Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 105, Issue 33, Pages 11651-11654Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803762105
Keywords
comet; Clovis; population decline; radiocarbon; summed probability distribution
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [0502293]
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [756-2007-0577]
- Canada Research Chairs Program
- Canada Foundation
- British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund
- Simon Fraser University
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- Office Of The Director
- Office Of Internatl Science &Engineering [0502293] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Recently it has been suggested that one or more large extraterrestrial (ET) objects struck northern North America 12,900 +/- 100 calendar years before present (caIBP) [Firestone RB, et al. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:16016-16021]. This impact is claimed to have triggered the Younger Dryas major cooling event and resulted in the extinction of the North American megafauna. The impact is also claimed to have caused major cultural changes and population decline among the Paleoindians. Here, we report a study in which approximate to 1,500 radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites in Canada and the United States were used to test the hypothesis that the ET resulted in population decline among the Paleoindians. Following recent studies [e.g., Gamble C, Davies W, Pettitt P, Hazelwood L, Richards M (2005) Camb Archaeol J 15:193-223), the summed probability distribution of the calibrated dates was used to identify probable changes in human population size between 15,000 and 9,000 caIBP. Subsequently, potential biases were evaluated by modeling and spatial analysis of the dated occupations. The results of the analyses were not consistent with the predictions of extraterrestrial impact hypothesis. No evidence of a population decline among the Paleoindians at 12,900 +/- 100 calBP was found. Thus, minimally, the study suggests the extraterrestrial impact hypothesis should be amended.
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