Bluefish Caves Revisited – Seminal new paper reviewed: Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada. Bourgoen, et al. (2017)

Key findings:

·         The site has at last been accepted as pre-Clovis due to assiduous work carried out by Bourgeon et. al. (2017)

·         Site now firmly established as 24,000 BP, exceeding by at least 5000 years any other accepted site in the Americas

·         Cinq-Mars’ samples used in the analysis proved to be of the dates and to exhibit the human-made, cut-marks he originally contended, thus vindicating his long-held contention of the antiquity of the site

This post is a follow-up to the first long piece I wrote on this site: Pre-Clovis Archaeological Sites of the Americas 6: Blue Fish Caves - Old Crow Basin, Canada. See here.

The site location is:

This is an extremely important paper. I would say a seminal paper, but only time will tell.

Here’s the abstract:

“The timing of the first entry of humans into North America is still hotly debated within the scientific community. Excavations conducted at Bluefish Caves (Yukon Territory) from 1977 to 1987 yielded a series of radiocarbon dates that led archaeologists to propose that the initial dispersal of human groups into Eastern Beringia (Alaska and the Yukon Territory) occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This hypothesis proved highly controversial in the absence of other sites of similar age and concerns about the stratigraphy and anthropogenic signature of the bone assemblages that yielded the dates. The weight of the available archaeological evidence suggests that the first peopling of North America occurred ca. 14,000 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present), i.e., well after the LGM. Here, we report new AMS radiocarbon dates obtained on cut-marked bone samples identified during a comprehensive taphonomic analysis of the Bluefish Caves fauna. Our results demonstrate that humans occupied the site as early as 24,000 cal BP (19,650 ± 130 14C BP). In addition to proving that Bluefish Caves is the oldest known archaeological site in North America, the results offer archaeological support for the ªBeringian standstill hypothesisº, which proposes that a genetically isolated human population persisted in Beringia during the LGM and dispersed from there to North and South America during the post-LGM period.” Bourgeon et. al. (2017).

Why is this paper SO important?

Firstly, it answers, unequivocally, a basic question in archaeology:

“What is the earliest date we have so far for when were the Americas were first peopled?”

Secondly, it illustrates that science, although it (meaning the scientific community), presents itself as even-handed and unbiased, is riven by vested interests, self-serving small minded people and bigotry just like the rest of society. As such, this sorry, slow burning episode in archaeology reminds us all, to go back to basics and follow the evidence as good scientists should.

Stepping back a minute, to fully answer the above question, however, requires a, thorough and detailed, examination of the background context to the events surrounding these archaeological discoveries and subsequent claims made by the chief excavator.

This is the story of one scientist’s fight for the acceptance of the facts he had brought to light through his excavation of three small caves in the Yukon territory of Canada. That scientist was Jacques Cinq-Mars and this paper is a vindication of his work which offered firm evidence, that man first colonised the Americas way before the Clovis people.

Jacques Cinq-Mars excavating at the Bluefish caves, from Pringle (2017). Original caption reads: While excavating at Bluefish Caves in northern Yukon during the 1970s and 1980s, Canadian archaeologist Cinq-Mars found cut-marked horse bones and other traces of human hunters that seemed to date to 24,000 years ago—thousands of years before the Clovis people. Photo by Ruth Gotthardt

As Pringle (2017) explains:

“In three hollows known as the Bluefish Caves, he [Cinq-Mars] and his team had discovered something remarkable—the bones of extinct horses and woolly mammoths bearing what seemed to be marks from human butchering and toolmaking. Radiocarbon test results dated the oldest finds to around 24,000 years before the present.

Bluefish Caves directly challenged mainstream scientific thinking. Evidence had long suggested that humans first reached the Americas around 13,000 years ago, when Asian hunters crossed a now submerged landmass known as Beringia, which joined Siberia to Alaska and Yukon during the last ice age. From there, the migrants seemed to have hurried southward along the edges of melting ice sheets to warmer lands in what is now the United States, where they and their descendants thrived. Researchers called these southern hunters the Clovis people, after a distinctive type of spear point they carried. And the story of their arrival in the New World became known as the Clovis first model.”

“Cinq-Mars, however, didn’t buy that story—not a bit. His work at Bluefish Caves suggested that Asian hunters roamed northern Yukon at least 11,000 years before the arrival of the Clovis people..”

“But relatively few of Cinq-Mars’s peers shared his confidence..”

“..rather than launching a major new search for more early evidence, the finds stirred fierce opposition and a bitter debate, Cinq-Mars, however, was not intimidated. He fearlessly waded into the fight. Between 1979 and 2001, he published a series of studies on Bluefish Caves.”

“It was a brutal experience, something that Cinq-Mars once likened to the Spanish Inquisition. At conferences, audiences paid little heed to his presentations, giving short shrift to the evidence. Other researchers listened politely, then questioned his competence. The result was always the same” [rejection and/or denial].

 “In general, the critics focused their attacks on two major fronts. They questioned whether key artifacts at proposed pre-Clovis sites were really, made by humans, as opposed to natural processes. And they pored over presentations and reports for any possible errors in dating.”

