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An American Wellspring Expanding the Search for Homo Sapien Origins: A Reexamination of the Western Hemisphere By Alvah Hicks . Copyright © 2021 by Alvah M. Hicks. This is an open access portion (Chapters 1-3), of a book distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/license/by/4.0 INTRODUCTION as of 11-26-2021 Many Native American Cultures identify that they have “always been here,” that they are truly indigenous to the Americas. Yet, a vocal majority of American archaeologists have until 1997 however (see National Geographic January 1997) steadfastly advocated a less than 13,500-year Terminal Ice Age arrival of people from Northeast Asia. Needless to say, a new chapter culminating from the now widespread distinction of an enduring habitation begs a reappraisal of theoretical premises, some dismissed over a hundred years ago. An American Wellspring, Volume One, will present a general overview of the science of evolutionary anthropology and theories outlining the origins of Native Americans and synthesize a new alternative that embraces the New World as the cradle of humankind. It promises to illuminate what many theologians and scientists have long characterized as, an unheralded place to start in anticipating our human beginnings. The language of anthropology and its assorted terms will be refined as we examine lost horizons of this long-overlooked evolutionary model. Following the immediate European Discovery of the Western Hemisphere, First world People and Second world Inhabitants and the initial separation of them was a major topic of discussion. A Second world evolutionary origin was specifically set aside although eminent scholars at the turn of the XIX were willing to “risk their reputations” in favor of an Autochthonous American origin for all of Humanity. From Holmes, W.H. 1910 Bearing of Archeological Evidence on the Place of Origin and the Question of the Unity or Plurality of the American Race “While the majority of anthropologists hold that man's original home was in Eurasia, there are those who advance reasons which in their judgment are equally adequate to prove that he was autochthonous in America, whence he spread to the Old World. Recent investigations relating to North American as well as South American early man show that the testimony, if it is to stand, MUST HAVE MUCH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT. In view of these conditions, the theory of AN AUTOCHTHONOUS ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN RACE MAY BE SET ASIDE, and the problem of the arrival in the New World of racial elements originating in the Old World need ALONE receive consideration.” (1912) pp. 30-31 all EMPHASIS added AMH Holmes, W.H. Bearing of Archeological Evidence on the Place of Origin and on the Question of the Unity or Plurality of the American Race. (Ibid 1912) The morphological distinctiveness of Homo sapiens and its recognition in the fossil record: Clarifying the problem; Ian Tattersall, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, First published: 22 February 2008 https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.20153 Out of Asia Hypothesis as of 2021 Shi Huang et al. 2021 https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1087730/v1/53ea9d1e-3c91-4fbf-80ab-f57384e0fe28.pdf?c=1637170614 Problems with the Clock and the Out of Africa Consortium; Kern and Hahn 2021; file:///C:/Users/Alvah%20Hicks/Desktop/2021%20Best%20downloads%20pdfs/Kern%20and%20Hahn%202018%20Nuetral%20Theory%20Nat%20Sel%20&%20MClock.pdf Marcelo Toledo 2017; on Florentino Ameghino file:///C:/Users/Alvah%20Hicks/Desktop/2021%20Best%20downloads%20pdfs/%231%20abstract%20con%20tapa%20(1).pdf An American Wellspring By Alvah M. Hicks © Copywrite January 29, 2021 Expanding the Search for Homo Sapiens Sapiens Origins: A Reexamination of the Western Hemisphere 11-04-2021 snippet of CHAPTER ONE The Dawn of Modern Science and Evolutionary Theory’s Lost Horizon "Knowledge is inherent in all things. The World is a library..." Chief Luther Standing Bear; Ogala Sioux The 1984 work “Modern Human Origins: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence” edited by Fred Smith and Frank Spencer, was pivotable and laid the foundation of my work, oversight of the theories contriving to make ends meet. A quote from this pivotal work lays a foundation for the direction of this book. A major problem confronting late 19th century human evolutionists was the incipient argument for the relative stability of the human form. From accumulating skeletal evidence it appeared as if the modern human skeleton extended far back in time, an apparent fact which led many workers to either abandon or modify their views on human evolution. One such apostate was Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913). In 1887, Wallace examined the evidence for early “early man” in the New World, and, like the German anatomist Julian Kollman (1834-1918) who three years earlier had made a similar survey, found not only considerable evidence of antiquity from the available specimens, but also, a continuity of type through time. In an effort to explain this, Wallace [1889, pp 454-461] suggested that once man had become morphologically differentiated from his apish kin (during the mid-Tertiary period), he had remained physically stable (Frank Spencer 1984 pg. 7). As we can see from the preceding quote, many anthropologists were willing to argue that our modern human form has remained relatively stable, far longer than any relationship Europeans might have had with Neandertals. The turn-of-the-century debate centered on the same alternative promoted today of a sudden replacement by modern humans of Homo erectus populations, who are now known to have evolved in Africa (Johanson and Edey 1981). Evidence suggesting that transitional forms suddenly became modern was and continues to be seen as controversial while the main alternative, replacement of the Neandertals, requires a separate origin for modern mankind outside of Europe. Clearly, replacement from the Americas conforming to an autochthonous origin for the American Indian was lost in the emergence of Western European perspectives following the dawn of 'anthropological theory.' A Separate World: The Europeans Discover the Americas Our primary concern in these first Chapters is to lay a foundation for a pending challenge to the Euro-centric contention that has ruled out an American genesis for all human populations living today. An American Wellspring counters the primacy of a “Peopling of the Americas” with an alternative, a Paleoamerican “Peopling of the Old World.” It is no less glaring to question that the ascension to humanlike qualities happened more than once on Planet Earth or the greater cosmos we dwell within. “Philosophical givens” are central to ideas directing a scientific consensus, not only regarding Native American origins but also modern human’s first appearance in