00:00.00 archpodnet Okay, we're in our recording welcome back to episode 1 of 7 of lifenew but hang on welcome back to episode 1 of 7 of a life neuro podcast I'm your host David Carlton and Connor are not here remember that you know that so I'm here with Dr Todd Servell um and the question that. Most of you guys are probably wondering and what I would love to pick Todd's brain about and have him say on air on the record. What? Well first can you take me through like paleoindian history into the Americas and what are your opinions on pre-cloviss. And I will let you just sing. 00:38.48 Todd David David what do you mean by paleo and in history and the Americas you're talking about the history of the discipline what or or the history. 00:44.34 archpodnet Um, that's a good call out because I didn't think how to word that coming from Siberia into the Americas like what what does that look like what's their lifestyle. 00:56.84 Todd Ah, people crossed the burying land bridge sometime between 15 and fourteen thousand years ago um they get into Alaska and sometime around I would say thirteen thousand four hundred to fourteen thousand years ago probably closer to the younger end of that they breach the continental ice sheets by some route or routes and once they get into the contiguous United States they spread through the remainder of north and south and America very rapidly. 01:32.54 archpodnet Um, yeah, yeah, sure. 01:32.71 Todd That's a short answer huh i' I holding little second buddy. Okay, let's continue. 01:41.43 archpodnet Sure, um, all right? and just Editor's note Chris will start in 3 2 1 um, okay, so they're coming in and the pre can like I took a peeping of the Americas seminar. But Dave Anderson at Ut and we read Meltzer's book that was like our textbook and along with a bunch of articles I think first people's in the new world. Um, and I always thought they were just big game hunters only hunting mammoths because that's like. 02:07.51 Todd Which book. Okay. 02:20.27 archpodnet You know what you see in the artwork and stuff but like I didn't realize the breadth of like their tool set and like the just sheer amount of stuff they were doing and how fast they are moving until grad school like learning more about it through like the tools and and things like that there which I've always found Fascinating. So I Guess. What are your opinions on all that. 02:41.12 Todd Well, the simple answer is we don't know and I mean not nothing I've said today in my last answer is not controversial right? Um, especially whether we're talking about where they came from the route by which they moved the time they arrived. 02:50.50 archpodnet Um, yeah. 03:00.69 Todd All of those things are debated and if we're going to talk about their lifestyle whether they were primarily big game hunters whether they had a ah very diverse diet and you know use the wide range of plant and animal species killed anything they encountered. Um. All of those things continue to be questioned and their areas of research if you ask me you see evidence for a more diverse diet in Beringia Eastern beringia Alaska than you see in North America north america at least from the record we have to me it suggests. Clear pattern of preferential targeting of the largest and rarest animals on the landscape. Not to say they exclusively use those things but it's kind of strange. You know when the clove is record the most common species in it is mammoth which is would have been one of the rarest animals around. It's pretty clear to me that we're not taking lagomorphs or you know rabbits and hairs at least not very often. It's pretty clear to me. There was not much investment in the use of plant resources and that's not to say they didn't use them. They almost certainly did but they weren't intensively invested in it. They weren't intensively invested in in small animals over and over again. We see a very clear pattern of preferential targeting of large animals terms of mobility um, in the clovis times we see raw materials moving huge distances. We don't. Tend to see many intensive occupations which suggests you have people moving frequently and over large distances which by the way is really only makes sense if you're hunting large animals. Um, um, and and you tend to see people appear everywhere instantaneously I mean. 04:40.83 archpodnet Um, yeah. 04:51.65 Todd I mean instantaneously I mean sort of within you know the the dating era of Radiocarbon dates clovis dates very tight in the narrow range across the entire continent. Um, which suggests a rapid expansion of people across the continent or the clovis wasn't first and. To spread of the technology. 05:11.37 archpodnet Yeah, okay, um, so in your recent paper that came out I guess like everyone's recent paper There's a bunch of authors on it. You're essentially like if I remember the conclusion correctly, it's saying like just. Like at clovis time you see like pretty solid stratiy pretty solid like evidence of like occupation. But before that everything is just like scant and like you got like Paisley caves with shit and you got montavver day which like three organic tools or whatever. But. 05:49.46 Todd So something like that. 05:49.51 archpodnet Um, yeah, ah, yeah, um, but yeah, so like I'm a person and I think I get this from Dave who like tries to qualify and like in my position in. Like as a social media. Dude now people are like well what do you think? and I don't want to just like be a dickhead and be like ah it's not real and then I don't want to be like how did I say this like I'd I'd like to show both sides of do what? yeah. 06:15.10 Todd Like yeah, you don't want to be close minded. 