Speaker: Fumie Iizuka, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UW–Madison
Genomic studies suggest that first Americans arrived from Northeast Asia. Because the earliest American sites with bifacial stemmed points date to about 16,000 cal BP before the opening of the ice-free corridor, and Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kuril (PSHK) Peninsula exhibits similar lithic technology, by about 20,000 cal BP, scholars have started to compare the two regions proposing an American Upper Paleolithic (AUP) with origins in the Upper Paleolithic of PSHK.
In PSHK, pottery was adopted by Incipient Jomon period foragers about 15,000 cal BP. Nonetheless, the relationships between these populations remain unclear. This study examines pottery, lithics, and forager adaptations within changing environmental contexts to shed light on the unresolved questions and further evaluate the AUP model.
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