“At Bluefish Caves, the crucial evidence consisted of animal bones that were dated to around 24,000 years ago and seemed to be cut, shaped, or flaked by humans. So critics focused on those. They dismissed Cinq-Mars’s identification of butchery marks and tools, and offered alternative explanations. Rockfall from the caves, they suggested, had fractured the bones, leaving splinters that merely looked like human artifacts. Or large carnivores had chomped on a carcass, producing grooves that resembled cut marks or fragments mirroring artifacts. Some skeptics even suggested that living mammoths could have taken bad tumbles nearby, accidentally splintering limb bones. Other critics wanted to see multiple lines of evidence for the presence of early humans at Bluefish Caves, including dated hearths with stone tools in close association.”..

“Stung as he was by the criticism, Cinq-Mars refused to back down. None of the explanations for splintered bones, he noted, could account for the complex chain of steps that produced the mammoth-bone flake tool his team found. But by then, serious doubts about the Bluefish Caves evidence had been sown, taking firm root in the archaeological community: hardly anyone was listening. Cinq-Mars couldn’t believe it. At one presentation he gave, “they laughed at me,” he says angrily today. “They found me cute.” Embittered by the response, he stopped attending conferences, and gave up defending the site publicly. What was the point? To Cinq-Mars, the Clovis first supporters seemed almost brainwashed”

“When Jacques proposed [that Bluefish Caves was] 24,000 BP, it was not accepted,” says William Josie, director of natural resources at the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow. In his office at the Canadian Museum of History, Cinq-Mars fumed at the wall of closed minds. Funding for his Bluefish work grew scarce: his fieldwork eventually sputtered and died.”

Looking back at the archaeological establishment’s reaction to Cinq-Mars’ work two comments summarise how the prevailing attitudes and entrenched orthodoxy then, is viewed now:

“The scientific atmosphere, recalls Dillehay [excavator and – eventually - vindicated, discoverer of Monte Verde see here and here] was “clearly toxic and clearly impeded science.””

““one of the most acrimonious—and unfruitful [episodes] —in all of science,” noted the journal Nature.”

How does the current paper establish the date of the site and avoid the same criticisms as the original investigator?

Clearly, entering the debate by studying the most contentious bone artifacts attributed as human-modified from Bluefish Caves, could be counter-productive, as it could undermine the authors aim: to re-evaluate the physical evidence gathered and unequivocally date the site.

Therefore, whilst the authors examined a huge number of the specimens collected at Bluefish Caves by Cinq-Mars, some of the oldest and most controversial samples were not included in their analysis.

For example, the unpublished Mammoth limb bone and its attendant re-fitted bone flake (RIDDL-224 and RIDDL-225 respectively) whilst mentioned, were perhaps, wisely not given prominence in the current paper.

However, as we will see later, there may be another reason for this glaring omission. Let’s park that for a minute.

The authors begin by giving an exhaustive explanation in their Materials and Methods section, on the taphonomic processes that affected the bone samples collected and how non-cultural and cultural bone modification can be differentiated. It is worth looking at the criteria they use in detail to underscore how well founded their conclusions are:

·         “A full taphonomic analysis is required, in order to, contextualise and thus correctly identify culturally modified bone. The sedimentary and geological context of an archaeological site affects the taphonomic signature of the faunal assemblages it contains.

·         The faunal material from Bluefish Cave derives from wind-blown (aeolian) loess, which should not produce scratches on bones but can lead to polished surfaces.

·         Cryoclastic debris incorporated into the loess], however, may have abraded the bone surfaces.

·         Rockfall can also modify bone, producing striations and patterns of bone breakage

·         In some cases, these natural traces can mimic cut marks, raising the spectre of equifinality (Equifinality is the principle that in open systems a given end state can be reached by many potential means). This has led some researchers, in the past, to question the cultural origin of some of the bone modifications reported in the literature.”

The authors go on to detail other processes that may mimic human modification of bones:

·         “..large canids, which are capable of applying static pressure on bone resulting in the production of spiral bone fractures and bone flakes similar to the ones produced by human marrow extraction.” 

The authors are at pains to point out the co-indicators for this type of bone-modification in ALL samples studied:

·         “Carnivore activity is also usually accompanied by the presence of digested bone, as well as pits, punctures, scoring and furrows altering the bone surface

·         Carnivore teeth produce traces with characteristically “U” shaped profiles when viewed in cross-section and which are wider and shallower than cut marks, making them easily distinguishable from human modifications” 

The authors are strict in their categorisation of bone modification:

·         “The frequency of tooth marks, spiral fractures and bone flakes were recorded; tooth marks were noted as “certain” or “probable” when the identification couldn't be confidently assessed.”

Further factors affecting the taphonomic state of the bones sample are also considered:

·         “The climatic context of a site is also important because weathering and freeze-thaw cycles can lead to cracks and desquamation of bone surfaces, potentially removing or altering traces of cultural activities.

·         Damage due to climatic factors (e.g., weathering) but also due to biological agents (e.g., root etching, trampling and rodent gnawing) were carefully recorded and quantified”

Next the authors selected those bone samples, most likely to be human-modified for further analysis, highlighting the morphological and morphometrical features used to distinguish human modification from animal (carnivore) and other environmental causes of bone modification:

·         “Shape: cut marks made with stone tools are usually V-shaped (narrow \/ or wide \_/) while carnivore tooth marks or even metal tools will produce grooves with more parallel walls (U or |_|). The cross-sectional shape of a cut mark can be symmetrical (\/) or asymmetrical (√) depending on the inclination of the tool relative to the bone surface. Morphometrical analyses allow us to quantify the profile of potential cut marks by measuring the breadth at the top and at the bottom of the groove

·         Trajectory: cut marks are commonly straight but can sometimes be curved; they are rarely sinuous, as in the case of trampling or root etching

·         Number of striae, size and overlapping: butchering activities can produce multiple striae that should be parallel in orientation and roughly the same size a scraping motion to remove meat may produce overlapping striae; trampling marks will not be oriented in this fashion.