06:22.50 archpodnet But I do swing like a certain way on a lot of topics. So. 06:23.43 Todd And you don't want to be partisan. Yeah I don't want to be partisan partisan either. Although I assume everybody views me as a super partisan we. We set out to test the hypothesis and and it was a very simple hypothesis. Well. Hypothesis is is Clovis first or not and and and if it is it has a very simple prediction and if it's not it has a different prediction and the way we looked at this was stratographic integrity. So the basic idea is we're asking when do you see a discrete archaeological occupation in in. In the record and and what I mean by discrete is stratographically discrete. So I have an occupation with nothing above it and nothing below it like a clear definable stratographic cultural unit right? Are you still there and you are there. 07:14.26 archpodnet Um, okay. 07:19.38 Todd Okay, so so so right, it's like so if you think about laprell where you've worked right? I mean this shit has exploded fifty centimeters of vertically but there's nothing above it and it is nothing below. It. It's still like this stratograph of a discrete clovis occupation where we can say yeah, this is an event that wreck that that that. That shows that people were here right? and the question is when does that show up in the archeological record. It's not a complicated question right? And if clovis is first you expect to see it first in clovis times clovis isn't first you expect to see that before Clovis Times Clovis is first you expect to see it before clovis in Alaska. Okay, so so that was the basic idea and in fact, this this study was inspired by the observation that some of these recent pre-clovis sites like Cooper's fery and and debah feedkin and gulf don't seem to have these stratographically discrete occupations. And what reason why that might be a problem is because there's multiple ways to get artifacts into old deposits right? if I have 16000 year old sediments and artifacts in them one way to get those things to co-occur is for people that have lived there sixteen thousand years ago another way for that to happen is people. Have lived there say thirteen thousand years ago and then pocket gophers dig through a site and move artifacts into older deposits. Okay, so that's kind of the basic idea. So what we did was just compile data from about a dozen sites across North America and look at these patterns as stratographic integrity and what we find is that the beringian sights the classic ones and I'm not talking about blue bluefish caves we can talk about that if you want but sites like Swan point that's over 14000 years old broken mammoth. Um. 08:58.89 archpodnet Sure. 09:09.58 Todd Pullsman South um like owl ridge and it's the last one dry creek. Um, what you have in these deep levels is these very beautifully definable occupation surfaces. But are older than clovis they have chipstone that bone they have hearth features and you can define them clearly when you get south of the ice sheets. You don't see anything like that until the clovis period or the large number of artifacts and a stratographically discrete occupation laprele wasn't even part of this study. But it has it. We use shawne menacing which is beautifully preserved intact discrete clovis occupation but other clovis sites have it too Blackwater. Jaw Murray Springs Laner nacco Miami I shouldn't say Miami I don't know that that's the case because the data aren't very good. But all these classic clovocytes have these very definable occupation surfaces when we look at freedkin cooper's fairy gault they don't and we can talk about other preclovocytes cactus hill in Virginia the same thing we don't have a discreete identifiable prelobus layer at least as far as i. So Meadowroft um, sufficient data haven't been published to even address that question in my opinion I'm sure Jim out ofvaio would disagree mont of verde some people would say definitely has that and sure enough if that's an archeological site. It is stratographically discrete and if it's that old. Maybe Monte Verday is the exception but in my opinion there are very few items in there that are clearly artifacts. Um, so what you see very clearly what what our study you know shows is that look the archeological record clearly shows humans are present in Alaska between. You know, thirteen five and fourteen two south of the ice sheets. It doesn't show that humans are clearly present until around thirteen thousand one hundred years ago um and and again we could go through all of these sites like you mentioned paisley and go through all of them and kind of pick them apart. But that's not really what I want to do what I want to do is. You know use the scientific method develop hypotheses that are testable to try to distinguish between these different possibilities and repeatedly when I've tried to do this I always come to the same answer which is it seems that clovis is first and if it's not first. It's damn close to first. 