The Remorseless Politicization of Science

The New York Times has an article today about the early peopling of the Americas. Here is the opening:

For many years, scientists have thought that the first Americans came here from Asia 13,000 years ago, during the last ice age, probably by way of the Bering Strait. They were known as the Clovis people, after the town in New Mexico where their finely wrought spear points were first discovered in 1929. 

But in more recent years, archaeologists have found more and more traces of even earlier people with a less refined technology inhabiting North America and spreading as far south as Chile.

And now clinching evidence in the mystery of the early peopling of America — Clovis or pre-Clovis? — for nearly all scientists appears to have turned up at a creek valley in the hill country of what is today Central Texas, 40 miles northwest of Austin.

The new findings establish that the last major human migration, into the Americas, began earlier than once thought. And the discovery could change thinking about how people got here (by coastal migrations along shores and in boats) and how they adapted to the new environment in part by making improvements in toolmaking that led eventually to the technology associated with the Clovis culture. 

The Times prints a story like this nearly every year. Jared Diamond explained the phenomenon in his 1997 masterpiece Guns, Germs, and Steel (p.47):

As always happens whenever anyone claims the first anything, claims of discoveries of pre-Clovis human sites in the Americas are constantly being advanced. Every year, a few of those new claims really do appear convincing and exciting when initially announced. Then the inevitable problems of interpretation arise. Were the reported tools at the site really tools made by humans, or just natural rock shapes?

Diamond goes on to list other problems with archaeological dating, but I stopped here because the Times article lists the archaeological evidence at the "new" pre-Clovis site as follows:

Archaeologists and other scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that excavations show hunter-gatherers were living at the Buttermilk Creek site and making projectile points, blades, choppers and other tools from local chert for a long time, possibly as early as 15,500 years ago. More than 50 well-formed artifacts as well as hundreds of flakes and fragments of chipping debris were embedded in thick clay sediments immediately beneath typical Clovis material.  

These stone tools are much more primitive than Clovis tools. On p. 48-9, Diamond lists the problems that primitive tools caused for a similar pre-Clovis claim:

But none of those rocks at the base of the cliff is an obviously human-made tool, as are Clovis points and Cro-Magnon tools. If hundreds of thousands of rocks fall from a high cliff over the course of tens of thousands of years, many of them will become chipped and broken when they hit the rocks below, and some will come to resemble crude tools chipped and broken by humans.

Diamond than makes the following (devastating) point about pre-Clovis claims:

If there really were pre-Clovis people in the Americas, why is it still so hard to prove that they existed? Archaeologists have excavated hundreds of American sites unequivocally dating to between 2,000 and 11,000 B.C, including dozens of Clovis sites in the North American West, rock shelters in the Appalachians, and sites in coastal California. ...

The weakness of pre-Clovis evidence in Americas contrast with the strength of the evidence in Europe, where hundreds of sites attest to the presence of modern humans long before Clovis hunters appeared in the Americas around 11,000 B.C. Even more striking is the evidence from Australia/New Guinea, where there are barely one-tenth as many archaeologists as in the United States alone, but where those few archaeologists have nevertheless discovered over a hundred unequivocal pre-Clovis sites scattered over the whole continent.

The Times tries to address Diamond's questions late in the article:

Until recently, Dr. Waters said, archaeologists had probably overlooked earlier artifacts because the Clovis points are so distinctive and, in contrast, the pre-Clovis material has no hallmark style calling attention to itself.    

Archaeologists don't really "overlook" things. What Waters is saying is that they mistook the pre-Clovis tools to be regular rocks. But archaeologists can find unequivocal pre-Clovis sites on other continents. Why is there a hemisphere-wide inability to find pre-Clovis sites here when the Times article states that the Texas archaeologists believe the pre-Clovis population was in the Americas for millennia?

For various political reasons, this topic elicits a lot of passion from Times readers - and a perusal of the article's comments confirms it. Many people want the earliest possible dating for the arrival of humans in the Americas. It's a way to tweak Creationists while magnifying the political claims of American Indians. Also, many liberals and American Indian activists are quick to dismiss the route of the Indians' arrival - preferring a sea voyage rather than via the Bering land bridge. The author of this article complies by calling that route only "probable" and raising the possibility of an ocean crossing. Why do activists prefer their arrival via watercraft? Simple: it's more technologically sophisticated and impressive. 

There's another political issue that overshadows discussions of the early Indians. If the pre-Clovis people existed, what happened to them? When cultures vanish, it is usually from a violent population replacement. This suggests that the Indians Columbus met weren't descendants from the first inhabitants. There are many people who shutter at that thought. The Times comes to their aid:

Among other implications of the discoveries, the Texas archaeologists said, a pre-Clovis occupation of North America provided more time for people to settle in North America, colonize South America by more than 14,000 years ago, “develop the Clovis tool kit and create a base population through which Clovis technology could spread.”

Translation: Don't worry Times readers - the new weapon technology spread among the existing population - there was no violence involved or replacement of original populations.

I still don't think there was a pre-Clovis culture to be wiped out. Regardless, the issue of population replacement reverberates because the Clovis culture itself later disappeared. People don't give up their culture peacefully. And if one group in the conflict has superior technology - it's often genocidal. Modern Indian tribes were not descended from the first arrivals - and, no, this has nothing to do with Kennewick Man.

Ostensibly an article about a questionable scientific discovery, the Times' tone is much too certain (among other things, they call the evidence "clinching"), and it is dripping with political catnip for its readers. It would be nice if the Times acknowledge the many pre-Clovis claims that were later discredited, but people want to believe what they want to believe, and the Times is there to confirm it. The politicization of science marches on.