First Settlement of the Americas Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts, archaeological sites, theories, and terminology related to the first settlement of the Americas.

Folsom, New Mexico

The site where stone projectile points and bones of extinct bison were discovered in 1925, initiating the modern study of early human settlement in the Americas.

Clovis Culture

An early North American cultural tradition characterized by distinctive fluted projectile points, flourishing between $13,050$ and $12,800$ years ago.

Ceruti Mastodon Site

A location in San Diego County, California, dated to between $120,000$ and $140,000$ years ago, yielding fractured elephant bones and broken stones.

Solutreans

An Ice Age human culture from southwestern France dated between $22,000$ and $18,000$ years ago, hypothesized by some to have crossed the Atlantic to North America.

Sinodonty

A pattern of dental traits featuring incisor shoveling, single-rooted upper first premolars, and triple-rooted lower first molars, found in northern Asians and Native Americans.

Sundadonty

A pattern of dental morphology characteristic of Europeans and East Asians that lacks the specific dental features of sinodonty.

Joseph Greenberg

The Stanford linguist who proposed in 1956 that Native American languages belong to three main families: Amerind, Na-Dene, and Aleut-Eskimo.

Yana RHS

An archaeological site on the Yana River in extreme northeast Asia where broad-spectrum hunter-gatherers lived around $32,000$ years ago.

Beringia

A vast northern region stretching from Siberia's Verhoyansk Mountains to the Mackenzie River in Canada, including the Bering Land Bridge.

Beringian Standstill Hypothesis

The theory proposing that human populations were isolated on the central Beringian lowland during the Last Glacial Maximum before expanding into Alaska and southward.

Dyuktai Tradition

A portable microblade hunting toolkit originating in Siberia's Middle Aldan River Valley that spread into Alaska around $14,000$ years ago.

Chindadn Points

Tear-shaped or stemmed projectile points used between $14,000$ and $13,500$ years ago in northeast Siberia, south-central Alaska, and the Yukon.

Mesa Site

An archaeological site on the northern flank of the Brooks Range in Alaska that yielded lanceolate fluted points dating to between $12,000$ and $10,000$ years ago.

Upward Sun Site

An Alaskan site in the Tanana River Valley containing human burials, lanceolate points, and the earliest evidence of salmon fishing in the Americas.

Cactus Hill

A Pre-Clovis sand-dune site on the Nottaway River in Virginia with human occupation dated between $15,070$ and $16,670$ years ago.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter

A rockshelter site in Pennsylvania containing a carefully investigated Pre-Clovis occupation dating as early as $14,500$ years ago.

Paisley Cave

A Pre-Clovis site in Oregon that yielded human feces radiocarbon dated to between $14,270$ and $14,000$ years ago.

Page-Ladson Site

A Pre-Clovis location in the Aucilla River, Florida, where hunters killed or scavenged a mastodon about $14,550$ years ago.

Gault Site

A $39\text{--acre}$ site in central Texas with rich chert sources, occupied intermittently for $11,000$ years across Pre-Clovis and Clovis periods.

Younger Dryas

A period of cold, dry climate beginning around $12,950$ years ago that lasted roughly a millennium, affecting ecosystems, megafauna, and human populations.

Paleo-Indian

A generic archaeological term used to refer to the earliest human inhabitants of the Americas up to approximately $5000\text{ BCE}$.

Sporomiella

A genus of dung-inhabiting fungus whose spore disappearance in lake cores between $14,800$ and $13,700$ years ago signals the end of megafauna grazing.