Talk:Monte Verde

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 11 March 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BeeCandelaria (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Isaacsj3, Kaljumaegi.

Map Suggestion

The proposed migration route is a reasonable subject for a map accompanying this article, but the childlike map presented here isn't really adequate. Map should probably depict physical geography rather than modern day countries, optimally depicting coastlines, glaciers/ice fields etc. ca. 15000 ybp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.20.1.7 (talk) 02:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Pre-Clovis?

I'm confused why Monte Verde is being called a pre-Clovis site. Yes, I understand that it is older than the physical site at Clovis, New Mexico. But Clovis culture is not defined by any particular range of dates, but rather by the level of technological sophistication found at the site. This article, and others that I have found, provide no scientific reason to believe this site was not a member of Clovis culture (have fluted spear points been found there? have any spear points been found there?), except that it has shown up in an unexpected place and is unexpectedly old for being in that place. 1000 years and 5000 miles does not really imply a distinct origin for this site compared to the Clovis site. At best this means that Clovis culture started somewhat earlier than was previously assumed, and spread farther than was previously supported by evidence. This is entirely reasonable, given that sea levels 14000 years ago were approximately 350 feet lower than present, so any coastal Clovis settlements (which is probably almost every Clovis settlement that ever existed) would now be underwater and therefore be physically obliterated. We have only previously assumed that Clovis culture began circa 13500BP and spread circa Venezuela because there was no evidence to the contrary. Monte Verde is evidence to the contrary, but it doesn't fundamentally alter the Clovis model of migration. --70.131.114.241 (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

As far a I know Monte Verde people were hunter-gatherers just like the Clovis, but they lived in a completely different environment and had diffent adaptations to it. They had for example a very different building style with "huts" organizated around a central fire. I do seriusly believe that the first Americans traveled by boat following the coast and did not spread from the Bering land brigde trough the great plains. Dentren | ^Talk 14:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There is also some confusion here regarding what Clovis means. Clovis are generally thought to have gained access to the continent through the gap in the glacier 13,500 BP. The Monte Verde culture evidently didn't. (Cerumol2 (talk) 12:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC))

Clovis culture has been assumed to have originated in the northern interior and spread southwards, but more rigorous dating indicates that it spread northward. Its origins appear to have been from inland migrants from the coast, who adopted a big game hunting lifestyle in their new environment.75.111.20.66 (talk) 02:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

5,000 miles and 1,000 yrs is also the same difference between ancient China dinasty and the foundation of Rome... i'd say is more than enough to notice some 'difference', morevore the famous clovis points seems not be present in such old sites. No talk about the more recent 18,000 yrs dating. And the Clovis were the ones believe to be guilty to have killed the megafauna with a blitzkrieg about 12,000 yrs ago. So definitively it's quite stunning to read someone that cannot see the importance of Monte Verde and other site like it. Evidently the 'clovis first theory' is hard to die...S.M.71 (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

For a site to be a Clovis site, it has to have Clovis points, not just any spear points. Monte Verde has lithic artifacts, but I don't think any functions of these have been determined. Also, Clovis settlements are most often coastal, as the people associated with the Clovis culture did not take a coastal route to migration, but a land route (through the ice-free corridor 10,000 years ago). There is zero evidence to claim that Monte Verde can be associated with the Clovis culture. Sites that do not have Clovis associated artifacts and are older are under the category of "Pre-Clovis" because of the academic stronghold that the Clovis First hypothesis has. BeeCandelaria (talk) 01:11, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Clovis settlements are most often not coastal, my apologies. BeeCandelaria (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting Statements re Diet

The article says "these first settlers were maritime-adapted hunter-gather-fishermen, and not necessarily big-game hunters like the Clovis" but also "Inside the camp, archaeologists found a chunk of meat that still had preserved DNA. After a DNA analysis, it matched that of a mastodon, indicating the type of food the inhabitants ate". Can this be cleared up? Mastodon is big game isn't it?(Cerumol2 (talk) 12:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC))

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Need some integration. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Terrible pictures

The pictures in this article are very amateur. They look like they were made by a 4th grader using colored pencils. How do we know that the drawing of the living structures is even accurate? For a well-sourced and well-written article, the pictures are embarrassing. Surely there must be some fair-use illustrations somewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.55.200.20 (talk) 20:13, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Meltzer Reference

I removed this sentence, "However, as of 2009 no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route."

