Going back in time
Anthropologists, archaeologists use latest tools to look at early Americans
University of Oregon researchers are making a splash in the present by digging up the past.
Dennis Jenkins (pictured), a senior archaeologist with the University of Oregon's Museum of Natural and Cultural History, recently garnered international headlines for finding the New World’s oldest human DNA (dating back 14,300 years) in coprolites—dried human feces—in caves near Paisley, in central Oregon.
The find predates the now-accepted emergence of Clovis culture in the New World by about 1,200 years. And, for the first time, the discovery also put an Oregon archaeological site in the journal Science.
Jenkins’ work, however, is just the latest by UO archaeologists and anthropologists to capture national scientific and media attention over the past year.
Archaeologist Jon Erlandson was on a team of six scientists who have challenged the idea that Clovis-age natives overhunted and contributed heavily to the extinction of California’s flightless sea duck. The new evidence suggests that it took thousands of years for the duck to die out.
Erlandson and colleague Doug Kennett were among some two dozen researchers who, citing evidence they’ve collected, argue that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell that wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animals across North America almost 13,000 years ago.
In addition, anthropologist Madonna Moss has questioned long-held assumptions that plentiful dried and smoked salmon allowed Native Americans in the Northwest enough leisure time to expand their cultural pursuits. According to Science, Moss has found contradictory evidence at a pair of sites not far apart. “Studying either site in isolation would give a false impression,” Moss says.
The examples relate to early humans in the Americas—a hot topic among many U.S. scientists, who likely will follow up with work that cites the UO research.
UO archaeology already places fourth nationally in Thompson-Scientific rankings, a key scientific citation index.
Recent developments mean “our rankings might improve even more in years to come,” Erlandson says.