·         Shoulder effect and shoulder flaking: shallow striations along the main groove and edge flaking can sometimes be observed under the microscope at high magnifications in marks produced by butchering; they are rarer in marks created by trampling

·         Internal microstriations: microstriations are common on the inner walls of marks produced by stone tools during butchery; they may also be produced by trampling but will not be observed in cases of root etching or tooth mark scoring

·         Anatomical location and orientation: the anatomical location and orientation of cultural bone modifications must be consistent with the marks produced by specific butchery tasks described in the literature; marks produced by natural processes, however, will not reflect any predetermined intention. Assigning a precise function to a cut mark is subject to equifinality since marks resulting from skinning, defleshing and dismembering can occur in very similar locations and because variability exists in the placement and orientation of butchery marks. Keeping this in mind, we noted the anatomical location and orientation of each cut mark and we proposed a potential butchery task based on comparisons with ethnozooarchaeological data.” 

The authors give further explanation of the diagnostic value of one morphometrical measurement, in particular: 

“The breadth ratio (the ratio between the breadth at the top and the breadth at the bottom of the cut mark) better illustrates the shape of the groove (\/ or |_|) and is a good criterion for distinguishing between cut marks made with stone tools and modifications produced by other effectors. Small ratios are associated with grooves with parallel walls while large ratios are associated with narrow \/ or wide \_/-shaped grooves such as the ones produced by stone tools..” 

Finally from the 36,000 bone samples collected by Cinq-Mars and analysed by Bourgeon and her team 6 were deemed unequivocally human-modified and sent for radio-carbon dating:

“In summary, in order for, a bone modification to be identified as a cut mark in this study, all of the above criteria had to be met. If one of the criteria couldn't be confidently assessed, the mark was consigned to a, ”probable” category of human bone modification.

We selected six bone samples bearing indisputable evidence of butchery activity for radiocarbon dating. The samples were sent to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) for analysis.”

The ¹⁴C BP dates and the calibrated age BP are given in the following table:

The authors therefore come to some firm conclusions in their Discussion section:

1. “While the Yana River sites indicate a human presence in Western Beringia ca. 32,000 cal BP [14, 15], the Bluefish Caves site proves that people were in Eastern Beringia during the LGM, by at least 24,000 cal BP”

2. Our results, therefore, confirm that Bluefish Caves is the oldest known archaeological site in North America.

Emphasis in bold my own.

The two oldest bone samples are shown below:

The oldest specimen, a horse jaw-bone dated to between 23,314 and 24,033 years BP Fig 1 from Bourgeon (2017). Original caption reads: Fig 1. Cut marks on a horse mandible from Cave II. The specimen (# J7.8.17) is dated to 19,650 ± 130 14C BP (OxA-33778). The bone surface is a bit weathered and altered by root etching but the cut marks are well preserved; they are located on the medial side, under the third and second molars, and are associated with the removal of the tongue using a stone tool.

The second oldest specimen, a caribou pelvic bone dated to between 22,176 and 22,731 years BP Fig 2 from Bourgeon (2017). Original caption reads: Fig 2. Cut marks on a caribou coxal bone from Cave II. The specimen (# I5.6.5) is dated to 18,570 ± 110 14C BP (OxA-33777) and shows straight and parallel marks resulting from filleting activity.

Unfortunately, the authors chose to conflate their results with the Beringian standstill theory. In this hypothesis, humans were isolated, physically and genetically, in Beringia from about 23,000 B.P. to 15,000 cal. B.P. and then continued their migration further into the rest of the Americas as an ice-free corridor formed between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets opened:

(our results) “thus providing long-awaited archaeological support for the “Beringian standstill hypothesis”

Why the authors, feel the need to hang their paper off the coat tails of the current orthodoxy is inexplicable and ironic considering they have just, effectively put the last nail in the coffin of the Clovis-first paradigm!

A good, simple explanation of why this new ‘line in the sand’ rejecting the pre-Ice Age peopling of the Americas, is being drawn was written recently by Marnie Dunsmore (2017), in a blog post with provocative title “Trading One Zombie Model for Another: Why I am Fed Up with the Beringia Standstill Model and the journals and conferences that don't consider alternatives”.

Here are a couple of quotes to give you a different perspective:

“The distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups in the Americas, namely haplogroups A, B, C, and D, according to Behar[3], split from the mitochondrial tree earlier than 30,000 thousand years ago (before the last Ice Age).  Given the distribution for these haplogroups[4][5], it is equally likely that the branching of these mitochondrial haplogroups occurred in the Americas, as in Asia or Beringia. Given that Beringia and Siberia were cold, while many areas in the Americas were temperate [2], during the Ice Age, the likely expansion of the A, B, C and D haplogroups during the Ice Age was in the Americas south of the glaciers, not Beringia or Siberia (as proposed in the Beringia Standstill Model.”