the Old World. These “givens” help establish “taboos”, areas that would cast doubt on philosophical starting points defining “consensus opinion”. Certainly, most consensus is proven correct in time. Yet, when resolution seems unobtainable, the philosophical given (and the “paradigms” that eternalize the theoretical framework) must be questioned. It is when chaos is found that taboos must be re-examined for they may reveal clues to the world of the unknown. With a thorough appreciation of these perspectives in mind, we challenge anthropologists to examine a number of “philosophical givens” and address long-standing taboos, one specifically; an Old-World starting place for a recent arrival of Homo sapiens sapiens (Hss). The untested alternative; an autochthonous American Wellspring for Humanity, will be hypothetically sanctioned and drive the discussions set forth in this thesis. A young Passamaquoddy brave once asked, “Why do you call us Indians?” His missionary teacher answered, “Because your lands are east of the Indus River.” This classic interpretation of the Native American Indian and his world has plagued them from Columbus’ discovery. The first Spanish explorers’ descriptions of the Indians were those of a lost race devoid of such attributes as agriculture, civilization, marriage, morals, medicine, metal goods, and above all, religion. This limited view of the Native American Indians slowly changed with the discovery of Northwest Pacific Coast Chiefdoms and Mayan, Incan, and Aztecan Civilizations to mention only a few highly “civilized” societies. It should not surprise anyone that New World Indian societies held the world’s most functionally beautiful cities, superior aqueduct and agricultural systems, hieroglyphic texts, written records and books, astronomical ceremonial worship, and intricate social and political organizations. Following the discovery of the New World, it became vitally important to explain for European theosophy the presence of Native People in the Americas. “It is in there’ present condition that we are to behold, as in a mirror, the features of our own progenitors.” (Adam Ferguson, Edinburgh University, 1767) The theory that mankind originated in the New World has had many champions besides those Native to the Americas. Perhaps, the first European to contemplate an autochthonous view was Bartolemue de Las Casas (1484-1566), a Catholic missionary who traveled to Hispaniola in 1502, witness to some of the first encounters between New and Old World civilizations. His missionary duties included the religious conversion of those Native to the Americas and assimilating their divergent cultural orientations. Las Casas was also engaged in the search for gold and silver that accompanied the Spanish exploitation of the indigenous. Diggings of the early Spaniards in the Caribbean Islands revealed that ancient hearths existed well below the immediate horizon of human habitation. Las Casas was intrigued by the implications this had regarding the antiquity of the ‘Indian’. He postulated many alternatives to the religious orientations that he understood as a European scholar. Surmising that these Native people were living their lives in a way that the earliest Europeans may have once lived he could be likened to an anthropologist in a Friars’ robe. Regarding the placement of the aboriginal nations, Las Casas understood that they were far removed from the cultures of the Old World. He was willing to debate with himself the scope of the isolation of these people. In itself, Las Casas was the first theologian to entertain the length of the isolation that afforded these Indigenous People an origin from within the Americas. Clearly, the discovery of people in the Americas created an alternative to biblical scripture founded in the belief that the earliest societies of the Americas contained the most intrinsic element of human society, an ancient form of reciprocity. Isaac de la Peyrere, in 1655, attended another ancient concept in his work, A Theoretical System upon that Presupposition that Men were before Adam. In this continuation of the work inaugurated by Las Casas, Peyrere addressed theosophical limitations that later anthropologists would directly encounter in the 19th and 20th Centuries. For the first time, Europeans began to look into the Americas as if it were a mirror to their own questions concerning their own origins, even if they were ordained to fit in Judeo-Christian definitions. The principal components of human origins were applied to the Americas well before the scientific inquiry into mankind’s past would herald the basic tenants of evolutionary theory. Identifying the arrival of the first Americans set the stage for the revolution into evolutionary thought where-by Carl Linnaeus could, in 1790, classify God’s Creation into order’s that would link the myriad forms. This procession led to the identification of a scientific framework, eventually leading to the discovery of the evolutionary process. So instrumental was Linnaeus’ work to understanding the evolutionary process that it was the Society that reflects his name that Darwin’s work would be first presented. It seems that European beliefs, be they theological or scientific, could not entertain the idea that the ancestors of Old-World peoples could possibly be Native American Indians. The result remains that the theories that guide our observations are bound to the givens we inherited with anything that might challenge becoming taboo. These beliefs have been handed down while we must ask if censure is flawed by consensus and opinion lacking conjecture. Fundamental understanding of the alternative view held by the original inhabitants of the Americas offers, in our view, a new ascertainment bias. We have chosen to follow a path of our own making. The trickster has shown the Algonquin that you cannot live or move into the forest relying merely on strategies that you learned in hunting Caribou in the grasslands. The trick to undoing the obstacles we find in exploring how to navigate the world of scientific inquiry should require researchers to first validate the methods and possible prejudices that might lead us astray in the first place. I am not suggesting we forget what we have uncovered from the past. However, we must be on our guard of internal prejudice that forestalls the recognition of alternative views of the past and their potential scientific merit. Native Americans understood the immensity of the Americas and their place in this vastness, maintaining knowledge of this in interpretations held in historical records. These embellished stories and myths are revealed in the messages depicted in the lives and historical renditions of the past, as for example, Anishinaabe wampum belts. The movements of Old-World people into these remote reaches of the Americans have since altered the historical translations held by the ancestors who have, as they see it, from a time immemorial, inhabited the Western