E.P. Grondine epgrondine@hotmail.com
INTRODUCTION: SURVEY SCOPE AND TECHNIQUES USED
Hello Benny,
In my survey last year of impact events and the Native American peoples of South-East North America, I mentioned several items and then let them pass, as they laid outside of the scope of that survey proper. Nearly all of those items pertained to the coastal peoples of the region, and there were good reasons for this limitation of scope: due to both the maritime nature of these peoples’ cultures, as well as to the ecological niches in which they lived, it is impossible to consider these peoples outside of the wider context of the peoples who lived during the same period on the islands in the Caribbean Sea and along the coasts of Central America.
This essay is a first attempt to extend that earlier survey into those coastal areas. Unlike last year’s survey, where site visits were followed up with an extensive literature search, this survey is limited solely to a literature search. My opinion is that the technique used for the first survey is much more efficient, as site visits allow for a familiarization with the pottery sequences, iconography, and technologies, those items which are really the key to population movements, and thus to a full understanding of the evolution of any oral or written records which remain. But sadly yet once again, as in preceding years, the folks at the MacArthur Foundation have failed to declare me a genius and send me a large amount of money, so due to the costs involved in visiting sites over such a wide area, a literature search was the only technique available to me. Should someone wish to fund visits to sites in the Caribbean and Central America they would undoubtedly improve the survey to a considerable degree; the general consensus seems to be that site visits to the Caribbean and Central America which are taken in the middle of the North American winter are optimal.
Before starting any survey we might reasonably expect, given the data which has been recovered up to this time from other areas of the Earth, that over a suitably long period of time the peoples living in these coastal areas would also have been affected by impact events. Indeed, several Conference participants have been arguing for quite some time for the existence of a Holocene-start impact event which affected this area. The first part of this survey will be a limited review of some anthropological materials pertaining on this possible impact event, though this will not be a detailed work. Also included in this first part of the survey will be a brief mention of a possible mega-tsunami produced geological structure, the Puuk Foothills of the Yucatan.
The bulk of this survey will focus on a mega-tsunami event ca. 1150-1050 BCE, which fairly well devastated those living along the coasts of this area. In order, the second part of the survey will cover the peopling of the areas which the impact affected, and describe the lives of those who died in the event. The third part of the survey will cover the preservation of later historical records and folk memories of the catastrophe. The fourth part will set out some of the historical and myth materials which have survived, including also some materials which appear to refer to the earlier Rio Cuarto impact event.
In closing this introduction, I want to state that this has been the survey from hell. These peoples were completely warped by this impact, and had a world view which was both unified and completely distinct from that of western Europe. While the world view of the South East Native American peoples resonated with me to a certain degree, as I am familiar with their lands, the world view of the peoples of the coastal regions never has. Having worked through the material on them to the extent which I have, I suspect that anthropology would be better as a science if anthropologists were generally required to work on peoples with which they did not identify, so as to reduce the problem of identification.
Given this far far far different world view, it appears that it normally takes around 20 years for an anthropologist to master these materials to the point at which they can make substantial contributions to the field. But in the case of these impacts events, the cultural points are gross, to put it succinctly, and my ambitions extend no further than that I may direct those trained in these cultures to that evidence, without committing too many blunders along the way.
Finally, it helps if one is not distracted by current events. That said, here goes...
THE DIFFICULTIES OF WORKING WITH COASTAL DATA
One of the key difficulties working with coastal data from any part of the world is its lack of completeness. This is due in part to the rise in sea level which has been occurring since the last ice age, a rise which the archaeologists at the United States’ National Park Service have estimated at being between 60 to 100 meters. The image here gives some idea of the effects of this rise in sea level on the area being surveyed here:
As many here might expect, this rise in sea level was not continuous, as may be seen at:
(I wish that I could show you these graphics, but The National Park Service computers are out at the moment due to a court order: it seems that since some of the Bureau Of Indian Affairs computers were not secure, a judge decided to shut done all of the Department of Interior’s computers. While it is clear that the judge exceeded his purvey, the problem is really more fundamental than that, and this decision more generally is somewhat indicative of the general political disfunction which US citizens are currently enjoying.)
