"Were Clovis Ancestors in Siberia and Alaska?" Ted Goebel, Professor of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno Abstract: Recently, Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford have argued that the origins of Clovis can not be seen in the Paleolithic archaeological records of northeast Asia or Alaska, and that the first Americans instead originated in Europe. Although I agree that an obvious Paleoindian ancestor has yet to be found in the Siberian-Alaskan north, several lines of evidence continue to point to the Bering Land Bridge as the most likely entry-point for the first immigrants into the Americas. First, early Upper Paleolithic cultures dating to as early as 30,000 years ago recently have been found in the Siberian Arctic. Their presence above the Arctic Circle only 1500 miles from the Bering Strait has significant implications for a possible Pre-Last-Glacial-Maximum colonization of the Americas. Second, during the latest Pleistocene by 12,000 years ago, late Upper Paleolithic humans had recolonized the Bering Land Bridge area; their stone-tool technologies focused on the manufacture of blades and bifaces not unlike those of the early Paleoindians of temperate North America. Ted Goebel Ted Goebel is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Executive Director of the Sundance Archaeological Research Fund, an endowed research program charged with the investigation of Paleoindians in the Great Basin of western North America. His interests focus not just on Paleoindian technologies in the intermountain west, but also on the origins of Paleoindian cultures in Siberia and Beringia. Goebel has co-directed excavations at several northern Paleolithic sites, including the famous Ushki sites in Kamchatka and the Walker Road site in Alaska. Currently he is co-director of the Bonneville Estates Rockshelter project, Nevada, where he and his colleagues are unearthing a well-preserved set of cultural occupations spanning the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. http://www.unr.edu/cla/anthro/sundance/index.asp