11:34.74 archpodnet Right? Okay, um, and I think you and I have discussed this but like I like especially with the footprints coming out now and like there's a critique to that which I we should probably talk about like on another time but um, like. If people were here before clovis like it just seems like they were exploratory little bands of people like there's no like you're just saying there's no like concrete stuff. But when you see Clovis it's just like big boom of culture like across like you you were saying like Maine to Mexico like. It's pretty like distinct and like that's why I like that paper because it's just kind of shows the data for that. 12:15.87 Todd Yeah I mean I think what you're getting at is that the Pre-clovis record is fundamentally different than the clovis record which some people would say so what it shouldn't be the same. But I mean I would say the Pre-clovis record is not only different than clovis but it's different from everything that follows Clovis. And is different from everything that precedes clovis in the old world. Um I mean how many how many old world sites where you do you have where you have footprints. You know we can talk about la toli or whatever. But then like no other archeological record at that time. Um. 12:44.36 archpodnet Sure. 12:51.62 Todd Or not like an abundant archaeological record at the time at the time of the late totally footprints. How old are those Well, that's that's like yeah so we don't even have certain tools at that time but we have to invoke something like that to make these footprints real right? like. 12:57.67 archpodnet Is it Lucy right has out. 13:08.53 Todd People who are living a completely different lifestyle where they're not using stone tools. You know where they're not leaving behind heart-centered activity areas where they're not leaving behind stratographically discreete occupations and and and and and it's not just the footprints right? I mean we have. Footprints from white sands. We have the copy lights from paisley caves which are associated with basically no material culture. A very little. We have the footprints from Triucquette Island we have a footprint at Pilaco in Chile. We have a pit full of crickets in the great basin. Um, I mean this is a weird archeological record. This is weird right? I mean you have dug in lots of archaeological sites I have dug in lots of archeological sites from hunter gatherers and later right? and we know what archaeological sites tend to look like they have chip stone lot of flakes. 13:49.55 archpodnet Yeah. 14:06.14 Todd Have heart features. They have spatial patterning bison bone beds I mean those things occur from clovis and tell tell them the the late prehistoric right? None of those in Pre-clovis you couldn't mistake a bison bone bed for something else human bodies right. Human bodies show up in the clovis period and persist to the modern day. There's no human bodies in pre-clobus the pre-cloviss record is qualitatively and fundamentally a different thing. Why is that is that because pre-cloviss human behavior was different people will say like. People are living at really low population densities records should be spars harder to identify I don't believe that I don't think there's any reason to believe that but that's the argument that that's made. Um, it's argument. That's made. But it's it's a very very different record and when you. When you ask when do you see clear unambiguous evidence of humans to me, you always get you always get the same answer. 15:05.90 archpodnet Okay, um, that was very well said. Ah, another question I have that is related. Um, and I find this interesting and I know there's like caveats to it with like climate and all that but like overkill. People show up in the Americas and we could argue what's the impact or whatever if the impact's real megafauna go extinct and like I could say to myself. Yeah, okay, like if there was an impact humans didn't help it climate didn't help it but then also you think about Australia. Soon as people get there all the megafauna disappear and that's like forty thousand years ago so like it's just to me. It's like the evidence is kind of glaring for overkill. But there's so much critique to that. 15:54.76 Todd The circumstantial evidence is glaring right? I mean yeah, there's this correlation between human arrival in animal extinction. That's true in North America and Australia it's also true in South America it's also true in New Zealand it's also true in the pacific islands. It's also true in temperate Europe. It's also true in Arctic Europe. It's also true in Arctic Asia you could you could determine human arrival and anywhere on the planet without doing archeology. 16:20.68 archpodnet All right. 16:31.72 Todd Just have to look for an extinction a wave a wave of extinctions within the last now two hundred thousand years and it would signal human arrival now if if this was a question of of say you know somebody a serial killer. And every time they go to a town. Um, forty year old dudes with mustaches die in in large numbers and if they don't go to a town 40 year old dudes with mustaches don't die. And they've gone to 50 counts and we see this pattern happening over and over again, you wouldn't have any question about their guilt but in the archeological case we do question whether humans are responsible for this I don't really see this as a new world phenomenon I know that's your question. 