The MARTINZ Critical Review - Ep#47 - Early human activity 130,000 years ago in North America - the paradigm shifting Cerutti Mastodon discovery - with Dr Steve Holen, PhD and Kathleen Holen MA

In today's episode we continue our series on the early peopling of the Americas, focusing on the paradigm shifting Cerutti Mastadon find, and its multitude of implications. Joining us today is a dynamic husband and wife team, Steven and Kathleen Holen. Steven Holen is the Director of Research at the Center for American Paleolithic Research. He has over 50 years of archaeological experience and has worked at several museums across the Great Plains. For the past 30 years, he has focused his research on the question of how and when humans first arrived in North America. He has excavated numerous mammoth sites in the Great Plains that have evidence of humans modifying mammoth limb bones for marrow extraction and/or tool production. The evidence he has uncovered suggests that humans have been in the Great Plains for at least 30,000 to 40,000 years. Kathleen Holen has pursued her second career in Archeology and received her MA in Archaeology with Distinction in 2009 from the University of Exeter. Her first career was as a Nurse Practitioner and she retired from that profession in 2010 to pursue archaeology. Kathleen founded the Center for American Paleolithic Research in 2012 and continues as the Administrative Director.  Kathleen participated in the research of Steven Holen since their marriage in 2001. She studies prey animal bone modification and its implications for human behaviour, expedient bone tool manufacture and use, cognitive archaeology, and the archaeological importance of dog domestication. Together they continue to investigate early human migration into the Americas and have published two book chapters that provide evidence of some of the earliest humans in North America based on their mammoth bone research. Most recently they have published an article with nine co-authors titled, “A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA” in the prestigious journal Nature, the leading scientific journal in the world. They continue their research with an active field program and collections-based research in museums through the Center for American Paleolithic Research To learn more about the Holens and their work, please visit: Center for American Paleolithic Research: https://caprmammoth.org Nature Journal Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22065.epdf?author_access_token=RSCU4SMOOjkevRWGleRiQNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Odq55Wqltd4FPUqYwCTOB2lQCO5faqB4dJcP7_NvwjKIPtA_ca5VDGdykzKcb_19hzPfRLnzswmKKl7KnI0fcb