Indigenous People Have Been Here Forever. Why Won't Archeologists Believe It?

[wnylib]

15. Erie PA is my hometown

and is within a couple hours drive from where I live now in NY state. I considered taking anthropology courses at Mercyhurst so the admissions officer there introduced me to Adovasio's staff. He was not in at the time. I had a chance to speak with them about their views on how and when people first arrived in North America. They favored a coastal route across the Bering Strait when it was narrowed by falling sea levels, before glaciers reached the Pacific Coast of North America. They also proposed a coastal route along the southern shore of Beringia after the Bering Strait was closed off.

Adovasio's staff cited an archaeologist whose name I don't remember now who proposed e geographical upside down "horseshoe" region of culture extending from northeastern Asia across the southern shore of Beringia to the northwestern coast of North America, where Canada's British Columbia and the US State of Washington exist now. Beringia would have cut off the icy Arctic waters, making southern Beringia and even NW North America tolerable for human life until the glaciers reached the Pacific Coast.

As the glaciers encroached on the Pacific Coast of North America, and even before then, people could have followed the coast of modern Oregon and California southward. Some would have gone inland along creeks and riverbeds into the interior of North America. This would explain how people reached the Meadowcroft area so long ago. The 14,000 years ago date for Meadowcroft is the most known date (and accepted now by most archaeologists), but there were older dates below that level, as far back as 20,000 years ago.

Adovasio's assistant told me that they had a field study dig coming up that summer (back in the 1990s) for students to get field practice. I was invited to join them as a volunteer. So I did. The dig was in the National Forest in PA, southeast of Erie. In previous years, they had uncovered evidence near there of the ancient Hopewell culture extending that far north and east, even up into southwestern NY.

But the summer that I was there, there were no new findings, just more recent evidence of Iroquoian occupation of the area. Adovasio kept in touch with the Seneca people of that region to get permission to continue the studies. He is very respectful of Native cultures.

While we volunteers (there were about 5 non student volunteers) waited for the students to get set up, a forest ranger took us on a tour of the area, showing us how the Iroquois had planted and maintained trees along river and creek banks to prevent erosion and keep their water routes open for distant travel and trade. He also pointed out how they had maintained land pathways by controlled burning of underbrush, which also kept down the insect and vermin population, while preventing widespread forest fires.

Adovasio has written a book on the peopling of the Americas and other books on the Meadowcroft site. They are available at Amazon. The physical anthropology department at Mercyhurst has participated in several criminal investigations in northwestern PA and southwestern NY.

I was briefly I introduced to Dr. Adovasio during the dig, but his assistants worked more closely with students and volunteers. Unfortunately, I could not stay throughout the dig because I only had limited vacation time from work to be there. But I followed their work through local news articles and e-mails to and from the department.

They have also done archaeology work in the past in southeastern Europe, near Ukraine.