The good news is that most ports from the time of European contact still remain well above water. It would be nice if we had a much better idea exactly how long this is going to be true.
Another principle cause of lack of completeness of south-east North American and Caribbean coastal data may be ascribed to the effects of hurricanes, which regularly come in off the Atlantic Ocean and wash away large areas within this region. It is very difficult to differentiate the effects of impact produced mega-tsunami floods from the effects of hurricane, even when a large area is damaged, as this may be due a particularly severe hurricane season instead of a mega-tsunami.
Aside from scale, the only other means of the first differentiating the effects of smaller mega-tsunami from that of hurricane is human memory of impact, and this exists only if the people survived the impact, and then survived into the modern age when their memories could be recorded, and then those records survived to be circulated. Fortunately for us, some materials did survive, and these can now be used to direct subsequent geological and archaeological fieldwork.
THE ANCIENT SIBERIAN LAND BRIDGE(S) AND THE PALEO AND ARCHAIC HUNTERS
In my previous survey I mentioned some of the prevailing theories held generally by the anthropological community as to the peopling of North America, and went into some detail on the difficulties that community faced in moving that work forward. While the Paleo time period is outside the scope of this survey proper, again a few words on the Paleo and Archaic hunters are in order at this point. It is popularly believed that there was “the” ancient Siberian land bridge which allowed man to cross into the Americas ran down the Pacific coast. While some Pacific coastal sites are most certainly are now under water due to rising sea levels, it is certain that a main corridor ran inland of the coastal mountain ridge, a corridor which connected to the plains of North America.
The dates when people first crossed this land bridge are hotly contested, and there is little consensus. Some anthropologists argue that there were multiple crossings, some very very early, with very different racial types coming across each time, racial types as different as say Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Others argue that a wave of very early people came first, and that then a wave of “oriental” Native Americans was followed by a wave of more “european” Native Americans. But problems arise with this, as the actual rate of human mutation in response to diet and environment is unknown. It is clear that the current generation of Japanese is much taller than their parents, in response to nothing more than a change in diet between one generation and the next.
The Paleo occupation sites that have been found and studied are widely scattered in time and space, and there are no less than 3 lithic traditions and 1 a-lithic tradition present. Whoever they were, the Paleo peoples hunted large game such as mammoth and ground sloths until their extinction, pursuing the vanishing herds to the south and east of the North American continent, and down through Central America on into South America. Total game populations as well as the environments are pretty well unknown. It is known that in Africa large herds of elephant have converted forested areas to grassland, and that later Native Americans would intentionally set fires both as a way of hunting bison as well as to provide pasturage for deer. Besides stampeding game off of cliffs, another hunting technique was the trapping of mammoth in bogs, and the digging of pit traps certainly seems to be another possible technique.
THE ROLE OF LARGE WATERCRAFT IN THE PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS
With regard to the coastal peoples of South East North America, two final migrations must also be noted. In my previous survey I mentioned that the Red Paint peoples showed up on Canada’s northern east coast at a very early time. Their economy was ocean based and seems to have relied upon the harvesting of a flightless bird which is now extinct, possibly as a result of this harvesting, and it is possible that this also was true for mammoths, sloths, etc... Amazingly, these peoples’ culture shows affinities with contemporaneous northern European cultures.
Apart from this European passage, since last year’s survey new data have become available which show that large boats may have played a role in the initial movement of people into North America, and this at a time far earlier than suspected. At Quebrada Jaguay in Peru, a team led by Daniel H. Sandweiss of the University of Maine, Orono, recovered bits of knotted cordage, possibly the remains of fishing nets, abundant bones of fish, primarily drum, and shells of mollusks and crustaceans dated to between 11,924-10,774 BCE. At Quebrada Tacahuay in Peru, researchers led by David K. Keefer of the U.S. Geological Survey found a hearth, tools and obsidian flakes, as well as the bones of numerous fish—mostly anchovy, whose small size implies the use of nets rather than hook and line—and seabirds, including cormorants, booby, and pelican, remains radio carbon dated to about 10,789 BCE.