 ..“There is ample evidence that Modern Humans were in Siberia and Beringia tens of thousands of years before the Ice Age.  Given that sea level data indicates that there were long periods before the Ice Age (when Modern Humans were in Beringia) when there was an easily walkable path from Beringia to Florida, to the American Central Plains, to the American East Coast and to points further south, it is highly improbable that highly mobile large game hunters over tens of thousands of years would not easily have moved back and forth between the Americas and Eastern Eurasia[5][8][9][10].”

If you want to check out the timings of the existence of Beringian Land Bridges I put together a detailed post on that here.

An inconvenient truth..

Something really, bothered me about this paper. I read it and re-read, scrolled the screen for several minutes, up and down, up and down. Frustratingly, nothing jumped out. Finally, I went away and thought about something else. Of course THAT did the trick! It was a sin of omission I was missing. Consider the following adapted version of Bourgeon’s table 1:

Notice anything? Two of the oldest specimens, RIDDL-224 and 225 (remember them?) from the Mammoth tibia and the associated refitted flake, are of comparable dates to those determined in the current paper aren’t they? Nothing to see here – move along.

Wrong. Dead wrong. They are radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates and therefore need calibrating to give actual calenderic ages, i.e. cal. BP years as has been done with the bone samples in this paper.
So let’s calibrate them! I used the Monrepos Museum online Calpal resource (Danzeglocke 2007). Also included is the oldest specimen, a butchered caribou tibia.

Wow now that is quite a bit older isn’t it. So why this omission?

I gave Cinq-Mars’ explanation of how the flake (RIDDL-224) was made from the core (RIDDL-225) by human agency in a previous post, see here.

Although the specimens (RIDDL-224 and RIDDL-225) were described in a peer reviewed journal in 1990, their publication history is quite complex. From the outset, based on contextual, bone taphonomic and sample comparison criteria, Cinq-Mars insisted these bones were pre-Ice Age. It could be argued, that at first, he did not have sufficient high quality evidence to support this assertion. This caused resistance from the archaeological establishment, who firmly rejected this timeframe for the peopling of the Americas and publication problems, after his initial paper appeared. For clarity sake I will summarise the publication history and the radiocarbon ages below:

Looking at the initial date of publication (Cinq-Mars 1990) and the first time, firm dates are attributed to the samples we find they are different. Checking the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) we find the dates of submission for AMS radiocarbon dating are on the same day in April 1997 (Anon 2017 a and b).

And that’s the problem that Cinq-Mars caused. Whilst the argument of how they were produced is detailed and robust, (see here), and Cinq-Mars’ refutation of all published objections, for example Beebe (1983), to these and other specimens is unassailable, he simply did not follow scientific convention. He therefore left himself open to justifiable scientific criticism. This coupled with the extremely old dates, ensured then, and still does today, that Cinq-Mars oldest specimens remain unaccepted.

Image comparisons of RIDDL-224 and RIDDL-225

RIDDL-224 and RIDDL 225 from Harington and Cinq-Mars (2008)

RIDDL-224 and RIDDL 225 from Cinq-Mars (2001)

We can therefore see that these bone artifacts, given their proven human manufacture and most particularly their pre-Ice Age dating would cause Bourgeon et al. great difficulties were they included in their paper. This is because, the authors draw a firm dating ‘line in the sand’ when they link their results so strongly to the Beringian ‘standstill hypothesis’, in their closing discussion.

Conclusions

1. A seminal paper as Bourgeon et al. (2017) prove conclusively that people were in the Americas by 24,000 BP

2. Disappointingly they see the evidence they have gathered as support for the current orthodoxy (the Beringian Standstill hypothesis).

3. Evidence from their own paper regarding the true dates of the peopling of the Americas is ignored.

4. The date of the peopling of the Americas, from data presented above should be at a minimum 27,000 cal BP and perhaps as old as ca. 30,000 cal BP.

Lastly a couple of quotes to which summarise my feelings on the Bluefish Caves saga.

Dunsmore (2017) again:

“I note that prominent conferences such at the Paleoanthropology Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia at the end of March (by the way, to be held on never ceded Salish territory in downtown Vancouver), continue to entertain papers supporting only the Beringia Standstill model, but not alternatives.  Given the weight of evidence, this cannot be seen as objective, and the unlevel funding supporting the Beringia Standstill Model can only be seen as another example of formerly Clovis First too cozy ancient DNA researchers, archaeologists, and their supporters, feeding at the trough.”

The last word should be Cinq-Mars’ (1999), quoting Morlan:

“A program of AMS dating was undertaken on bone cores and flakes “to determine whether the distribution of ages would be random or grouped in time. A random distribution, including ages beyond the limits of radiocarbon measurement, could be explained by the action of one or more long-term natural processes of bone alteration, whereas a restricted distribution younger than the limits of measurement would require the onset of a new process of bone alteration” (Morlan et al. 1990:75). The resulting ages were found to be restricted to “a 15,000 year time span, beginning around 40,000 BP. and ending around 25,000 BP. Since we believe that our measurement methods would have allowed us to measure samples 10,000 years older than those encountered here, this implies that a new agency or process enters into the taphonomic histories of large vertebrates in the Old Crow Basin around 40,000 BP” (Morlan et al. 1990:86).”

Translation: Morlan and Cinq-Mars believe man arrived in the Americas 40,000BP. Enough said.

