LAUSR

ABSTRACT Paleo Crossing (33ME274), a Clovis site in Medina County, Northeast Ohio, USA, has played an important role in debates on the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas given its published, and assumed accurate, age of 10,980 ± 75 BP (12,717–13,020 calibrated BP, median age 12,854 cal BP). However, there are still questions surrounding the radiocarbon ages from the site. We aimed to bypass using the association of charcoal with features or artifacts, and instead date the Clovis artifacts directly via luminescence dating. The chronometric results of 9.14 ± 2.18 kya and 8.92 ± 3.03 kya suggest one of two possibilities: (1) there was a fire at Paleo Crossing sometime during the Early Archaic period or, more likely, (2) the inner parts of the lithics were partially bleached, reducing the signal, while they were exposed on the surface.