17:25.17 archpodnet Yeah. 17:27.57 Todd This is a global phenomenon and a human phenomenon now in my mind the reason why archaeologists are so hesitant to take this possibility seriously is because the evidence for it. The direct evidence if you want to see. You know the smoking gun the gun with the fingerprints on it. The bloody knife with his fingerprints on it or whatever the evidence is crap I mean in the clovis period we can show that people may be hunted 5 of these extinct genera that went to that that suffered extinction. And Australia we can maybe say that people interacted with Jenny Ornis the giant flightless bird and yet there was a massive extinction event that happened there if humans drove these these extinction events they had to kill millions literally millions of animals in the process and the critics will say where's the evidence and it's actually I think a legitimate argument. It's it's a good question. Um, but again as I said when we started right? The archeological record is crappy poorly preserved and biased. We don't have big samples especially from these time periods and extinctions happened so we have to ask is the record that we have truly. Falsifying the overkill hypothesis and I don't think it is but it's a really really interesting. Interesting problem and yeah, Dave I would agree like the circumstantial evidence that humans played a major role in this is pretty damning. Um, but the direct evidence is pretty weak. 18:53.25 archpodnet Yeah, hu um I could go on about that. Um I like always wonder like maybe dogs came in and gave everything rabies that would kill everything real fast but that's a whole episode. Um, and there's no evidence for it. But um, we got to wrap up. And I want to ask you and I've kind of always wanted to ask you this? Ah but never really had a good time cel ask now in your opinion and this is gonna be tough to answer probably what does it mean to be human as a zoologically interested. Anthropologist. 19:29.82 Todd God I I didn't see that coming either going on I mean I think the the fundamental nature of being human is being a cultural being and what I think being a cultural being being means is that we're incredibly phenotypically plastic. And what that means is that our genes give us the ability to learn and to adapt and to take on many many different cultural varieties whether we're talking about the language we speak or the form of a social economic organization or whatever. Our religion our personalities These things are very very very much detached from our genes as opposed to ah a clam or ah or or black cap Chickadee that are. They they certainly can learn but to a much lesser extent that we can So We we respond to environmental stimuli whether it's a natural environment. Its social environment or whatever and it and it means that that that humans. Um. 20:44.11 Todd Put This I mean are capable of of incredible incredible diversity in Behavior and in culture that is um, unlike any any any other animal on the planet. Although some animals are you know, arguably getting close like. Dogs are very phenotypically plastic as well, but nothing nothing like like humans and other higher primates I think I think that's what it is and and which raises a really really interesting question is which is you know if that's the fundamental nature of being human is this sort of. Genes have coded us to be incredible learners and incredibly plastic and they able to adjust our lifeway and this is a really successful adaptation. Why is it so rare in Nature. Um, and it it makes you makes me think that there are probably serious costs to this kind of lifestyle. Biologically like it gives you the ability to fuck up and make stupid decisions something you and I are both very familiar with. 21:46.60 archpodnet Yeah, um, yeah, that's a great way to end it too. But I think that's ah, a wonderful answer dude like I think we asked Spencer that the first episode I think we asked Bob um, it's a little biased because we only asked wyoming people that I guess but. Um, yeah, cool. Um, so we're gonna have to wrap it up now. Ah I know you're not of the biggest social media guy. But um, where can our listeners find you like academia or Linkedin or myspace. 22:22.21 Todd I I have a have a Instagram account that I don't care if you look at it or not um I have a Facebook account I have a secret Twitter identity. That's not hard to find you know just Google me i'm. Um, I'm everywhere. But yeah I I I really don't like putting myself out there I'm kind of the introvert and um, which is often misinterpreted I think but ah, but like if anybody wants to talk to me my phone number's online. My emails online. And I'm happy to talk. 22:59.19 archpodnet Sweet yeah, you take some great pictures on your Instagram I was admired that actually I think yeah I had called you one day and I asked you how do I use a camera you were like is it mirrorless and then you like broke it down for me. Um, okay, well um. 23:11.40 Todd But but but. 23:18.20 archpodnet Before we end are there a couple sources like books articles videos that you'd recommend to anybody. 23:26.51 Todd Ah, that is a great question I mean Dave Melter's book I think is the bible on new world colonization. First people's in a new world Dave and I have a lot of disagreements. But. Ah, guy is a hell of a scholar and a hell of a synthesizer. That's a really really good book on the peopling of Americas um, no, you know what? I would recommend to all the young archaeologists out there is take some math. Take some statistics. Enjoy it. Don't fear it. It can really open your eyes to the new wave of understanding the world. 24:10.30 archpodnet That was a very you answer I think but yes I took a coding class from Todd and it was one of the most challenging classes I've ever taken cause I can't understand numbers. But I saw the value in it and if you guys also did that like you'd probably have a. 24:14.80 Todd But beautiful. Perfect. 24:29.65 archpodnet Really sweet career because coding seems to be behind everything and my other friends who code for a living have 4 ah one k's and children so they seem to be doing all right? Um, cool man. Well I think I'll just end it at that I don't have a shitty joke for or Connor didn't leave me with 1 my life. We'll leave it. There. How's that um, cool man appreciate it. 24:49.12 Todd Goodbye. Let's see.