Hemisphere. In historical perspectives, the records often incorporated into the written history of the Americas do not include, often enough, the appropriation of histories of the original people who were already here. Their messages remain an integral element of each and every tribe’s original knowledge while historians have long overlooked and underestimated the wealth of historical fact contained in them. By removing cultural artifacts including wampum belts and other depictions of histories and their lessons from the past (the heart of indigenous life), museum collectors have left intrinsic understandings and historical interpretations of the indigenous’ “past”, less-than-what-it-should-be. How people came to find their current place in the Americas is retrieved in these depictions, and thus, great mysteries are revealed. These journeys into the past are retold in myths and stories retrieved by the Fire in Ceremonies entrusting a spiritual connection by exemplifying daily life through traditional revisiting. Traditions are anecdotes, gained in the life of any given people. Be they, reenacted in celebration or simple observances, the defining elements of a Culture enjoined with the past. The lives, journeys, and histories of Native American Tribes have suffered without these hereditary records, contributing to the present condition that finds many Native people reluctant to share what remains of their cultural ways. However, contributions made by non-native to the understanding of their “way of life” can be attributed to numerous adventurers who wrote, painted, and photographed depictions that hold today accurate portrayals of the original people of the Americas. Many of these important insights into Indian Life furnished by early ethnologists have been discounted including the observance of the Sundance Ceremony and other rituals encompassing separate worlds of reality. Can human origins be traced to the New World? An evolutionary explanation that transcends both spiritual and scientific explanations might offer us lessons beyond that of where we originated on planet Earth. Anthropologists continue to discount the plausibility of origin stories by insisting that they be scientifically based. Left unattended, the Power of Myth to reveal what has come and gone will continue to elude us. Will the proper interpretation of the past remain, unknown, or exhaustively likened to another separate species (Homo erectus) that may have no relationship to our own origins except that it too evolved from a similar Earthly process? This book attempts to bridge the gap between myth and science by identifying the evolutionary impact properly interpreting the Native American belief “that they have always been here”, holds evolutionary theory. Early European interpretations relating to the origins of the First Americans Bartolome de Las Casas became a leading advocate and benefactor of Native American rights, returning to Spain several times to champion for more humane treatment of the “Indian”. He believed that “they too were the sons and daughters of a benevolent God, and so, worthy of his teachings.” Yet, continued persecution of the Indian accompanied an unwitting contempt for their primitive way of life leaving little reason to include them in the “family of man.” In Las Casas, there was a champion of the indigenous cause and he returned to Spain to argue that their treatment by the Spanish Conquistadors was not in balance with the wishes of the church and/or the crown. His attempt to identify atrocities accompanying the conquest of Mexico culminated in 1550 when he argued with Juan Gines Sepulveda in the Spanish court as to whether the peoples of the New World had a soul. If so, were they worthy of attempts to convert them to Christianity? Las Casas won his argument but, if the Native refused Christianity they were destined for conquest and enslavement. In accompanying this decree, “heathens”, who chose to resist the teachings of the church, were persecuted in the most inhuman ways. In the end, Queen Isabelle’s court attended to the Native Inhabitants’ membership into “the family of man,” thus allowing them to be considered, subjects of the Spanish Kingdom. Las Casas did not win or lose his case, only gaining the directive from the Court counseling more humane treatment of the hemispheres native people. The crown’s knowledge of ongoing atrocities did not prevent them from continuing in Spain’s new realm. Not only did Las Casas consider that these cultures maintained a code of social conduct that was superior to Old World European Civilizations, but that their technological understandings were highly evolved. Worth noting is the soldier’s inquiry as to whether they had “found Heaven upon arriving into the great city of Tahetchuacan?” Las Casas’s efforts unfortunately required the Indians to assimilate biblical scripture through reduccion, a system that ultimately dislocated Indian people from their families and their culture. His reduccion system later spread throughout colonial Spain and, much later, adopted by protestant missionaries in New England and Africa. Through this reduccion the Catholic Church allowed the savage the same rights of god-fearing Old World peoples. Certainly, the alternative of them being ancestral had no explanations from the biblical foundations of the day despite the intriguing question their origins presented. Las Casas’s view of possible great antiquity for the Native Americas was based not only on their primitive nature but on physical evidence including the presence of ancient hearths that were discovered in the silver mines of Hispanola. Isaac de la Peyrere in 1655 undertook the theological investigation in revealing the “presumption that men were before Adam.” He, as most other thinkers of his time, applied religious definitions to the question of the presence of people in the Western Hemisphere, in an attempt to explain a pre-Darwinian rise to humanness from the domains of the Americas. He too was an exception, able to apply legitimate concepts to Indigenous beliefs; that they originated in the Americas. More common was the Judeo-Christian doctrine that rendered the American Indian Natives as a “lost tribe”. Though inappropriate, this concept eventually permitted the pagan Indian societies’ acceptance into the family of man whether or not they were descendants of Adam and Eve. Tracing the “White Man’s Indian” back beyond the Greeks, Egyptians, and Biblical Hebrews helped answer a confounding question of the 15th and 16th centuries; “Where did the Indian come from and how did he get here?”