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America's Stone Age Explorers
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Program Overview
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NOVA investigates the evidence for and controversies surrounding who
the first Americans were, where they came from, and how they arrived
in the Americas.
The program:
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reports how a type of prehistoric spearhead—known as the
Clovis point—was found in 1933 in Clovis, New Mexico, and
later discovered in all 48 contiguous states, Mexico, Belize,
and Costa Rica.
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notes that mammoth bones found near the Clovis point were dated
at 13,500 years ago, coinciding with the end of the last great
Ice Age and mass extinction of some 35 genera of big animals, or
megafauna.
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presents the conventional, so-called Clovis-first
theory—that Clovis people crossed a now-submerged land
bridge spanning the Bering Strait and then made their way south
via an ice-free corridor between the great ice sheets that
covered most of Canada.
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reviews controversial archeological evidence indicating the
entry of pre-Clovis people, and reports on a possible Ice Age
migration route along the Pacific coastline of Alaska.
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explains how mitochondrial DNA was used to strengthen the case
that people migrated to the Americas at least 20,000 years ago.
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relates the search for the origins of the Clovis point and
recounts the findings of similar spear points made by the
Solutreans of Ice Age France and Spain.
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reports on evidence from a site in Virginia that some scientists
claim bridges a 5,000-year gap between Solutrean and Clovis
points.
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examines Inuit survival strategies to understand how prehistoric
European travelers could have made an Ice Age Atlantic Ocean
crossing.
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voices criticisms of the transatlantic theory, for instance,
that many types of Solutrean artifacts and personal ornaments
are not found in North America.
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reports on an emerging new portrait of the first Americans as
people who arrived by various routes 20,000 years ago, spread
throughout the country and eventually started making the Clovis
point—perhaps the first great American
invention—13,500 years ago.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after the program
is taped off the air.
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