It is suspected by some anthropologists that man had large watercraft at a very early period in time, roughly at about the time of the peopling of Australia, though here again the dates are hotly contested. While the remains recovered from South America so far do not confirm the existence of large watercraft at this very early period in time, the remains from the Arlington Springs site on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of California most certainly do:
http://www.peak.org/csfa/mt14-3.html.
We have abundant documentation of the large ocean going water craft in use along the Pacific coast during the time of European contact, watercraft of a type whose use extended up to the 1900’s CE [that is CE, read correctly], and these watercraft will be discussed a little farther along in this survey.
MAN ENTERS THE EAST COAST
My house here in Virginia lies on Mountain Run, a small stream which flows into the Rapidan “River” over at Claire Ducker’s place; the Rapidan River itself flows into the Rappahannock River just a little further downstream, over at the community college and the highway. There archaeologists surveying the route for the widening of the highway stumbled across an ancient jasper quarry at Brook Run which was in use ca. 9500 BCE.
Little occupational debris has been found at the Brook Run site, and this is little surprise. These Clovis hunters probably continued down the Rappahannock River to what would then have been the Chesapeake River, (instead of the Chesapeake Bay), on down stream to the land of easy living. They then returned to Brook Run only to gather the stones they needed to make their tools. If you stop to consider it, it immediately seems reasonable that it would have been far easier to make a living by harvesting fish and shell fish and killing peaceful coastal browsing deer rather than by killing large angry mamoth and mastodon; and indeed, judging from the remains found to date, ancient man seems to have reached this very same conclusion rather quickly.
The earliest evidence found so far of ancient man in Virginia comes from the Cactus Hill site, which lies near the interior of southeastern Virginia’s coastal plain, on the floodplain of the Nottoway River, a small river that drains a relatively moist region before it joins with two other rivers to ultimately discharge into the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. Along the Nottoway blades made from the local quartzite have been found in pre-Clovis levels dating back to ca. 14,990 BCE.
Current faunal remains from the Cactus Hill site include deer bones and mud turtle shells. Clovis technologies, usually thought to be some of the earliest lithic technologies, do not show up here until the relatively late date of 8,970 BCE. It is currently impossible to know whether this change in tool types was simply the introduction of new technologies, or whether it represented a new migration into the area; in part this is due to lack of excavation, and in part it is due to the looting of the site by arrowhead hunters.
LET’S NOT HUNT ANYTHING WHICH CAN KILL US, EH?
The switch in diet is more clearly seen at the Saltville River site located in the Shenandoah Valley, which lies to the west of the coastal area, between ridges of the Appalachian Mountains. The animals were attracted here by the salt licks (it is after all called the “Saltriver”), and man in turn was attracted by the animals, particularly the ones who had become bogged down in the mud near the salt licks. The remains of mastodon, mamoth, ground sloth, bison, musk ox, caribou (it was still cold), wild horses, and deer have been found here, including the worked bones of mastodon and musk ox dated to around 12,000 BCE. Nearby the excavators found large shell middens (mounds of fresh water shells) which incorporated the butchered remains of fish and amphibians and which dated to around the same time. While the ages of both the Cactus Hill site and the Saltville site are hotly contested, it is extremely unlikely that these shells just piled themselves up, conveniently including butchered remains.
THE EARLY HUNTERS OF FLORIDA
The range of the mega-fauna on which early man dined was not limited to northern regions. As has been pointed out elsewhere repeatedly, elephants live today in Africa, India, and South East Asia, and they are not restricted to eating grass in grasslands, but will eat the bark off trees if necessary. Remains of early man have been found at the Coats-Hines site in Tennessee, at the Topper site in South Carolina, and more central to the area of this study, at the Little Salt Spring site and Page Ladson site in Florida. In particular, worked bone and ivory from a number of extinct mammals have been found at a number of places in Florida.
A DISCONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT?
Strangely, the quarry at Brooks Run was abandoned after what is estimated at only a few hundred years of use. Strangely, at the Cactus Hill site, the early pre-Clovis and Clovis levels are separated by several meters of sterile sand from the occupation levels left there by the later Archaic peoples. IT NEEDS TO BE NOTED that the date of these discontinuities is shortly before 8,000 BCE, a date much different than some of the dates currently being proposed by some for a Holocene-start impact event.
