Dating of a large tool assemblage at the Cooper's Ferry site (Idaho, USA) to ~15,785 cal yr B.P. extends the age of stemmed points in the Americas.

ABSTRACT: The timing and character of the Pleistocene peopling of the Americas are measured by the discovery of unequivocal artifacts from well-dated contexts. We report the discovery of a well-dated artifact assemblage containing 14 stemmed projectile points from the Cooper's Ferry site in western North America, dating to ~16,000 years ago. These stemmed points are several thousand years older than Clovis fluted points (~13,000 cal yr B.P.) and are ~2300 years older than stemmed points found previously at the site. These points date to the end of Marine Isotope Stage 2 when glaciers had closed off an interior land route into the Americas. This assemblage includes an array of stemmed projectile points that resemble pre-Jomon Late Upper Paleolithic tools from the northwestern Pacific Rim dating to ~2

SUBMITTER: Davis LG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9788777 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature