Question about "Clovis First."

[05C40]

Let me start off by saying I know nothing about anthropology and have never taken an anthropology course in my entire life. But watching various recent TV shows and reading various recent articles, there seems to be a big to do about the over-throwing of the "Clovis First" concept in the peopling of the Americas. I am in my early 70's. I have heard about "Clovis First" for pretty much my entire life. But, . . ., every mention I have ever heard of "Clovis First" in my entire life has been in some way or another in the context that "Clovis First" has been debunked. If "Clovis First" has been "debunked" since the mid-1970's, then why are people still going on and on about new archaeological discoveries that debunk "Clovis First." From my perspective, as a non-professional, casual observer, "Clovis First" was debunked 50 years ago. I have literally never heard of a mention of "Clovis First" in my entire life, except in the context of "Clovis First" having been debunked by some recent discovery. It's as if astronomers were shouting about a recent discovery that "PROVES, PROVES I SAY!" that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Can someone more knowledgeble about American anthropology explain to me why seemingly every new discovery seems to shout that "Clovis First" has finally been over-turned?

 

[donbosco]

I’ll take a stab at it…



You’ve fallen upon what the historian-scientist T.S Kuhn termed a paradigm shift in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Seems a long while back I know but Kuhn’s explanation for just what you’ve described still holds water. I try and bring this way of seeing history into most classes as a lens through which to view the past. Kuhn asserted that “A paradigm is a universally recognizable scientific achievement that, for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners."

That New Mexico Clovis Site WAS the new explanation of humans in The Americas in the 1930s - it established a truly modern paradigm on How the hemisphere was inhabited (previous explanations were pretty pseudo-scientific) - and it was an incredibly difficult idea to dislodge for that reason. It seemed sound and only over time - slowly playing out academic time - did enough anomalies arise that the 1990s Monte Verde Site in Chile finally ‘break’ the paradigm and essentially create a new one, i.e., that humans came here much earlier (they had to since a land bridge theory depicted a southward migration from the Bering Strait).

What Kuhn really helps explain is the overall reluctance to challenge a paradigm so well established. Scientists will pick at it around the edges for decades but seldom boldly proclaim themselves the crusher of a previous favored theory - the risks are too great. A young scientist for example must pay their dues before arguing that the old guys are wrong - careers are at stake all over. There is an unwritten “beyond a shadow of a doubt” rule in okay here.

That said, archaeology fascinates enough of the public to make news. People enjoy thinking about the ancient past - Bible Archaeology is particularly popular but the ancient Maya and Egyptians etc. sell media of all stripes. Over the past 50 years the Clovis Paradigm has been dealt one blow after another. It has been crushed among archaeologists but it is still part of the story - and one that those who ‘do’ archaeology are obliged to mention and those who write about archaeology are moved to recount, often sensationally.

The actual paradigm in the field shifted long ago and archaeologists moved on. Still, screaming “Clovis First!” still gets plenty of attention.

When i teach a “Pre-Invasion America” course i tell students that it is pretty likely that something, if not several things, that we read will be challenged strongly by news they read during the semester. Archaeologists are essentially trying to out together a 2000 piece puzzle with only 500 pieces - and only a tattered and torn box top as their model.

 

[05C40]

I’ll take a stab at it…



You’ve fallen upon what the historian-scientist T.S Kuhn termed a paradigm shift in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Seems a long while back I know but Kuhn’s explanation for just what you’ve described still holds water. I try and bring this way of seeing history into most classes as a lens through which to view the past. Kuhn asserted that “A paradigm is a universally recognizable scientific achievement that, for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners."

That New Mexico Clovis Site WAS the new explanation of humans in The Americas in the 1930s - it established a truly modern paradigm on How the hemisphere was inhabited (previous explanations were pretty pseudo-scientific) - and it was an incredibly difficult idea to dislodge for that reason. It seemed sound and only over time - slowly playing out academic time - did enough anomalies arise that the 1990s Monte Verde Site in Chile finally ‘break’ the paradigm and essentially create a new one, i.e., that humans came here much earlier (they had to since a land bridge theory depicted a southward migration from the Bering Strait).

What Kuhn really helps explain is the overall reluctance to challenge a paradigm so well established. Scientists will pick at it around the edges for decades but seldom boldly proclaim themselves the crusher of a previous favored theory - the risks are too great. A young scientist for example must pay their dues before arguing that the old guys are wrong - careers are at stake all over. There is an unwritten “beyond a shadow of a doubt” rule in okay here.

That said, archaeology fascinates enough of the public to make news. People enjoy thinking about the ancient past - Bible Archaeology is particularly popular but the ancient Maya and Egyptians etc. sell media of all stripes. Over the past 50 years the Clovis Paradigm has been dealt one blow after another. It has been crushed among archaeologists but it is still part of the story - and one that those who ‘do’ archaeology are obliged to mention and those who write about archaeology are moved to recount, often sensationally.

The actual paradigm in the field shifted long ago and archaeologists moved on. Still, screaming “Clovis First!” still gets plenty of attention.

When i teach a “Pre-Invasion America” course i tell students that it is pretty likely that something, if not several things, that we read will be challenged strongly by news they read during the semester. Archaeologists are essentially trying to out together a 2000 piece puzzle with only 500 pieces - and only a tattered and torn box top as their model.