Anyone who wishes to work on the study of the hypothesized Holocene-start impact event will have to go through the every site report for every excavation east of the Appalachian Mountains of the remains of early man, and try to prove discontinuous habitation of them. Further, they will have to go through every site report for the mid-section of the continent in order to locate exactly where man survived the event, and where the earlier tool forms show clear signs of evolution into the later archaic tool forms.
Good luck. Those who may wish to undertake such a task can find a list of sites compiled by National Park Service researchers at: http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/EAM/SE1.HTM.
Another list, this one giving a list of Chesapeake region sites may be found at:
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/pubs/gateways/plainandpiedmont/HF-CH2.pdf
A SHORT NOTE ON THE PUUC FOOTHILLS
During the course of research for this survey I learned of the existence of a geological formation which may be the result of a mega-tsunami. The Puuc Foothills lie in Northern Yucatan, and take their name from the Mayan word for hill, “puc”. They are composed of mounds of alluvial soil piled in a great set of hills which roughly outline the north coast of Yucatan. While to my knowledge no effort has been made to date these structures, due to their layout I doubt if they are indicative of the hypothesized Holocene-start event; rather, they seem to indicate an impact event and mega-tsunami, which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico at date unknown.
GOING INTO THE WATER:
A SURVEY OF IMPACT EVENTS AND
THE COASTAL PEOPLES OF SOUTH-EAST NORTH AMERICA, THE CARIBBEAN, AND CENTRAL AMERICA
@2001 E.P. Grondine epgrondine@hotmail.com
PART II: MAN RETURNS TO THE COASTAL AREAS
THE ARCHAIC IMMIGRATIONS
Given the spread of sites over such a wide area of south east North America where pre-Clovis and Clovis tools are found, some may wonder why these peoples did not adopt the new archaic tool technologies, and why evidence of that evolution has not been found. Of course, no Conference participant will have any such questions, as to most it will probably seem likely that the reason these peoples did not adopt archaic tool technologies was simply that they were dead, killed in the Holocene-start impact event.
Instead, Conference participants might expect what is found, which is the slow introduction of these archaic tools by the migrations of archaic tool users from other areas. Indeed, any Holocene-start impact which may have occurred would not only have killed all humans living in the area affected by it, but it would also have completely destroyed all the herds of game animals which lived in the area. With no game to hunt, there would have been no reason for man to move back into the area, until game herds had recovered.
A NEW TECHNOLOGY APPEARS IN THE ARCHAIC: WATERCRAFT
In the Chesapeake Bay area we find evidence of new additions to the Archaic peoples’ diets of deer, bear, and small mammals: the remains of American oysters, hard clams, soft clams, Bay shad, and sturgeon. The sure signs of the maritime adaption of these archaic peoples are the appearance of fishing net weights along with axes and adzes. While nets can be cast from shore to catch some varieties of both birds and fish, they are more effective for fish if they are used from a canoe. And while dug out canoes can be manufactured by burning out the center of naturally downed trees, better watercraft can be had if a good tree is selected, ringed with an axe, coals set into this ring until the tree is downed, the tree trunk’s center burned out, and then the rough form finished into a hull with an adze.
WAS THIS TECHNOLOGY IMPORTED? - THE RED PAINT PEOPLE?
The question now comes as to the spread of this technology, and its point of origin. Clearly, if the proposed Holocene-start impact event occurred, nearly all peoples along both the American and European Atlantic coastal areas would have perished. An artic survival may have been possible, and then have been spread back across the north Atlantic by the Red Paint people. But as near as I know, the Red Paint People used watercraft constructed from animal hides, and not dug out canoes. Another problem with attributing these Mid-Atlantic developments to the Red Paint People is that they appear and disappear around 5,200 BCE, a date much earlier than those being discussed here, dates which lie around 2980 BCE.
(As Conference participant Worth Crouch is better informed about the Red Paint people than I am, I am most interested in hearing his views on their possible role in the appearance in the late Archaic of this dugout watercraft technology.)
THE LATE ARCHAIC RIVER PEOPLES?
Another problem with attributing this marine technology to the Red Paint People is that at these middle Atlantic sites the remains of cultivated hickory nuts and walnuts appear, along with the stone tools for working the nuts, at the same time that these watercraft construction technologies do. This seems to indicate contact with those cultures who had already developed arboriculture, those peoples who I discussed in last year’s survey. (The maypop fruit was also cultivated by these peoples. Further, soapstone cooking bowls and soapstone baking tools also appear at the same time.)
While it is possible that these technologies could have spread by inland contact, the Chesapeake Bay peoples’ source for the arboriculture technology appears to have been the riverine peoples whose remains have been found at the Sara’s Ridge site, the Paris Island, South Carolina site, and the Rocky River, North Carolina site. These peoples did not live along the coast, and at these river sites there is no indication of LARGE watercraft construction.
ENTIRELY NEW TECHNOLOGIES APPEAR:
LARGE WATERCRAFT, POTTERY, AND THE STALLINGS ISLAND COMPLEX
But then these river dwelling peoples later adopted an entirely new technology, and this may be clearly seen at Stallings Island, Georgia, where the Mill Branch riverine culture existed for several hundred years before being replaced by a Shell Ring culture around 1700 BCE. Here have been found levels containing soapstone artifacts overlain by levels containing fiber tempered pottery. This is an entirely new technology.
THE PROBLEM: THE SPREAD OF LARGE WATERCRAFT TECHNOLOGIES
Given the area and time period being surveyed here, the problems of when these watercraft were developed, how they were used, and how they spread become central.
Many in the anthropological community decry any suggestion of trans-Pacific or trans-Atlantic contact, as though the adoption by Native Americans of “foreign” technology would somehow take something away from them. The plain fact is that due to natural currents, both trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic contacts were inevitable, if not by design, with certainty by accident. In the one century from 1775 to 1875 at least 20 Japanese junks were involuntarily driven by storms and currents to landing points from the Aleutian Islands to Mexico, an average of 1 watercraft every 5 years. (Robert Heine-Geldern, The Problem of Transpacific Influences in Mesoamerica, The Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 4, University of Texas Press, citing Brooks, 1875.) Further, in the last century some 600 African craft have washed up on the coast of South America, a rough average of 1 watercraft every 2 months. (John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, Vol II, p. 106, entry M-143)
Given these rates of accidental trans-oceanic crossing, it is a slur on the Native American peoples to insist that either 1) they were so cruel that they immediately dispatched every ship-wrecked mariner who had the misfortune to be ship-wrecked and then the good luck to be stranded on their shores alive, or 2) they were too stupid to take advantage of the new technologies which these mariners or their crew-less watercraft would have held. Those who blindly dismiss trans-oceanic contact also fail completely to consider that technologies may have spread from Native Americans in the other direction - and this is well evidenced as well. Plants with trans-oceanic distribution includes cocoanut, various edible palm, pineapple, banana, cotton, the grain amaranth, and hennequin, a type of hemp. But without site visits it is simply impossible to trace the spread of these plants, so at this point I will remain focused on the key items of large dugout canoes and pottery.
(Those who are more interested in trans-oceanic contact than in the peopling of the coastal areas of South-East North America, the Caribbean, and coastal Central America, and the effect of cometary and asteroidal impact on these peoples, I direct to:Robert Heine-Geldern, The Problem of Transpacific Influences in Mesoamerica; and Philip Philips, The Role of TransPacific Contact in the Development of New World Pre-Columbian Cultures, both in The Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 4, University of Texas Press; Geoffrey Ashe, Thor Heyerdahl, Helge Ingstad, J.V. Luce, Betty Meggars and Brigitta Wallace, The Quest for America, Pall Mall Press, London, 1971; and Andrew Collins, Gateway to Atlantis, Carroll and Graff, New York, 2000)
LATER WATERCRAFT IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA AND ATLANTIC OCEAN
When we think of dugout watercraft, the first image that comes to mind is that of the dugout canoes used today on the rivers of many parts of the world. This smallness in size reflects not only the uses for which these craft were and are constructed, which are those of production and trade on rivers, but also reflects the current scarcity of large diameter trees. It must be remembered that during the times of the first migrations into North America, and indeed even up to the time of European contact, trees with diameters of 3 meters and more were common. Indeed, satisfying the need for timbers for the British Navy was one of the first reasons that that government had for placing its settlers in North America. I don’t think it can be excluded that this need for large trees may also have played a role in much earlier trans-Atlantic contacts, those contacts which may have occurred as Europe was deforested, while the peoples of coastal Europe still depended on large watercraft built from large single trees.