References

Anon (2017a). Canada / YT / MgVo-2 (Bluefish Cave II) / RIDDL-224. [ONLINE] Available at: http://card.anth.ubc.ca/samples/4593. [Accessed 12 April 2017].

Anon (2017b). Canada / YT / MgVo-2 (Bluefish Cave II) / RIDDL-225. [ONLINE] Available at: http://card.anth.ubc.ca/samples/4592. [Accessed 12 April 2017].

Bourgeon, L. (2015). Humans and Carnivores at the Bluefish Cave ii (Northern Yukon, Canada): Interpretation of the faunal remains [Poster]. Exhibited at Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, Session 357: Peopling of the New World and Archaeology of Paleoindians. Hilton Hotel, San Francisco. 18^th April 2015.

Download available at: https://www.academia.edu/24719435/Humans_and_carnivores_at_the_Bluefish_Caves_II_Yukon_-_SAA_San_Francisco_2015

Beebe, B.F., 1983, Evidence of carnivore activity in a Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene archaeological site (Bluefish Cave I), Yukon Territory, Canada, in Lemoine, G.M., and MacEachern, A.S., eds., Carnivores, Human Scavengers, and Predators: A Question of Bone Technology, Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, University of Calgary, p. 1–14.

Bourgeon L, Burke A, Higham T (2017). Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada. PLoS ONE 12 (1):  e0169486. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169486

Cinq-Mars, J, 1990. La place des grottes du Poisson-Bleu dans le Préhistoire béringienne. Revista de Arqueología Americana, No. 1, 9-32.

Cinq-Mars, J. 2001. Canadian Museum of History, Significance of the Bluefish Caves in Beringian Prehistory. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/research/resources-for-scholars/essays/significance-of-the-bluefish-caves-in-beringian-prehistory/. [Accessed 12 April 2017].

Cinq-Mars, Jacques and Richard E. Morlan. 1999. “Bluefish Caves and Old Crow Basin: A New Rapport,” in Ice Age Peoples of North America, ed. by Robson Bonnichsen and Karen L. Turnmire, pp. 200-212. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press for the Center for the Study of the First Americans.

Download available from: https://www.academia.edu/5521801/Bluefish_Caves_and_Old_Crow_Basin_A_New_Rapport._Cinqmars_et_al._1999_

Danzeglocke, U 2007. CalPal Online. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.calpal-online.de/index.html. [Accessed 11 April 2017].

Dunsmore, M. 2017. Trading One Zombie Model for Another: Why I am Fed Up with the Beringia Standstill Model and the journals and conferences that don't consider alternatives. [ONLINE] Available at: http://linearpopulationmodel.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/why-i-am-fed-up-with-beringia.html. [Accessed 12 April 2017].

Harington, C. R., 2011, Quaternary Cave Faunas of Canada: A Review of the Vertebrate Remains: Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, v. 73, no. 3, p. 162-180.

PDF download available at https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5771b897e4b07657d1a6c8e8

Harington, C.R., and Cinq-Mars, J., 2008, Bluefish Caves – fauna and context, Beringian Research Notes, no. 19, p. 1–8.

Download Available at: http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/publications/Blue_Fish_Caves_2008.pdf

Morlan, R,E,, et al. 1990 Accelerator mass spectrometry dates on bones from Old Crow basin, northern Yukon Territory, Canadian Journal of Archaeology 14:75-92.

Pringle, H.. 2017. From Vilified to Vindicated: the Story of Jacques Cinq-Mars. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-long/vilified-vindicated-story-jacques-cinq-mars. [Accessed 12 April 2017].







Pre-Clovis Archaeological Sites of the Americas 6: Blue Fish Caves - Old Crow Basin, Canada

The Blue Fish Caves in Canada’s Old Crow Basin have excited controversy since the lead archaeologist, Jacques Cinq-Mars, reported early Radiocarbon dates for the site of ca. 28000 years BP on human altered remains of mid-Wisconsinian age fauna. The author experienced a great deal of difficulty having his results published. He explains these difficulties in the forward of an online, translation of his eventual French language publication¹:

 
“This is a translation of a paper originally published, in French, in Revista de Arqueología Americana, No. 1, (1990): pp. 9-32. But for a few minor corrections and the presentation of upgraded illustrations (Fig. 1- 5) and faunal list (Table 1), this Web version is essentially the same as the original one.

The 1989 article by Cinq-Mars and Morlan (referred to in the text as “Cinq-Mars and Morlan 1989”) was finally published as:

Cinq-Mars, Jacques and Richard E. Morlan. 1999. “Bluefish Caves and Old Crow Basin: A New Rapport,” in Ice Age Peoples of North America, ed. by Robson Bonnichsen and Karen L. Turnmire, pp. 200-212. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press for the Center for the Study of the First Americans.

On the other hand, the article by Cinq-Mars and Nelson (1989 — also referred to in the text) has not as yet appeared.”

 
Site location

The Blue Fish Caves lie 54km southwest of the Vuntut Gwichin community of Old Crow, itself being approximately 300km N of Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada.

 

 

 

Cinq-Mars¹ Fig 1.

