XPost: sci.anthropology.paleo

https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/oregon-state-archaeologists-uncover-oldest-known-projectile-points-americas

Oregon State University archaeologists have uncovered
projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years
older than any previously found in the Americas,
helping to fill in the history of how early humans
crafted and used stone weapons.

The 13 full and fragmentary projectile points, razor
sharp and ranging from about half an inch to 2 inches
long, are from roughly 15,700 years ago, according to
carbon-14 dating. That’s about 3,000 years older than
the Clovis fluted points found throughout North
America, and 2,300 years older than the points
previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site
along the Salmon River in present-day Idaho.

The points are revelatory not just in their age, but in
their similarity to projectile points found in Hokkaido,
Japan, dating to 16,000-20,000 years ago, Davis said.
Their presence in Idaho adds more detail to the
hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural
connections between the ice age peoples of Northeast Asia
and North America.




https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade1248
Dating of a large tool assemblage at the
Cooper’s Ferry site (Idaho, USA) to ~15,785 cal yr
B.P. extends the age of stemmed points in the Americas

Abstract
The timing and character of the Pleistocene peopling
of the Americas are measured by the discovery of
unequivocal artifacts from well-dated contexts. We
report the discovery of a well-dated artifact
assemblage containing 14 stemmed projectile points
from the Cooper’s Ferry site in western North America,
dating to ~16,000 years ago. These stemmed points are
several thousand years older than Clovis fluted points
(~13,000 cal yr B.P.) and are ~2300 years older than
stemmed points found previously at the site. These
points date to the end of Marine Isotope Stage 2 when
glaciers had closed off an interior land route into
the Americas. This assemblage includes an array of
stemmed projectile points that resemble pre-Jomon
Late Upper Paleolithic tools from the northwestern
Pacific Rim dating to ~20,000 to 19,000 years ago,
leading us to hypothesize that some of the first
technological traditions in the Americas may have
originated in the region.

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