Fernando Colon, Columbus’s second son, provides us with an account of one ocean going large dugout which his father encountered during his fourth voyage, and it is worth repeating part of it in full here: “Having come to the island of Guanaja, the Admiral sent ashore his brother Bartholomew with two boats. They encountered people who resembled those of the other islands, but had narrower foreheads. They also saw many pine trees and pieces of earth called calcide which the Indians use to cast copper; some of the sailors thought it was gold....by good fortune there arrived at that time A CANOE AS LONG AS A GALLEY AND EIGHT FEET WIDE, MADE OF A SINGLE TREE TRUNK like the other Indian canoes; it was freighted with merchandise from the western regions around New Spain. Amidships it had a palm-leaf awning like that on Venetian gondolas; this gave complete protection against the rain and waves. Underneath were women and children, and all the baggage and merchandise. There were twenty-five paddlers aboard, but they offered no resistance when our boats drew up to them.”
The “other Indian canoes” which Fernando refers to were those that Columbus and his men had seen earlier, those of the Taino (Arawak) and Carib of the islands, and these dugouts were probably not as large as those of the Choton traders of Central America. Orvieda (Historia general y natural de las Indias, Gonzalo Fernandez de Orvieda Y Valdez, 1535) recorded the use of sail by the Taino, but not by the Carib, who relied on paddles for propulsion. Given the trade which existed along the east coasts of Central America and South America, the Taino (Arawak) likely used sails at a much earlier period. Orvieda also recorded the Choton’s use of sails on their watercraft, and the Choton’s conduct of regular trade along the east coast of Central America for a long period of time is fairly well evidenced by the distribution of the remains of trade goods.
It seems likely that all of the Caribbean watercraft did not use centerboards or sideboards, and thus the prevailing winds and currents must have played a large role in determining the movements of peoples and goods through the region. Seasonal current and wind charts for the Caribbean may be found in Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba, Ramon Dacal Moure and Manual Riviero de la Calle, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1996. As might reasonably be expected, and as will be seen, these watercraft played a significant role in the spread of peoples and the conduct of trade.
LATER WATERCRAFT ALONG THE PACIFIC COAST
In his book “Pyramids of Tucume”, Thor Heyerdahl describes the watercraft used by Native Americans along the Pacfic Coast, and these were ocean going rafts equipped with sails and a superstructure to keep their goods and passengers dry. Called “balsa”s, a term connected with the balsa wood logs which the Native Americans tied together to construct them, these watercraft had capacities of up to 60 to 70 European tons. The bindings which tied the logs together were of hennequin, a type of hemp, and the distribution of this plant is important.
These balsa’s used masts of two types, with one type of mast mounted along the center line, and the other type constructed of two poles attached to the raft’s sides and joined over its center to form an upside down V shape. The balsa’s had two types of sails, both square and lateen (triangular), which when combined with the use of centerboards gave them the ability to travel against the wind.
These craft ranged up and down the Pacific Coast of both South America and Central America, and special note should be made of the circular stone anchors which these watercraft used. Anchors of this type have been recovered at several west coast Central American sites, and not identified as anchors. (So much for the mysterious “stone rings” found in some excavations.) Another artifact which must be associated with the use of these rafts are large jars for the storage of fresh water, jars which most likely replaced earlier wooden vessels used for the same purpose. A final artifact indicative of the use of balsa watercraft are non-native stones used for ballast.
These craft not only carried merchandise for trade, but also served as “mother-ships” for fishing expeditions. The general method of fishing was not line fishing, that is fishing with hooks and lines, where the hooks would have been preserved as artifacts. Net fishing was used instead, sometimes from the shore, or sometimes two fishermen would mount small three log craft and drag a net between them, returning their catch to either the shore or to a large balsa “mother-ship”.