 

Map from “Ice Age Old Crow”² drawn by Tanya Handley

The authors describe the setting of the site in their initial section Location and environment:

“As previously noted the Bluefish Caves lie 54 km sw of the village of Old Crow, overlooking the middle course of the Bluefish River, a tributary of the Porcupine River (Fig.1). This is a region of Devonian limestone hills at the northern end of the Keele Range, which in turn forms the foothills of the great massif of the Ogilvie Mountains that mark the centre of the Yukon. These hills also mark the southwestern edge of the enormous network of lacustrine basins, which during the upper Pleistocene were inundated by the waters of the Bluefish, Old Crow and Bell glacial lakes (Hughes 1972).”

A good representation of the approximate paleogeography at the time from Ice Age Old Crow²:

 

They continue: “The environment [in the late Pleistocene] is characteristic of boreal forest in mountainous regions (Ritchie et al., 1982)¹⁵, with spruce trees (Picea glauca and Picea mariana) on the pediments and more or less continuous tundra zones along ridges over 750 m high. The climate is typical of this boreal type of environment, and the landscape has been shaped by multiple periglacial processes characteristic of continuous permafrost regions.”

The Geomorphological context is explained thus:

“The caves are found at the western extremity of a ridge dominating a narrowing of the Bluefish River. They are nestled at the foot of a series of limestone outcrops standing about 250 m above the river valley. There are three caves (I, II and III), actually small cavities whose volume ranges from about 10 m³ to 30 m³ (Fig. 2). These cavities are the remains of a former, greatly reduced karst network uncovered by the erosion of the slopes.” Noted later: “cliff faces rise about 10 m over the entrances."

 

 

 

A better view of Blue Fish Cave II by Ruth Gotthardt³

Cinq-Mars¹ sampled and excavated the cave deposits both inside and outside the 3 caves, the mode and sequence of deposition that he found, can summarised thus:

 

• A floor is a bedrock surface studded with cryoclastic fragments

 

• The sediment overlying this, is of eolian (windblown) origin, and is a relatively homogeneous loess. This reaches 1m deep and contains some of cryoclastic elements, fallen from the walls and ceiling

 

• Granulometric and sedimentological analyses demonstrate that the loess can be divided into three facies, analysis indicates their place of origin as lake basins to the north

 

• Overlying the loess, gradually or discomformably, is a layer of humus-rich cryoclastic rubble. Outside of the caves is ca. 1m deep and declines rapidly at the cave entrances and becomes, on towards the interior, a simple organic enrichment of the upper portion of the loess.

 

• Finally, the surface fill is characterised by herbaceous and shrubby vegetation on the exterior of the caves, and by a discontinuous cover of ferns, mosses and lichens on the interior.

 

These layers can be seen in Cinq-Mars’ Fig 3:

 

The authors explain the difficulty in reading the sedimentation history and their response: “action of periglacial phenomena such as cryoturbation and congelifluction, and which can sometimes make interpretation difficult. These deposits do not lend themselves readily to a precise stratigraphic reading, and more than in most locations, decoding them requires the contribution of other types of data.”

 

“Palynological data

The analysis of sediments from the interior of Cave I and the exterior of Cave II has provided pollen diagrams which, despite the nature of the deposits, are indicative of a certain degree of depositional integrity. ..diagrams published (Cinq-Mars 1979⁹; Ritchie et al. 1982¹⁵).. the most significant details:

 

•First,.. lower level of the loess, a pollen assemblage presenting the characteristics of tundra rich in herbaceous species.

•Above.. the upper level of the loess, is a zone characterised by.. a predominance of birch (Betula).

 

•Finally, in the.. humus-rich rubble, a third assemblage is characterised by a.. decrease of herbaceous species and a significant increase in spruce (Picea) and alder (Alnus).

 

The authors, although admitting that the pollen biostratigraphy is somewhat weakly defined, conclude, especially with reference to other studies carried out in the immediate region confirm that the stratigraphy is largely intact despite some periglacial mixing.

 

They thus envisage this sequence of biomes:

1. Xeric herbaceous tundra environment to 14Kya BP

2. Shrubby birch Tundra rich in herbaceous plants 14-13.5Kya BP

3. Boreal spruce forest by 10Kya BP. 

 

Next the authors review the Palaeontological data collected, in summary these were:

 

·         All three cave yielded thousands of bones

·         These were located in the humus rich (more recent) layer and the late Pleistocene, loess layers

·         Large and small mammals were found including microtines (mice, voles and muskrats), and also fish and birds

·         Extinct megafauna characteristic of late Beringinian mammoth steppe were found in abundance, these included “horse (Equus lambei), caribou or reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), sheep (Ovis dalli), bison (Bison priscus), moose (cf. Alces alces), wapiti or elk (Cervus elaphus) and mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). There are also saiga (Saiga tatarica), muskox (Ovibos moschatus), bear (Ursus), wolf (Canis lupus) and lion (Panthera).”

 

The authors also noted that the humus-rich rubble showed an impoverishment in the megafauna characteristic of the continent-wide mass extinction event

 

Next the authors move on to explain their early radiocarbon dates in the Chronological context section:

“As we have seen, the sedimentological, palynological and palaeontological data enable us to place the cave deposits on a chronological scale that definitely includes the Holocene (humus-rich rubble) and the end of the late Pleistocene, or Late Glacial (loess). Several 14C measurements made early in the research (Cinq-Mars 1979;⁹ Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982¹⁰) roughly confirmed this chronostratigraphic estimate and even gave some indication of precision. We were able to date an episode of forest fire, definitely Holocene, in the (cryoturbated) upper sediments of Cave I. We also obtained a date of 12,900 BP from the femur of a horse, collected in the upper level of the lower loess of Cave I; and a date of 15,500 BP from a mammoth scapula found in the lower loess of Cave II, where the palynological signs of the herbaceous tundra were identified.”

