Before Clovis
The evidence that toppled a fifty-year consensus
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“Clovis first” was the view that the Clovis people were the first humans in the Americas, and that nobody came before them. The Paisley Caves are one of several sites that together dismantled the Clovis-first model. The evidence is unusual: coprolites containing human DNA, dated directly. The objection that DNA might have leached down from younger layers has been tested and rejected through sediment analysis. Together with Monte Verde in Chile and Cooper's Ferry in Idaho, the finds push the arrival back by several thousand years.
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In caves in Oregon, researchers found traces of people older than the Clovis points. The finds were not tools but faeces — and DNA in them showed people had been there before anyone was thought to have arrived.
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