Abstract

Received by many North American archaeologists with a sigh of relief, the news, in the mid 80's, of the chronological demise of the ' now infamous ' Old Crow flesher led to the rather uncritical dismissal – through guilt by association – of a vast body of admittedly controversial evidence that, at the time, was being interpreted by some as indicative of a human presence in easternmost Beringia prior to the Upper Wisconsinan Pleniglacial, and perhaps even earlier. Following a review of how the Old Crow ' bone technology controversy ' came about and unfolded, and in the light of recent and ongoing studies carried out elsewhere in Eastern Beringia (Bluefish Caves), as well as in various areas of Eurasia and North America, it is argued that the ' dismissal ' was premature and that there were indeed people living at the easternmost edge of the Mammoth Steppe Biome as early as 40,000 years ago. It will be further argued that this evidence must be taken into consideration if we are ever to achieve an anthropologically valid and a scientifically serious appreciation of what must have been a series of complex human dispersal processes led to the initial colonisation of the New World, and that can be traced back to the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic Transition of Eurasia and beyond.