 

However at this point news of the finds and their dates seems to have spread throughout the archaeological community thus when new Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) had been run by R.M. Brown (Atomic Energy of Canada) and E. Nelson (Simon Fraser University) Cinq-Mars and Nelson simply could not get their data published! In fact the site results were quietly ignored for 8 long years!!

 

However, in 1997 with the acceptance of Monte Verde site as pre-Clovis Cinq-Mars was able, once again to obtain funding. To allay all doubts from the archaeological community he had his best samples re-tested using exclusively AMS technology. The results were stunning, even the mammoth scapula described above tested older that previously.

 

Cinq-Mars’ samples of human modified bone ranged from 17000 to nearly 25000BP.

 

The authors however do not give a summary of the dating results, but refer readers to the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD). Although this website is not particularly user friendly, once the site designation for the Blue Fish Caves is found (MgVo I-III), the results can be accessed. I have collected the results⁴ together in a table for ease of viewing:

 

Whilst these dates for human modified megafaunal bones was impressive in itself, the authors felt that some of their paleoecological data are equally if not MORE important. Here is what they say: “More importantly, these results demonstrate that the mammoth steppe fauna mentioned above, in a combination that remains to be precisely determined, constituted an essential element of the Glacial Maximum biotope of eastern Beringia (between about 17,000 and 25,000 BP).” Basically what they are saying is that their data show that as mammoth step did exist at the time of the sediment formation over height of the last glacial maxima (ca. 22000BP). In other words their data refute the “productivity paradox” of Schweger et al.¹¹ (1982) and the position of Cwynar and Ritchie (1980)¹² and support the position of Guthrie (1985)¹³ and Matthews (1982)¹⁴ that the environment was extremely rich and capable of supporting an extensive megafaunal assemblage.

 

In their next section Cultural Manifestations the authors present their lithic and other finds. They explain their discoveries thus:

 

“Like other Beringian sites that have yielded very ancient archaeological material, the cultural remains found in the Bluefish Caves are exasperatingly sparse. They consist of three classes of lithics, some butchering marks found on various megafaunal remains and some examples of simple bone tools. With a few rare exceptions,, these were all found in the loess layer of Caves I and II, and in a context which, once again, is not always easy to read.”

The lithic artefacts included cores, microblades, angle burins on truncated blades or flakes, burin spalls, notches, etc. and, various flakes and flake fragments that may be debitage. Examples are shown in Cinq-Mars’ Fig 4 below:

 

 

The raw materials were primarily high-quality cherts, usually blue, but occasionally speckled or more rarely, black, and definitely exotic to the region. “So far, such artefacts have been recovered only in Caves I and II.” Cinq-Mars later notes: “Bluefish limestone does not contain chert. The few examples of this material found in the region (in several rocky outcrops to the east of the caves or in the form of pebbles on the river bars) are of very poor quality. We also know that cherts similar to those found in Caves I and II occur in a number of archaeological sites located about 100 kilometres to the north, in the Cordilleran foothills (Brooks, British and Barn mountains).”

 

This is an important finding. Only humans could have moved these artifacts to the cave. On the dating of these stone artifacts, the authors say this:

“Most of them occurred mainly in the interior and at the entrance of Cave II, both at the bottom and the upper limit of the (lower) loess level where were also found most of the faunal remains. Several technological characteristics of the burins (all angle burins on truncated supports) may indicate that much of the assemblage represents either a specific episode in the use of the cave, or consecutive visits by a particular group. Although the context does not allow us to date these lithics with precision, we know that they considerably predate the end of the period in which the loess was deposited; i.e., before 10,000 BP. Their provenance and association with the remains of extinct species suggest that they may have been incorporated into the deposit around 12,000 BP or perhaps even earlier.”

 

The detrital debitage come from older layers of the site “Their distribution inside the cave parallels that of the tools described above and is also suggestive of some cultural sedimentation in that portion of the loess unit whose pollen is characteristic of the herbaceous tundra which dates, as noted above, from between 25,000 and 13,500 BP.”

 

Lastly the authors found a number of small cobbles at the very base of the loess near bedrock. Although unsure of their origin the authors note: “several of the larger specimens that could, after all, have been used as hammerstones”.

 

Now we come to the really juicy bit of the paper: Cut or butchering marks, the details were given as:

 

“The evidence consists of a variety of cut marks, incisions, scrape marks, chopping marks and striations resulting from the intentional butchering and defleshing of animals with stone tools, and penetrating, more or less deeply and in various places, the external walls of the bones. (Morlan and Cinq-Mars 1982: Fig. 10)¹⁶. It is important to note that we refer here to undeniable cultural indicators and not to similar marks made by carnivores, rodents, various geological processes or even excavators. Thus far, we believe that we have been able to identify examples on numerous elements of the skeleton of nearly every large mammal species, with the possible exception of wolf, moose, wapiti and saiga. Almost all were found in Caves I and II.”