. Unequivocally, the “given” answer to this question was first theorized by Jose de Acosta in 1590 and later championed by others including Thomas Jefferson. Acosta’s description of migration from Asia (later versions entailing the Bering Land Bridge) has continued to be the most popular – though equivocal – theory accounting for humankind’s presence in the Americas. The continuance of this and other evolutionary ideas of ancient man found convenient support in the 19th-century mixing of science and religion. The Native American Indians were the ones who retained, in this natural form, the remnant of our primordial ancient society. This discussion is available to reviewers, should you wish to contact the author… alvahhicks@gmail.com Website @ academia.edu … https://islandnites.academia.edu/AlvahHicks That an autochthonous Origin “MUST HAVE MUCH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT” is the mainstay of this current (2021) effort. The perspective of an American Wellspring for humankind will be expanded in the pages that follow and enliven the study of anthropology by highlighting a new robust re-inclusion of two missing continents to the human origin debate. That this investigation is relative and or legitimate can be found in the conundrum defined and accepted by mainstream evolutionists 110 years ago, (as just noted), and today. From Clark, G.A. NAGPRA, the Conflict between Science and Religion, and the Political Consequences. Society for American Archaeology (1998), Vol. 16, No. 5., pp. 22-25. “Science can be defined as a collection of methods for evaluating the credibility of knowledge claims about the experimental world. Science does not pretend to certainty; it only seeks better and better approximations of it. Scientific conclusions are continuously subjected to critical scrutiny. Science is, therefore, self-correcting. No topic or question is "off-limits" to science.” Clark, G.A. NAGPRA, the Conflict between Science and Religion, and the Political Consequences. Society for American Archaeology (1998), Vol. 16, No. 5., pp. 22-25. emphasis added AMH G. A. Clark, a leading anthropologist and one who has challenged “students” of the Human origins “debate” singling out whether “it is worth asking ourselves whether we are any closer to solving the question of our origins than we were a century ago”. As for the inclusion of the Americas into the debate he contends contentiously, however; “Clearly, humans did not evolve in this hemisphere. Indians haven't always been here, regardless of what their origin myths might say.” Ibid p. 24 Am I missing something that is “off-limits” here or is this Academic Authoritarianism upside-down and standing on its head? That researchers have overlooked the “Second” world is highlighted in the place we are today; as stated by Willamet and G.A. Clark’s articulation of an “interminable debate, now well into its second century, with no resolution in sight” emphasis added. Willamet, C. M., and G. A. Clark. Paradigm crisis in modern human origins research Journal of Human Evolution (1995) 29, 487-490. 1995 (p. 489) There are two primary theories emanating from the Old-World data; “continuity” and “replacement”. How much data is shared in common or how far apart are the interpretations of the data? “Despite the considerable efforts of many well-informed investigators, however, no resolution of the controversy is in sight. We think that the slow progress to resolution of the debate can be attributed to differences in metaphysical paradigms of modern origins researchers that in turn result in a biased selection of specimens and/or variables used in analysis. How selectively biased are researchers? An extensive literature review of published multivariate data invoked in support of "continuity" and "replacement" positions produced some dramatic results (Willamette, 1993, 1994). A total of 680 data points were collected, representing 61 variables on 55 fossils. Of these, only 72 variables on 11 fossils, or 11% of the reported database, were common to both paradigms This means that in the sample, 89% of the data collected were used by members of only one paradigm ibid (p. 488). In light of the plethora of articles and books that have appeared in the last 10 years, it is worth asking ourselves whether we are any closer to solving the question of our origins than we were a century ago. If there is a lesson to be learned from the debate, it is that students of human evolution must begin to confront the inferential basis for their knowledge claims. So far, they have not been much concerned to do so. The result is an interminable debate, now well into its second century, with no resolution in sight (ibid p. 489).” emphasis added Willamet, C. M., and G. A. Clark ibid (1995) 29, 489. 1995 The science of human evolution, and the accompanying theories that drive researchers to interpret our pre-historic past, should be evidently resolvable unless, perhaps, we have left a world of untested parameters out of the equation? A “grand unification theory” remains problematic less we thoroughly examine Lost Horizons by rethinking the circumstances created over five hundred years ago when Worlds of Humanity reconnected. Many researchers today believe that we need more evidence while some would counter that we will never fully decipher our past as a uniform theory when “missing links” run conceptually counter to equilibrium and archetypal evolutionary process. From Tattersall and Schwartz 2008, pg. 52 in the “Conclusion” ‘For a variety of historical reasons explored above, our species has contrived to elude satisfactory morphological definition. Through a sort of self-reinforcing process, whereby each reasonable large-brained extinct form that was shoehorned into the taxon has appeared to enlarge its permissible morphological limits, a huge variety of morphologies has been admitted into H. sapiens, albeit sometimes into archaic varieties of the species. Acceptance of this muddled variety has been facilitated by a view of evolution that emphasizes gradual transformation in lineages, in which species are basically units of convenience rather than of biology, and that are expected in principle to be undefinable in morphological terms. To systematists studying other groups of mammals, this situation would be untenable; it would indeed, effectively prevent them from plying their trade using currently fashionable approaches, but paleoanthropologists have remained fairly unperturbed because, after all, as human beings we “know who we are,” and do not really need to be told, which absolves us, of course, from having to find out.’ From Tattersall and Schwartz 2008, pg. 52 The morphological distinctiveness of Homo sapiens and its recognition in the fossil record: Clarifying the problem Ian Tattersall,Jeffrey H. Schwartz, First published: 22 February 2008 https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.20153 Solutions can be found by unraveling the knot that binds our past by cutting ties to evolutionary links bound solely to First world definitions. The testing of a new theory, connecting the Americas with human evolutionary studies, may offer resolutions to long recognized irreconcilable observations. The alternative interpretation that follows is offered as a point of convergence, bearing witness and abiding respect for what anthropologists have uncovered while remodeling philosophical explanation and scientific determinism. The potential of great antiquity for Native Americans challenges the idea of an ancestral bond connecting Homo erectus (He) and Homo sapiens sapiens (Hss). In this, the now long-standing exclusion of the American Indian from “evolutionary discussions” was made without investigating the far-ranging implications a recent arrival for the Cro-Magnons into Europe itself holds. Alfred Russell Wallace and others, including Sir Arthur Keith, believed that the Neandertals were so far removed from our physical and cultural species (that is anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens sapiens (Hss) that they could not have been our direct ancestor. The Neandertals were for them and many researchers today, a separate species who inhabited Europe only to be replaced by Cro-Magnon ancestors. Could the ancestors of the first so-called ‘modern’ Humans to settle Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa have come from the Americas? This effort will investigate an alternative by offering far-ranging solutions to problems anthropologists have long acknowledged. Is this continuing enigma the consequence of eliminating the direction of migratory links to the western hemisphere that could, would, or should now envisage an American Wellspring for Hss? The relatively recent (~> 50,000 y.b.p.), settlement of the Eastern Hemisphere by our immediate ancestors conforms to an accepted sudden Peopling of Old-World Continents. That the Americas were occupied by Humans before this Old-World settlement will be put to test, as well it should finally see-the-Light-of-Day. Not enough can be said of the enlightenment of finally accepting a pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas, an occupation that continues to expand into and beyond the Last Glacial Maximum (Marcelo Toledo 2017, Steven Holen et al. 2017, for a compiled database, see Paulette Steeves 2021, and others including Louis Leakey and Florentino Ameghino whose reputations were set asunder prematurely). As for the Work of Florentino Ameghino and the dating and opinions generated during the last 140 years and the status of the determination of “Fossil Man” evidence from the Americas I offer the following reference from Toledo 2017: “Bone remains were dated by alternative methods to 14C, since their collagen content is extremely low or null. With no reliable context data, only through direct dating would it be possible to determine the real age of these remains and consider the impact of intentional burials. Exceptionally, the Fontezuelas skull has escaped oblivion, since its discovery under a piece of Glyptodont carapace has made it famous among the scientific community. In addition, the specimen was easily accessible, as it was historically exhibited together with Lund's collection at the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. All dating attempts have been unsuccessful due to the absence of collagen (W. Neves, pers. comm.). In his 1910 visit, Ales Hrdlička (1912) analyzed in detail each of these findings and rejected all the antiquity criteria. Hrdlička blamed the rapid sedimentation of loess, the early fossilization, the ineptitude of the discoverers, and the assumption that every "fossil man" should have a nonmodern morphology.” Pg. 25-26 emphasis added Clovis first has had its day and the distraction has spanned from the onset a near-century of Evolutionary Theory Building. The contentions contained in the passages of this book (Volume 1) present an alternative for the origins of the first Americans as a “Peopling event” by including them in the search for the ancestors of Hss. The problems scientists had in proving that the Mound Builder Cultures were indeed Native American Indians is demonstrative of the mood of 19th Century evolutionists. It was a given, then, to dismiss the Americas as a place to start our human journey, and, from this time, this idea remains inadequately attended. This inadequacy only highlights the need for new hypotheses to now replace Clovis-First Theory, a debunked hypothesis that has crucified as taboo anyone or anything that might shortchange the “paleontological” limiting premise of a recent “‘Peopling’ of the Americas.” This once uncontestable but now disproven timeframe has set the wrong starting point for more than 110 years. A lasting enigma compounding the deliverance of much greater antiquity is still-to-be overcome. Eric Trinkaus suggested to me in 1995 that Monte Verde I is a “game-changer”. Monte Verde I, dated at 33,000 y.b.p. and other like-dated mid-Pleistocene New World sites, portend that a theory encompassing greater antiquity must consider the greater international significance. This work tackles this contention by finding harmony and resolutions linking the New and the Old Worlds in one study. It is difficult for scientists to demonstrate, with fossil evidence, that our species predate Homo erectus, the European Neandertals, and/or, now, the Asian Denisovans, or African Homo erects progenitors. Unfortunately, this directive has left evolutionary science to explore our origins from what must have been a separate species; Homo erectus. Anthropologists have never tested the Americas for an alternative Hss wellspring precipitating our recent so-called modern peopling of Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Could the celebrated Cro-Magnon People, who left the profound historical interpretations of life in Ice Age Europe, have been American Indians exploring for the first time the European Continent? This book is an exploration into this long-dismissed alternative. Our quest is a search for our roots in the Americas, beyond a time transcending every Old-World Heritage. It will unite archaeological, genetic, linguistic, kinship, and anthropological sciences by marrying them into a single set of glass slippers empowering the trickster to reveal an invisible truth. This investigation compliments new data with a long dismissed and/or ignored alternative by consolidating insights gained in the last century and a half of anthropological research. It will address the long-dismissed hypothesis that Native American Indians originated in the Western Hemisphere by suggesting that the human species can be traced back into the Americas. We will draw attention, historically and scientifically, to the untested nature of this idea; that humankind evolved in the Americas and entered the Eastern Hemisphere only recently, that is, less than 45,000 years ago. This alternative has had many unheralded advocates, vanguards of an American Wellspring. It is the intention to bring their concerns and insights to life in the pages that follow, to cast fresh light on long-lost passages of our human past. Given the wide range of anthropological tools available today it is time to re-examine the viable alternatives and the potential resolution to the human origins debate inclusion of the Americas offers human evolutionary science. A General Overview This proposal contrasts the commonly held sentiment of a “Peopling of the Americas” with a long untested premise, an autochthonous wellspring for Human Beings from within the Americas? This alternative suggests that “sudden replacement” of Old-World Homo erectus (Hs) populations is compatible with a New World source for Homo sapiens sapiens, (Hss) with all human ancestors being the product of an evolutionary process isolated to the Western Hemisphere. Reasonable scientific objectives should compel researchers to evaluate this alternative. The following points identify historical and scientific discretion encompassing the evolution of Old-World human origin theories, which have effectively nullified the evaluation of this premise. We ask you to set aside any initial skepticism and open-heartedly evaluate the rationale of some of our ideas, opinions, and concerns. 