levallois in the United States

[Digit]

Fraid so Min, hobby horses can be lame dogs.

Roy.

[hardaker]

Are there websites with clear photos of these artifacts in the US?

[Minimalist]

Rick has some photos. Don't know if he ever hosted them on the web.

[uniface]

There is certainly more provacative evidence within these assemblages than spending obscene amounts of university and donor money chasing a Solutrian into Clovis theory based on little more realistically than a similarity in knapping of one type of blade point.

On one hand, absolutely. Das Klub's intransigent refusal to acknowledge what you and others are finding (at root, to admit that they didn't know it all after all) should disqualify them from the practice of archaeology (including teaching), the way gross malpractice does a physician.

That said, a couple cut-&-pastes from accounts of the Solturean-Clovis parallels, for clarification :

"They had the only upper-Paleolithic biface technology going in Western Europe," Stanford points out. They were the first to heat-treat flint, and the first to use pressure flaking--removing flakes by pressing with a hardwood or antler tool, rather than by striking with another stone. "In northern Spain, their technology produced biface projectile points with concave bases that are basally thinned," he notes, not bothering to say he could just as well be describing Clovis points. The pressure flakes Solutrean knappers removed are so long it's almost a fluting technique--"almost," he's careful to say, but not quite.

The parallels between Solutrean and Clovis flintknapping techniques seem endless. The core technology, "the way they were knocking off big blades and setting up their core platforms," he explains, "is very similar to the Clovis technique, if not identical." They perfected the outre passé--overshot--flaking technique later seen in Clovis, which removes a flake across the entire face of the tool from margin to margin. It's a complicated procedure, he emphasizes, that has to be set up and steps followed precisely in order to detach regular flakes predictably. When you see outre passé flaking in other cultures, you're looking at a knapper's mistake. The Solutreans, though, set up platforms and followed the technique through to the end, exactly as we see in Clovis. "No one else in the world does that," Stanford insists. "There is very little in Clovis--in fact, nothing--that is not found in Solutrean technology," he declares.

Archaeologist Kenneth Tankersley of Kent State University seconds Stanford and Bradley's opinion: "There are only two places in the world and two times that this technology appears--Solutrean and Clovis."

On and on the similarities pile up. We find carved tablets in Clovis sites remarkably similar to Solutrean specimens. Both cultures cached toolstone and finished implements. Stanford and Bradley know of about 20 instances of caches at Solutrean sites; in North America, by comparison, according to Stanford, "we're up to about nine or ten." Just like Clovis knappers, Solutreans used flakes detached by outre passé to make scrapers and knives. Clovis bone projectile points bear an uncanny resemblance to ones made by Solutreans. When French archaeologists saw the cast of a wrench used by Clovis craftsmen at the Murray Springs site in Arizona to straighten spear shafts, they declared it remarkably similar to one found at a Solutrean site.

All of the tools and techniques of Clovis can be found in Solutrean assemblages, including thin projectile points, wedges, very long thin bifaces, outré passé flaking, red ochre, gouge-eyed needles, bone and ivory projectiles points, bevelled ivory foreshafts, decorated bone rods, and limestone palettes.

So. As i see it, anyhow, it isn't so much a case of either/or as of Solturean-Clovis bridging the gap between Mousterian and Late Paleolithic on both ends.

Then again, I've been wrong before : )

[Minimalist]

One other point that has to be made about the Clovis-Solutrean linkage is the total lack of evidence for any similar technology in Siberia. Stanford found microblade tools in Siberia.

Could it be a complete coincidence? Of course it could.

I don't like coincidences, though.

[rick doninger]

Uni, are you implying there could be a mousterian element here? Only crazies like me would dare make such a leap but then I do have a bunch of really thick browed looking rocks...rick

[uniface]

[uniface]

I.e., if it walks like a duck, flies like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck and lays duck eggs, it is the allegation that it is not a duck that requires support. Not that it is one.

[kbs2244]

To play the opposition advocate…

That is all circumstantial evidence.

The rules in the game is that the one making the allegation has the burden of proof.

[Minimalist]

Absolutely, uni.

The trouble with the Club is that they insist that these things are "geofacts" not ducks. They go so far as to claim that freezing and warming can cause them to crack so that they just look like "ducks."

[Minimalist]

Most convictions are obtained on the basis of the accumulation of circumstantial evidence though, kb.

[uniface]

We have, at every turn, to distinguish between Science and Belief System. The latter is continually wrapping itself in the mantle of the former, the way scoundrels use the flag. And as illegitimately.

In Science, whenever current theory cannot account for new evidence, it is the theory that requires revision.

In a Belief System, whenever theory is contradicted by new evidence, it is the the evidence that must be ignored, cried-down or argued away.

When you hear people saying, in effect, "You have failed to convince us" you can easily see that their primary reference point is what they believe. Concurrently, that it is belief that they are dealing in. Not science, or anything like it.

Arguing with this mentality is about as productive as arguing theology. And for the same reason.

[rick doninger]

Uni, feel free to share the report if you wish or your opinions on it. You can also show relevant pics if you can figure out how as the files are too big for this particular forum.
If you have a request of a tool type you would like to see, just ask.....rick

[Minimalist]

Hey, Rick, one point about the photos.

A few close up, high-res, shots of a couple of the better pieces are more useful than a large scan shot of the whole collection.

It also helps to place something in the photo to give it scale ( i.e., a ruler, or a quarter, or a bottle cap, etc.)

Once you take them you can host them on Photobucket.com (free service) and get the url to paste here.

[Cognito]

I was just considering the fact that levallois technology is most often associated with HN, although it can be found at other HE sites. But, yes, HN was a regional development in Europe and western Asia, although there recently was a discovery of HN farther east in Asia than previously found.

In the Americas there is a possibility that levallois was a product of HE and/or handed off from HE to HSS early arrivals. Levallois tech is also found at the Lake Manix formation in Southern California.