00:00.80 archpodnet Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 108 I am your host Dr Andrew King Kella and tonight we tackle the clovis first debate which is not really a debate. And also what is clovis anyway. So why we doing clovis tonight. So you guys I got to tell you I did this Youtube video at this point about a month ago and I've talked about it on a previous podcast right? I did this video. Making fun of Graham Hancock right and if you haven't seen the video you should check it out as of this recording I'm recording this January fifteenth um it has 16000 views and what I think is more shocking. 887 comments good god so I think I might have touched a nerve and I will say that the comments are overwhelmingly negative right? They they hate your humble narrator. 01:18.55 archpodnet Dr. Andrew King Kella oh they hate him. Oh they think he's just a fool who knows nothing so we're a month in and I'm still getting negative comments on this right? just sort of the equivalent of my daily hate mail and ah. I thought I would respond to just 1 aspect and again the whole Graham Hancock thing is giving me you know months of material right? His whole ancient apocalypse silliness. But there's 1 thing one aspect that would come up every so often and that aspect is Clovis Graham Hancock talks about Clovis as and the idea of Clovis first and I'll get into what all this is in a moment. He talks about it as something that archeologists still believe and we totally. Don't and haven't for decades so it's a it's a perfect example of just using incorrect information to try and prove your point just stuff. That's totally wrong. It's just a lie. Um I notice. That the people who are so angry at me what they do is they just they watch Graham Hancock or they read what he's written and they just straight up. Believe everything he says and they judge me by his false narrative. 02:52.74 archpodnet And whenever I defend myself they just they just don't even care. It doesn't even register. They just keep going so first and foremost what is Clovis so one of the hard parts about talking about clovis is clovis. Is actually 4 things clovis is a place. There's a place in New Mexico and we'll do a deep dive on all this in the next segment Clovis is an artifact It's a special spear point that comes from the time. Speaking of time clovis is a time period that is vaguely about thirteen thousand years ago and clovis is a culture it refers to the group of people who lived in the new world at that time. So what's the big debate right? the. Debate is basically is this group of people this clovis culture that is living in the new world at about thirteen thousand years ago are they the first or not right. Is there a pre clovis culture or not. And in the halls of academe back in the really the 1970 s and maybe into the 1980 s. 04:14.83 archpodnet Archaeologists would argue if Clovis was the first culture in the new world or not were these the people. The first people who came across the bearing land bridge into the new world or were there earlier ones that came before and there was a group of academics. Who became referred to as the clovis mafia because they said that clovis was first these were the first people into the new world and there was nothing earlier I don't care what you say and I will say that they did take it a little too far. They were a little bit bullying. On this kind of stuff and realize this is decades ago right? and I love the idea of academics being bullies but clove is mafia and by the way if you don't think I want that t-shirt you'd be wrong. I mean a match clovis mafia you can make it look all angry all hardcore clovis mafia right? I think you should put a really angry looking mammoth on it I don't know I want it? Maybe it's just my dream I will say though in terms of. The history of the clovis mafia I started college in the early 90 s right and I remember taking an upper division archeology class. This must have been. This was either like let's say 9092 somewhere right in there. 05:46.14 archpodnet And might be a year off but no more than that and I remember joking about the clovis mafia even then so this is 9092 right? and not just the students. The professor too. We all joked about it I yeah yeah, the clovis ma and clovis first all that b as ah, dude is hilarious, right? So to give you an idea of real lived experience by an archeologist me where I can tell you. Proof positive for sure that thirty years ago we were already making light of this right? And the reason why the clovis the the reason why the clovis mafia ultimately fell. Was of course I don't even need to tell you we started to find sites that were a bit older than 13000 years it's really that easy and not a lot older though I do want to make sure you guys know this like. We start to find ones that can date pretty well to fourteen thousand maybe even to 15000 once you get to 15 it gets pretty sparse if you asked me today hey can tell when do you think the first people crossed the bearing land bridge I would just say that in terms of the data which we have to go by. 07:07.56 archpodnet I think you can give it somewhere around like sixteen and a half thousand years ago I'm very comfortable with that everything that I've seen that's older than that finds that are twenty thousand years ago in that vicinity it's possible but I think the jury's still out right. But that's just from from what I've seen 10 years from now we you know I might change my mind and again I straight go by the data. It's fine if somebody finds a site where it's really solid. You know twenty one thousand years I'll change I'll change my view in an afternoon that's fine. That's what archeology is all about and that's. Also battles against Graham Hancock constantly saying that we're somehow narrow minded. Oh. We just don't take other ideas into account. No, we just don't take his total Bs ideas into account. We take new information new good real data into account all the time. And we're happy to change our view I would love to see a really well dated 20000 year old site that would be awesome. Um, that's I'm all into that because it makes the story that much more interesting. But as of today I'm giving you sixteen and a half give or take somewhere in there and it just shows you that these sites. When we talk about clovis sites sites where you're going to find um the stone tools that go with Clovis where you're going to find evidence of that culture or even pre clovis sites where you're going to have good dates in the. 08:41.54 archpodnet Oh the 14000 year old or 15000 year old realm those are exceedingly rare. They're super rare that data those sites are extra extra precious because they do not come up every day far from it and. I would say that the question of the peopleling of the new world right? How and when human beings first got here to North and South America is the single hardest question in all of archeology. That's where I'm going with that. Probably said it somewhere before possibly even on this podcast but I just I find it to be true. It is so very very difficult. So of course a schyster like Graham Hancock gets' a perfect playground when you have very thin real data. Anyways. You can make up all kinds of stupid stories and it's hard to fight back right? except to go. You have no data and that's moronic. So for me, what really did in the clovis first mafia. I think was the site of Montav Verde which is dated to around 14000 I think it might even be 14000 and change. Let's say 14500 Monte Verde but what makes us extra special is Monta Verde is in Chile and not just in Chile. It's in the very. 10:12.73 archpodnet Bottom portion of Chile which means it's at the bottom portion of South America so if people cross the bearing land bridge they're gonna need some time to get from Alaska all the way down to the bottom of Chile and. It was that site that really brought the whole clovis first thing to a head you know the the clovis first mafia was really unfair towards the archeologists who were dating that site. They were just sort of denying it and making them go through really hoops that were really. Not appropriate right? where if it was any other site they would have accepted the data long ago but they just kind of went on and on so that happened in the 90 s but the clubbus first mafia was largely done in before that right? they were sort of. They were the lesser group in archeology for a long time even then so I just wanted to set this up. You guys showing you that in real archeology in my real lived experience. You know that? ah. 11:21.80 archpodnet That while the idea of Clovis and clovis culture and that it dates to thirteen thousand years ago is absolutely appropriate and true and factual. The idea that archeologists still believe that clovis culture was the first into the new world. Is just not true anymore and hasn't been true for decades when we return what is clovis specifically.