1. Philosophical Interpretations: What role did European dominion play in leading later anthropologists to synthesize an Asian origin for the first Americans as the only way to explain how the Americas came to be inhabited “peopled” by Homo sapiens? It is well perceived the Old World was only recently (50k y.b.p + 5k) “peopled” by fully modern humans (i.e. sudden replacement)? Replacement from the Americas remains untested despite a continuing enigma that pervades a solution to, not only the origins of Paleoamericans but also, the timing of our species entry into what has long been articulated (since 1492), as the “First World”. 2. Historical Concepts: Evolutionary anthropologists may be unaware of the ingrained religious and historical provisos unremittingly worn that undermine(d) this discretion (“First world” vs “Second world” 1520), inasmuch as the dominant scientific paradigm has steadfastly dictated an Asian origin for the first human inhabitants of the Americas. This reexamination will analyze historical and scientific penchant surreptitiously delineating an American wellspring as comprising ‘a Second-world’ null-hypothesis. Offered are compatible explanations to untested historical renderings of humankinds’ past by adopting a new paradigm to guide tenable observations; American Wellspring Hypothesis (AWH). 3. Scientific Testing: Have researchers ever exercised the scientific merit of the numerous ‘Paleoamerican’ (a reference to Native Americans ancient populations), claims of genuine autochthonous origins? Our research strategy frees this claim as theory, entrusting it to guide our observations. It asks how long anatomically modern humans have been Homo sapiens by examining the Procrustean limitations that have us contorting dueling theories set asunder by paradigm-bias fixed within the confines of the First world. We may all agree that known Old World hominid precursors led to Homo erectus but does this satisfy our quest for real solutions to sapient origins? Although we have a great deal of paleontological and archaeological evidence primary to Homo erectus, the search for compatible evidence from the Americas leading to Homo sapiens has been checkmated by the Clovis First doctrine. We now must accept Clovis First dogma as inadequate in explaining a “pre-projectile point horizon” void of refinements that were developed in stages during the modern human colonization of the Eastern Hemisphere. The “learned economies” accompanying a Reduced Paleolithic (RP), preserved at Monte Verde may be diagnostic to other American Pleistocene occupations. An archaeological explanation (not uncontested dismissal as untimely), can be found for the numerous earlier “early, early Man” Pleistocene (Paleoamerican) sites that offer human behaviors (hearths, imported bone and a Reduced Paleolithic stage), even if they might be less refined. They are speaking to us; we must appreciate the story they tell. 4. Behavioral Archaeology: Archaeology is the backbone of physical observation and while we have little if any, reliable evidence to validate an earlier than 45,000 year behaviorally sapient presence anywhere in the Old World (including Border Cave, Stillbay, and Klasies River Mouth). An initial exodus out of Africa 1.5 Million – 50,000 years ago) remains the archetype for multi-regional theory as pre- >43,000-32,000 y.b.p. archaeological contexts can be attributed to Homo erectus groups. The proposed archaeological and genetic evidence for Homo sapiens’s second recent exit “Out of Africa” requires, behavioral and genetic bottlenecks. Problematic evidence of the so-called transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic delineates as “The Mousterian Problem” while a resolution has yet to solve this dilemma (see L. Binford 1983, Klein 1989, and others). The Out of the Americas alternative offers a better explanation. The next step in archaeological theory building is to ponder the worldwide significance a validation of “early early man sites” from the Americas holds when scrutinizing the pre-Clovis archaeological record as a truly ancient evolutionary signature; a Reduced Paleolithic. Have we applied “paradigm growth and theory building” to the autochthonous Paleoamerican model to synthesize a greater antiquity for pre-Clovis Americans? Certainly, this phase of human behavior is difficult to derive from Old World Middle or Late/Upper Paleolithic contexts, the primary reason the “pre-Clovis” has taken so long to gain favor beyond the Clovis First Paradigm. We should examine early pre-Clovis/mid-Pleistocene sites as an ancestral condition uniquely aligned with an autochthonous inhabitancy of the Americas by “Exploring Niche Variability as a Possible Key to Evolutionary Processes Operating Within and Among Cultural Systems (i.e. Johnson and Binford, SAA Symposium, 2001)”. Can we distinguish the evolution of human behavior by looking first to the widespread pre-Clovis New World reliance on bone, wood, and simple stone tools? In contrast to later Fluted Paleoindian Clovis Traditions, earlier pre-Clovis sites show their own uniformity marked by similarities supporting archaeological descriptions throughout early America; through the remarkably well-preserved site at Monte Verde-II, dated at 14,500, and the earlier less discernible level MV-I, dated to 33,000 years. For-the-record(!) the NW hand-made clay-lined hearths often associated with pre-Clovis human activity cannot be simply the result of geo-factual production due to the simple fact that such natural manifestations would be expected in or near Homo erectus occupations. In contrast, archaeologists studying the Middle Paleolithic would be exacting archaeological manuports and hearth-like contexts as proof of sapient behavior. These and other pre-Clovis anomalies defy a scientific analogy less we forge an archaeological theory to guide the evolutionary significance of this ancient pattern of behavior. 