Gault and the Peopling of the Americas Myth

D. Clark Wernecke, PhD, Director (ret.), Prehistory Research Project, University of Texas at Austin

Recent discoveries, including the Gault Archaeological Site, have triggered a paradigm shift regarding the earliest peoples in the Americas. Though a number of researchers over the years publicly doubted the mainstream idea that the Clovis culture represented the first peoples in the New World the excavations at Monte Verde, Chile in the 1970's changed the nature and tenor of the arguments. For the first time many archaeologists agreed that a site met the rules of evidence showing human occupation in the Western Hemisphere prior to Clovis. As more evidence surfaced and older sites were re-examined, we were forced to revise the story of the peopling of the Americas. Paradigm shifts are messy, and we still have nearly as many questions as answers but it is clear that we need to more closely test new hypotheses for the peopling of the Americas.

Clark Wernecke, PhD, is the retired Director of the Prehistory Research Project at the University of Texas at Austin and the nonprofit Gault School of Archaeological Research. Dr. Wernecke started his academic career with a degree in history from Southern Methodist University followed by an MBA from Northwestern University, a MA in Anthropology from Florida Atlantic, and finally his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He came back to archaeology after a career in business and has worked in the Middle East, Mesoamerica, the American Southeast and Southwest, and Texas.

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