Current Research

Peopling of the New World

Since retiring from the University of Exeter, Department of Archaeology in 2017 I am focussing my research efforts in several areas; Peopling of the New World, The Origins of the Clovis Culture and the presence of the Chaco Phenomenon in Southwestern Colorado.

In terms peopling I continue to research evidence that there may have been people arriving in North America from Souhwestern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) between 22,000 and 18,000 years ago.  This has become known as the 'Solutrean Hypothesis'.  I have co-authored several publications, primarily with the late Dr. Dennis Stanford, on this topic and made many presentations to academic and public audiences around the world (watch a lecture given in Cordoba, Argentina). 

While constructive critique is welcome we have had very public (social media, letters to the editor, etc.) 'attacks', which frequently are poorly researched and badly constructed.  Some of these have come from professional colleagues.  Probably the most egregious was a Letter to the Editor of the Guardian (UK newspaper) by Jennifer Raff  for which they would not publish a rebuttal.  Never the less, I responded as did Stephen Oppenheimer. 

If interested, here are links to Raffs 'critique'                        and our responses                                                        

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I am also involved in several projects in Latin America where there are sites (for example Chiquihuite Cave [Mexico], Pedra Furada and Santa Elina [Brazil]), that date between 30,000 and 19,000 years ago.  These sites and dates are contested, but my sense is that the evidence is quickly mounting up, and taken together they make a cohesive case for an early presence of humans.

The following is a list of publications with links to those that are legally publically available.

Bradley, B., D. Stanford

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2004    The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Palaeolithic route to the New World.

            World Archaeology 36(4):459-478, Routledge.

2006    The Solutrean-Clovis connection: reply to Straus, Meltzer and Goebel.

            World  Archaeology 38(4):704-714, Routledge.

Oppenheimer, Stephen, Bruce Bradley, Dennis Joe Stanford

2014    Solutrean hypothesis: genetics, the mammoth in the room.

            World Archaeology 46(5):752-774, Routledge.

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Stanford, Dennis and Bruce Bradley

2012    Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture

            University of California Press.

Stanford, Dennis, Darrin Lowery, Margaret Jodry, Bruce A. Bradley,Marvin Kay,Thomas W. Stafford and Robert J.Speakman

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2014    New Evidence for aPossible Paleolithic Occupation of the eastern North American Continental Shelf at   the Last GlacialMaximum.  In Prehistoric Archaeology on the Continental Shelf, Springer, Editors            A.Evans, J. Flatman and N.Flemming, Chapter 5.

Collins, M.B., Dennis Joe Stanford, Darrin Lowery and Bruce Bradley

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2014   North America before Clovis: Variance in temporal/spatial cultural patterns, 27,000-13,000 cal yr BP. In Paleoamerican Odyssey, Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University.  Editors Kelly E.Graff, Caroline V.Ketron and Michael R.Waters

Stanford, Dennis Joe, Bruce Bradley

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2002    Ocean Trails and Prairie Paths? Thoughts About Clovis Origins.

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• In book: The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World

• California Academy of Sciences, Edition: No. 27, Editor: Nina G. Jablonski

Bradley, Bruce, Arthur Spiess

2017     The Lord-Collins Site (Site 3.12): A Late Pleistocene Site in Sanford, Maine.

              The Maine Archaeological Society Inc. Bulletin 57(1):21-37.

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