5. Migration Theory: Could a modern human exodus ‘out of the Americas’ have predicated niche adaptation (including bone engendered hunting technologies) as Old-World human ancestors exited the Americas through the America’s Arctic north. We suggest the origins of the Old World Upper Paleolithic resulted from encounters between once-isolated hominid species with this first occurring in southern Siberia (Otte 1996 and others). Homo sapiens later perfected the Aurignacian tool kit as they migrated west across the Russian Steppe into Europe (Leonova 1994, Goebel et al. 2007, see “Intentional fragmentation of blades in the initial upper Paleolithic industries of the Kara-Bom site (Altai, Russia) 2019; Vyacheslav S. Slavinsky, Evgeny P. Rybin, Arina M. Khatsenovich, Natalia E. Belousov)”. This study employs an inter-disciplinary strategy that embraces conservative archaeological and genetic dates for the arrival of our species; conforming with peopling of the Old World’ by Homo sapiens ‘Paleoamericans’ beginning ~45,000 (+ 5,000) years ago. The onset and development of the Upper Late Paleolithic and African’ Later Stone Age industries is contrasted with a human exodus ‘out of the Americas’ predating the evolution of the modern lithic archaeological contexts. We believe the Upper Paleolithic was directly influenced by Homo sapiens (‘Amerindian) encounters with late Middle Paleolithic Homo erectus populations. The result of our (Amerindian) Old World ancestors “boldly going where no [sapien] man had gone before”! Geological & Geographic Perspectives: Could isolation before and following the onset of the last Ice Age help explain why Old-World behavioral advancements (distinguishing the Late/Upper Paleolithic/Later Stone Age), are missing in pre-Clovis America? If we look at migration in reverse, adaptation to a new niche (natural selection) resulting from migration through the northern corridor (out the backdoor of the Americas) would archaeologically distinguish the initial evolution of hunting cultures (bone to stone; see Richard Morlan 1985 from preceding pre-Clovis antecedents? Can missing behavioral links be explained by incorporating the Americas and Reduced Paleolithic lifestyles into the equation? Will the “Clovis-First Model” finally “Rest in Peace” and accept the initial American Upper Paleolithic’s Paleoindian phase as a migration/diffusion of Old World Paleolithic hunting cultures into preexisting Paleoamerican Populations? We must bridge these and other behavioral gaps that have far too long sustained Clovis-First as “theory” and left, in its wake, unheralded the now established existence of a unique pre-Clovis “Reduced Paleolithic” signature. A new hypothesis is needed to guide the diminished human production accommodating the evolutionary dimension underlying the temperament complimenting the pre-Clovis component. We suggest that a “Reduced Paleolithic” was precursory to the Upper Paleolithic and the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), (~ 30,000 ybp), caused isolation. This factor delayed the return and diffusion of these initially derived Old-World advancements that later, after the Ice Age Terminated (TIA) 13,200 ybp, came to define subsequent Paleoindian Traditions. Paleontological Concepts: Historical footnotes contend separate hominid wellsprings for H. erectus and H. sapiens although few have examined, with earnest, the favorable evolutionary parameters a New World wellspring for humanity encompasses. We do not contest the Old-World fossil record of evolution and exodus of Homo erectus from Africa while we do counter that favorable paleontological locations and theories drawn from these discoveries have driven this Old-World effort. Alternatively, we could agree that the New World does not contain anything similar to a Great Rift Valley while a vast majority of even the most promising NW human specimens remain undated. We currently have Fossil man finds from the Americas that have exhausted the collagen and are not datable with C-14 and have required alternative dating procedures while the search continues (M. Toledo, personal correspondence). Could observations of the New World human fossil record suggest a “relative stability of the modern human form over time” (i.e. Keith, Kollman, Wallace, and others)? A theory to guide such an effort is confounded by Clovis-First and other inaccurate and/or misleading perspectives based on now-outdated archaeological perspectives. Most prominent is the belief that our species, Homo sapiens, could not predate our appearance in the Eastern Hemisphere as had Alex Hrdlička required; they do not resemble Neanderthals or supposed predecessors being a more primitive being. If pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas predates the Upper/Late or African Later Stone Age/ Paleolithic then Homo sapiens sapiens originated in the Americas; period. A reevaluation of the existing fossil record and a renewed search for fossil remains is beginning to manifest previous interpretations of Last Glacial Maximum habitations. Linguistic Compatibility: Shouldn’t the existence of nearly 1/2 of the world’s language families require us to examine anthropological data supporting greater antiquity for mankind within the Americas? Dr. German Dziebel’s (2007) data supporting unprecedented antiquity for man in the Americas, based on a worldwide study of kinship systems and their associated nomenclature, sheds new light on human cultural diversity (http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/ ). Genetic Correlates: Extensive molecular diversity on the tribal level and Mutational-drift-equilibrium detected in ‘Amerindian Populations’ suggests we define a theory to guide these observations. Compelling phylogenetic evidence, complimenting both mtDNA and Y chromosome data, can be synthesized to delineate an “Amerindian wellspring”. There are simply too many (26) “Eves” or founding mtDNA lineages from the Americas, to pick just one as the root. Moreover, a single founding population suggesting one population exodus ‘Out of the Americas’ before the onset of the Wisconsin/Wurm Ice Age best accounts for the “bottleneck” distinguishing Old-World population structure while a phylogenic model of decent is best supported by the “out of Asia” hypothesis for Old World mtDNA distributions (see Johnson et al. 1983). This is perhaps the most equivocal evidence and is brought together in a clear and orderly synthesis in this work! Evolutionary Models: Franz Boas remarked in 1930 that the presence of apes in the Old World and not the New, would seem to forestall an inclusion of the Americas in the search for human primate ancestors. Was he posing a question that remains unanswered; ‘must all hominid/human ancestors follow the same path as the African paleontological record dictates.’ We might ask today whether there are common anatomical and/or behavioral affinities shared in parallel between primates and hominids that would augment the diagnostic link of knuckle-walking and bipedalism as precursory to hominoid/human evolution (Osborn 1932)? Moreover, there are a number of anatomical conditions that are shared between Homo sapiens and New World primates while similar comparisons can be drawn between Homo erectus and Old-World primates, be they ape or monkey. An orderly synthesis will also be demonstrated in this work. Welcome are any and all responses this query might generate. Alvah M. Hicks e-mail: alvahhicks@gmail.com web-site https://alvahhicks.academia.edu/ Alvah M. Pardner Hicks P. O. Box 2481 Atascadero, California 93423 (805) 930-5489 For greater detail I recommend German Dziebel’s ground breaking website: http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/ An American Wellspring An Inclusion and Reexamination of the Western Hemisphere: Expanding the Search for Homo sapiens sapiens Origins Chapter One: The Dawn of Modern Science: Evolutionary Theory’s Lost Horizon 1. Earth’s ‘Two Worlds’ aside the European Discovery of the Americas Early European interpretations relating to the origins of the First Americans Theosophical and Philosophical Contentions: The Cart before the Horse Science tackles “Human Origins” Points of Order: Basic Assumptions Regarding a “Peopling of the Americas” We have always been Here: Native American concepts of Autochthonous Origins Chapter Two: Looking out from the Americas: Paradigm Growth & Theory Building Geographic Constraints: Why it took so long to find the ‘Old’ World Archaeological Facts and the Nature of pre-Clovis Man in the Americas A New Anthropological Design New World Paradigms and Paradigm Bias Old World Paradigms and Sudden Replacement Chapter Three: The Sapient Peopling of the Old World 13. An Emerging Theory: Insights and Alternative Explanations 14. Corridors of Migration: Out the Backdoor of the Americas Fossil Evidence: the New and Old World Paleontological Record The Invisible Truth: Inviting Cinderella to the Conference Chapter Four: Pre-Clovis/Paleoamericans: A pre-Paleolithic Basal Hss Signature 17. Neandertals in Europe and Modern Humans in Chile: Problems or Possibilities 18. A Reappraisal of The Genetic Data 19. Franz Boas and the Holocene Amerindian Settlement of Northeast Asia 20. Language Correlates and Related Fields Ascertainment Bias Sudden-Replacement and Out of Africa I and II Science and Scientific Revolutions: Treading on Thin Ice Clovis–First and the pre-Clovis Enigma Chapter Five: Paleoamerican Source for Sudden Replacement 24. Historical Anthropology: Lessons from the Trickster Lessons Gained from Studies of the Past Boldly Going where we have never gone before: from Polynesia to Outer Space From Bone to Stone: pre-Clovis to Clovis: The casual links of Human Passage Pending Resolutions in Evolutionary Anthropology The Human Species Longing to Reveal Great Mysteries Where do we go from Here: Our obligation to Future Generations? Additional References; Marcos Paulo Ramos 2 mos ago Thank you so much Alvah Hicks for inviting me to this super thought-provoking debate. Congratulations on the text, it's getting really good. I would like to suggest some (non-exhaustive) bibliography that I believe will be of interest to the author. All texts are available online. "Human occupation in South America by 20,000 BC: The Toca da Tira Peia site, Piauí, Brazil" Lahaye et al. 2013; "New Data on a Pleistocene Archaeological Sequence in South America: Toca do Sítio do Meio, Piauí, Brazil" Boëda et al. 2014a; "The people of South America: Expanding the evidence" Boëda et al. 2014b; "A new late Pleistocene archaeological sequence in South America: The Pedra Furada Valley (Piauí, Brazil)" Boëda et al. 2014c; "Alteridades técnicas no Brasil Pleistocênico" Ramos, Boëda, 2019; "PaleoAmerica The Chiquihuite Cave, the Real Novelty? Observations on the Still-ignored South American Prehistory" Boëda et al. 2020; "24.0 kyr cal BP stone artefact from Vale da Pedra Furada, Piauí, Brazil: Techno-functional analysis" Boëda et al; 2021; "Beyond the Mighty Projectile Point: Techno-functional Study in a Late Pleistocene Artifact, Pilauco Site, Osorno, Northwestern Chilean Patagonia" Perez-Balarezo et al. 2021; These articles bring a new look at the Pleistocene occupations in South America derived from the work of the team of the Franco-Brazilian Archaeological Mission of Piauí (2008-2023). There are also more recent articles produced by members of our team who are working on lithic collections evidenced at archaeological levels dating from the Pleiscene at sites in other South American countries besides Brazil. I believe that this bibliography helps to advance the discussion regarding the reasoning applied to distinguish, on the one hand, between natural breaks related to the mechanisms acting in the geomorphological context in which the archaeological sites are inserted and, on the other hand, the technical acts (selections of natural characteristics and/or fractures performed with the intention of obtaining a technical object [sensu SIMONDON, 1958]) inscribed in the context of a lithic collection. This is an important element: characteristics evaluated not only on the diagnosable stigmas in artifacts considered individually, but considered from the perspective of an archaeological context of low visibility that gradually presents itself, as progresses the investigation on the techno-functional criteria managed within a particular industry. I ask that the author, if interested in integrating data from South America in his review of possible scenarios for American settlements, also pay attention to the supplementary materials that accompany these articles (especially Boëda et al. 2014c). Mais uma vez, muito obrigado pelo convite! Alvah M Hicks 2 mos ago 8-01-2021 Thank you Marcos Paulo Ramos, It is nice to hear a clear voice from South America once again. I am going to offer a few links generated from my past Discussions during the last 12 months. Are the Americas the only human habitations requiring citerias? Paulette Steeves website tipdba.com and unsurpassed Data base N America and S America https://tipdba.com/database/ Brief from T Dillehay, Pino, Ocompos 2020 and the Authors validation of MV I at 33ky https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20555563.2020.1811457?src=recsys The site you cite from Brazil 24 KY Brazil https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247965 My AMH Discussion a acdemia.edu MV I https://www.academia.edu/s/6df6e633ea More sites from another contributor Author Dimitar Alekseev to this discussion https://www.academia.edu/41462614/Earliest_Traces_of_Human_Activity_in_North_America_Author_Dimitar_Alekseev_Dimitrov?email_work_card=title My collegue German Dziebels website http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/ Yap paper https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(07)64077-4 Chapter 7 Geographic constraints Discussion https://www.academia.edu/s/aa0e344c72 L3 MtDNA back into Africa https://www.academia.edu/37239100/Carriers_of_mitochondrial_DNA_macrohaplogroup_L3_basal_lineages_migrated_back_to_Africa_from_Asia_around_70_000_years_ago 11