While the designs of these watercraft reflect the lack of large trees in the areas on the west coast of South America, based on the evidence of trans-Pacific contacts there is good reason to suspect that the first ocean going watercraft in this area were large dugout boats.
WHERE DID THE STALLINGS ISLAND TECHNOLOGY COME FROM?
The Stallings Island complex is preceded by shell rings from Florida which appear to have been built almost 1,000 years earlier. There is little doubt that this was an ocean going maritime technology, with very large dugout watercraft, as shell ring sties also earlier existed on Cuba.
EUROPEAN CONTACT?
As near as I am aware, some of the earliest evidence of large boat building comes from Franchti cave in Greece, and is dated to around 7,000 BCE. The idea presents itself that dug out technology may have survived the Holocene-start impact event in this area, and then spread from Mediterranean survivals back into coastal Europe. It is possible that from here the technology for building dug out boats may have spread back into North America.
PACIFIC CONTACT?
Further, even more ancient coastal shell sites have been found along the Pacific Coast of both Central America and South America. Betty Meggars has thoroughly documented contacts between Jomon Japan and coastal South America at Valdivia by around 3300 BCE.
A LIST OF EARLY COASTAL SITES
The following list started with a list given in The Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba, Ramon Dacal Moure and Manuel Rivero de la Calle, 1996 translation, and this was then added to. The list must be used with caution, as the dates those authors gave for both Stallings Island and Poverty Point are wrong, further, I have not verified myself that all sites are maritime culture sites, and the National Park Service list was unavailable at the time of composition.
ATLANTIC SITES
It is generally held that there were two early migrations into the Caribbean Islands: the Casimiroid, which is “hypothesized” to have crossed a land bridge or island chain from Central America around 4,000 BCE, and the Ortoiroid, which is believed to spread from the north east coast of South America after 2,000 BCE. Despite the pottery found at Puerto Hormiga, these later are generally held to have been aceramic.
Banwari Trace, Trinidad 5,500 BCE
Gulf of Paria, Venezeula 3,650 BCE
Levisa, Cuba 3,190 BCE
Puerto Hormiga, Coastal Columbia 2,925 BCE Pottery
Canimar Abajo, Cuba 2,750 BCE
22 sites, Aruba 2,500 BCE-ca 1,000 BCE shells, no pottery
Cubagua, Venezeula 2,200 BCE
Sapelo, Georgia 2,150 BCE shell ring
Ossabaw Island, Georgia 2 sheel rings? -
late archaic ends ca 1,000BCE
Cueva Funche, Cuba 2,050 BCE
Canapote, Coastal Columbia 2,050 BCE
Madrigales, Hispaniola 2,030 BCE
St. John's River, Florida ca 2,000 BCE East Coast, Orange Pottery,
incised decoration
Gulf Coast, Florida ca 2,000 BCE West Coast, Norwood Pottery,
paddle decoration
Hilton Head Island, S. Carolina ca 2,000 BCE 3 shell ring sites of 17 in US
Hoyo Del Todo, Hispaniola 1,940 BCE
Stallings Island, Georgia 1,850 BCE Pottery, up Savannah R. from coast
Jolly Beach, Antigua 1,775 BCE no pottery
Manicuare, Aruba, Off Venezeula 1,620 BCE
Barlovento, Coastal Columbia 1,550 BCE
Damajayabo, Cuba 1,300 BCE
El Povenir, Hispaniola 1,185 BCE
Cueva el Purial, Cuba 1,110 BCE
(The United States Naional Park Service maintains a list of shell ring sites, but due to the judge’s shutdown, it was impossible to retrieve information on them and their dating.)
PACIFIC SITES
Cerro Mangote, West Coast Panama 4,860 BCE
Rio Chiriqui, West Coast Panama 4,610 BCE
Siches, Peru ca. 5,000 BCE
Valdivia, Ecuador (pottery) 3,300 BCE influenced by Jomon Culture, Japan
(Meggars)
Xoconocho, West Coast Mexico 3,000 - 2,000 BCE shells middens, no pottery
Barra, Mexico 1,800 BCE pottery, riverine,
early species of maize
Machalilla, Ecuador 1,600 BCE from Columbia,
practiced headbinding
Chorrera, Ecuador 1,200 BCE from Central America