tools evolved in different cultures at around the same time does not mean they originated from the same area.
"People come up with similar solutions when there are big animals to hunt and little else to eat," he said.
Straus specializes in the Solutrean period of Western Europe, and said it is impossible to assume people migrated from Europe during this time at the height of the Ice Age.
"There is no evidence that Solutrean-aged people had any boats," he said, adding they would have to cross the icy Atlantic Ocean by canoe, and bring enough people to sustain a population.
The episode airs tonight at 7 p.m. on KNME.
