Ancient Chesapeake site challenges timeline of humans in the Americas

[wnylib]

11. I've been following news about the arrival of people in the Americas

since childhood. In college I minored in cultural anthropology.

Dr. James Adovasio, who excavated the Meadowcroft Rockshelter was mentioned in the OP's linked article. He was Director of the Archaeological Institute at Mercyhurst University in Erie, PA. Erie is my home town although I live in western NY now.

I was a volunteer one summer in the 1990s on a dig that his students were doing for fieldwork experience. The location was the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern PA which is part of the Allegheny Highlands Forest that extends into NY state so it was near enough for me to drive to easily.

There were no great discoveries made on that dig, but it was interesting for me because I got a chance to meet Dr. Adovasio and talk with some of his staff. They were the ones who first introduced me to the possibility of a water route along the northern coasts of Asia and North America.

Meadowcroft was one of the first sites to be a serious challenge to the Clovis First theory. Adovasio was very meticulous in his work so he was frustrated by all the challenges to the site's findings by scientists defending Clovis. He referred to them as the Clovis Mafia.