1) It references a textbook and not the original data.

2) The very textbook referenced also proposes the counter-argument that there is archaeological evidence suggesting a coastal route. I know this because this is one of the textbooks we used when I was studying archaeology in college.

3) This is one of the most hotly debated topics in New World archaeology. Stating a single archaeologists opinion, out of context, referenced in a textbook, and placing it prominently where an article's thesis statement is typically included is significantly misleading on multiple levels.

4) Does it not seem extraordinarily paradoxical that in an article discussing the on-going debate as to whether Monte Verde is evidence of a pre-Clovis coastal migration, the first section's last sentence, the article's "thesis statement", reads, "However, as of 2009 no archaeological evidence has been found of pre-Clovis humans using a coastal migration route." The entire debate surrounding Monte Verde is whether it reliably represents evidence of a pre-Clovis coastal migration.

5)Meltzer's opinion is a decade old. An immeasurable amount of additional research has been made available. Is there evidence that Meltzer still supports this statement?

I could go on and on. But it's not necessary. So, I've removed this statement from the opening section.

And someone has already replaced this sentence. And this is why I don't contribute to Wikipedia. I am an archaeologist employed by a large American university who has more than 3 years of fieldwork and has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed papers. I guarantee, my opinion is accurate, and this article is inaccurate. This is why I always advise my students to avoid Wikipedia at any cost, because if one of my students were to include this information a paper, at least half the nation's archaeology instructors would deduct points. This is why Wikipedia has such a reputation as being unreliable and proffering misinformation.

Here's more:

6) The placement of an outdated opinion so prominently in an article which should be discussing the debate concerning Monte Verde smacks of agenda.

7) There are innumerable sites throughout Central and South America which have been proposed as evidence of pre-Clovis coastal migration. Meltzer was aware of this in 2009.

8) The sentence was clearly intended to express the idea of "conclusive evidence". It has been obvious for decades that there is strong suggestive evidence of at least one pre-Clovis coastal migration.

9) At least two-thirds of the archaeologists in North America, and virtually all archaeologists in Central and South America support a pre-Clovis coastal migration. Again, why is an outdated statement lifted from a textbook which is misconstrued from its intended context, placed so prominently? Whoever added it to that section clearly had an agenda.

10) The reason apparent lack of direct physical evidence suggesting a pre-Clovis coastal migration is because sea-level rise resulting from glacial melt has reclaimed between 100-150m of coastline during the intervening 17 millennia. Any direct evidence along the west coast is now underwater.

11) There innumerable sites in Central and South America which could not have been feasibly accessed within their proposed timelines without at least one pre-Clovis coastal migration.

12) Again, Meltzer's statement dates to 2009. Here's the consensus opinion in 2018:

Most archaeologists think the first Americans arrived by boat. Now, they’re beginning to prove it. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/most-archaeologists-think-first-americans-arrived-boat-now-they-re-beginning-prove-it

First Humans Entered the Americas Along the Coast, Not Through the Ice Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-colonized-americas-along-coast-not-through-ice-180960103/#f7E9yPPUVsPDTF47.99

Most scientists now reject the idea that the first Americans came by land. https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/majority-of-scientists-now-agree-that-humans-came-to-the-americas-by-boat/

13) What is the purpose of having this outdated statement which is almost uniformly disagreed with among the scientific community placed so prominently in this article? All you're doing is misinforming students.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C40:4A00:1D00:B809:336C:C1BB:9FBD (talk) 02:10, 28 May 2018 (UTC) 

hmm ...

First - we don't use "original data" as a reference, we use secondary or tertiary sources.

Second - "you" are an ip address from a midwestern city that makes the claim of being a prof from a university.

Third - learn to use an edit summary for your article edits.

Thank you :) Vsmith (talk) 11:33, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Justice have been done anyway. Tanks to have raised this question ;D — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.11.3.98 (talk) 00:27, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Site

[10] is a nice online site map which the article probably needs something like.Ploversegg (talk) 18:36, 15 June 2023 (UTC)