Got it. I love Kindle. In particular, I love being able to touch a word and a definition of that word pops up. Key feature in a book like this.

 

[finesse]

I actually had a client who was an archeologist at Monte Verde for a while in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

[zeuxis]

Make America Clovis Again!

 

[Ddseddse]

I’ll take a stab at it…



You’ve fallen upon what the historian-scientist T.S Kuhn termed a paradigm shift in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Seems a long while back I know but Kuhn’s explanation for just what you’ve described still holds water. I try and bring this way of seeing history into most classes as a lens through which to view the past. Kuhn asserted that “A paradigm is a universally recognizable scientific achievement that, for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners."

That New Mexico Clovis Site WAS the new explanation of humans in The Americas in the 1930s - it established a truly modern paradigm on How the hemisphere was inhabited (previous explanations were pretty pseudo-scientific) - and it was an incredibly difficult idea to dislodge for that reason. It seemed sound and only over time - slowly playing out academic time - did enough anomalies arise that the 1990s Monte Verde Site in Chile finally ‘break’ the paradigm and essentially create a new one, i.e., that humans came here much earlier (they had to since a land bridge theory depicted a southward migration from the Bering Strait).

What Kuhn really helps explain is the overall reluctance to challenge a paradigm so well established. Scientists will pick at it around the edges for decades but seldom boldly proclaim themselves the crusher of a previous favored theory - the risks are too great. A young scientist for example must pay their dues before arguing that the old guys are wrong - careers are at stake all over. There is an unwritten “beyond a shadow of a doubt” rule in okay here.

That said, archaeology fascinates enough of the public to make news. People enjoy thinking about the ancient past - Bible Archaeology is particularly popular but the ancient Maya and Egyptians etc. sell media of all stripes. Over the past 50 years the Clovis Paradigm has been dealt one blow after another. It has been crushed among archaeologists but it is still part of the story - and one that those who ‘do’ archaeology are obliged to mention and those who write about archaeology are moved to recount, often sensationally.

The actual paradigm in the field shifted long ago and archaeologists moved on. Still, screaming “Clovis First!” still gets plenty of attention.

When i teach a “Pre-Invasion America” course i tell students that it is pretty likely that something, if not several things, that we read will be challenged strongly by news they read during the semester. Archaeologists are essentially trying to out together a 2000 piece puzzle with only 500 pieces - and only a tattered and torn box top as their model.

What you have described above is most properly termed (little "c" ) "conservatism" . Conservatism in it's original, best and purest form is simply giving precedence to a thing (in this case an academic theory) that has served well in the past (in this case by providing explanatory power to observed phenomenon) over newer unproven (in the sense of not "field tested", not in the sense of lacking any evidence) things.

Small 'c' conservatism is generally benign at worst, and downright wholesome at best. When you measure human progress over a timeline that spans a least a century and perhaps many centuries, the taking a few decades to flips a paradigm is not a big deal and indeed saves up from being whiplashed and chasing rabbits down an infinite variety of false trails.

Any real issue with small "c" conservatism comes when, in terms of the older thing, "serving well", means retention on unfair advantages one group enjoys at the expense of persecuting another group (and I'd say that's where we cross the line into big "C" Conservatism).

Little c conservatism in the case of something like Pre-Clovis is not really oppressing anybody, not is it generally entrenching unfair privilege at the expanse of others, so in my opinion I'm 100% fine with. Those without expertise in the field should stay the hell out of the debate (and here I include myself, despite my BA in Anthropology with specialization in Archaeology) and let it resolve itself organically within the disciple itself and on whatever time schedule it takes. If the facts warrant it, the paradigm will eventually flip on it's own (and on it's own timeline).

As a thought exercise, ask yourself how you feel about little c conservatism in a field like vaccine safety and efficacy. Do you think we should wholesale flip paradigms and swap horses after every small sample size study publishes any result? Or do you think we should stick with the general consensus all of the studies that all of the qualified experts believe are well designed, well run, and with sufficiently large sample sizes? If any theory has real merit, it will come to dominate the consensus in the well run studies. That may take awhile, and that's OK, because the alternative in aggregate will be worse. At the end of the day you're guessing that the thing you have less evidence for will turn out to be more correct than the thing you have more evidence for. If you think that will be less exiting and more boring, then I agree with you. But it is what it is. Don't let your desire for excitement cloud your judgement.

Is this system perfect? No. If you had infinite guesses and guessed randomly at 10,000 decision points, would you eventually find one path that got you to the "faster" than small c conservatism got you there? Yes, you definitely would find that a quicker path to the truth existed in theory, but NO HEURISTIC EXISTS WHICH WOULD LET YOU DETERMINE WHAT THAT PATH IS IN ADVANCE. (I.E. you'd be forgetting about 9,999 blind alleys you would inevitably stumbled down doing it any other way).

At the end of the day, we have no better tool than little c conservatism to get from where we are to where we want to be. Anything else is just so much "doing your own research" nonsense.

 

[donbosco]

Interesting. Lots there to agree with to be sure. Particularly thoughtful is your analogy of medicine: "As a thought exercise, ask yourself how you feel about little c conservatism in a field like vaccine safety and efficacy."

I often ask students when discussing Revisionist History whether or not they want their doctor to be revisionist or anti-revisionist?