Breaking the Clovis glass ceiling: Native American oral history of the Pleistocene

Abstract

<abstract> <p>This is a data-based analysis of how Native American interpretations of their distant past are being considered reflecting new science findings. A key science understanding developed over the past 75 years has been that Native people did not occupy North America (or any place in the so-called New World) longer than 12,000 years before present (BP), thus they could neither have experienced nor understood any event in the late Pleistocene interglacial period (128,000 BP to 11,700 BP). As called in this analysis, the <italic>Clovis glass ceiling</italic> references the popular use of Clovis spear points to represent the earliest signs of humans in North America with dates generally later than 12,000 BP. This analysis engaged with recent science findings that Native people were present in North America up to 40,000 years ago. Opening the science limits of Native presence affords a reinterpretation of the past using extant Native interpretations. As an example, Salt Spring near Death Valley is a component of an ancient Pleistocene heritage landscape that can be reconstructed using geology and Native American interpretations. Native American perspectives were derived from 404 ethnographic interviews with Numic speaking peoples, focused on 24 ancient springs near Death Valley, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada.</p> </abstract>