 

They conclude:

 

“This type of data also enables us to refine the time frame of the cultural content of the deposit. As there are no such markings on the faunal remains found in the humus-rich rubble, it is evident that this type of evidence and its causes date to the Pleistocene. This is confirmed by the 14C dates mentioned earlier and which were obtained from some of the specimens exhibiting such modifications. These dates suggest that cultural activities relating to the exploitation of the Bluefish fauna occurred sporadically between about 25,000 BP and 10,000 BP.”

 

Whilst objections were raised at the time, a subsequent publication by Morlan⁵ in 2003 with analysis of some of the human modified bones by the world renowned taphonomic specialist Pat Shipman, have silenced most critics of the site’s authenticity.

 

The authors also found objects worked from bone into tools.

These included fleshers for processing hides, one shaped from a caribou tibia, initially dated 24,820 BP but recently found to be much younger, and secondly and more importantly a human worked mammoth long bone.

The bone tool made from the mammoth long bone is explained in some detail by the authors: “...obtained through a relatively complex sequence of actions or “chaîne opératoire”, which can be summarised as follows:

  

•the raw material, namely a mammoth long bone, was first reduced to a fragment consisting of an epiphysis and the contiguous portion of the diaphysis;

 

•what could be described as a rough striking platform was then prepared at the end of the diaphysis segment;

 

•from this platform, a series of three flakes, ranging from 7 to 10 cm in length, were subsequently detached by percussion from the cortical face of the diaphysis segment;

 

•finally, one of these flakes, the longest one, was further worked and/or retouched bifacially and reduced diagonally, from its proximal end, by more than a third of its original size.”

 

Cinq-Mars Fig 5 showing the tool preparation sequence detailed above.

A number of different photographs of worked bone artifacts exist from the Old Crow Basin, adjacent to the Blue Fish Cave site and from the Blue Fish cave itself. A selection is shown below:

 

Morlan⁵ 2003 Fig 3, dated 33700 ± 800⁶

Bison rib with human made, cut mark SEM photograph by P. Shipman⁷, sample dated

42000 ± 1200 BP⁸

Taphonomic experiment, 1980’s by Morlan, showing replication of fracture types on found archaeological material ONLY with green bone and thus confirming human working of mammoth bone. From Ice Age Old Crow².

Verdict:

·         Blue Fish caves used by man to butcher megfauna at ca. 25000BP and possibly as early as 31000BP

·         Humans hunting and butchering animals in the Old Crow Basin from 42000BP - wow that’s old!

References

1. Revista de Arqueología Americana, No. 1, (1990): pp. 9-32.

Translation retrieved from:

http://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/research/resources-for-scholars/essays/significance-of-the-bluefish-caves-in-beringian-prehistory/

 

2. Image from:

www.tc.gov.yk.ca/publications/ice_age_old_crow.pdf

 

3. Image credit Ruth Gotthardt in Beringian Research notes no. 19.

Retrieved from: http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/publications/Blue_Fish_Caves_2008.pdf

 

4. Accelerometer Mass Spectrometer (AMS) dates for Blue Fish Cave II

Most records retrieved from: http://canadianarchaeology.ca/sites/1339

 

5. Morlan, R. E. 2003. Current perspectives on the Pleistocene archaeology of eastern Beringia. Quaternary Research Volume 60, Issue 1, July 2003, Pages 123–132.

 

6. Data retrieved from:

http://canadianarchaeology.ca/samples/4873

 

7. Photograph from The Mammoth Trumpet Vol 1 no. 1. Winter 1984

 

8. Data retrieved from:

Retrieved from: http://canadianarchaeology.ca/samples/4742

 

9. Cinq-Mars J.1979 “Bluefish Cave 1: A Late Pleistocene Eastern Beringian Cave Deposit in the Northern Yukon”, Canadian Journal of Archaeology No. 3, pp. 1-32.

 

10. Morlan, R.E. and J. Cinq-Mars. 1982 “Ancient Beringians: Human Occupation in the Late Pleistocene of Alaska and the Yukon Territory.” In: Paleoecology of Beringia, ed. D.M. Hopkins et al. (New York, Academic Press) pp. 353-381.

 

11. Schweger, C.E., J.V. Mathews, Jr., D.M. Hopkins and S.B. Young (eds.)

1982 “Paleoecology of Beringia – A Synthesis.” In: Paleoecology of Beringia, ed. D.M. Hopkins et al. (New York, Academic Press) pp. 425-444.

 

12. Cwynar, L. and J.C. Ritchie. 1980. “Arctic steppe-tundra: A Yukon perspective”, Science Vol. 208, pp. 1375-1377.

 

13. Guthrie, R.D. 1985 “Woolly Arguments Against the Mammoth Steppe – A New Look at the Palynological Data”, Quarterly Review of Archaeology Vol. 6.

 

14. Matthews, J.V., Jr. 1982 “East Beringia During Late Wisconsin Time: A Review of the Biotic Evidence.” In: Paleoecology of Beringia, ed. D.M. Hopkins et al. (New York, Academic Press) pp. 127-150.

 

15. Ritchie J.C., J. Cinq-Mars and L. Cwynar. 1982 “L’environnement tardiglaciaire du Yukon septentrional, Canada”, Géographie physique et Quaternaire Vol. XXXVI, pp. 241-250.

 

16. Cinq-Mars J.1982 “Les grottes du Poisson-Bleu”, Geos Vol. 11, pp. 19-21.