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That PBS special on the Clovis people made me rethink the whole timeline
I caught a segment on Nova last night where they talked about the Monte Verde site in Chile and how it's pushing human habitation back way before 13,000 years. My takeaway is we put way too much faith in the Clovis-first model for decades. Archaeologists seem to resist changing their minds even when the evidence stacks up. Has anyone else noticed how slow the field is to admit when they got it wrong?
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jamie_smith2mo ago
Idk if it's totally fair to say archaeologists resisted changing their minds, more like the evidence just wasn't there yet for a long time. The whole Clovis-first model was basically the default because nobody found anything older that could be proven without doubt. Monte Verde took like 20 years to get accepted because there were legit questions about whether the artifacts were actually that old or just mixed up in the dirt from later layers. Even now some people still argue about it. But you're right that the field moves slower than you'd think sometimes.
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paige4272mo ago
Fair point, but here's the thing nobody talks about. The whole Clovis-first model got so deeply embedded in textbooks and university curriculum that challenging it meant risking your entire career funding. Young archaeologists literally couldn't afford to question it without getting blackballed from digs and grants.
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