New evidence for earliest humans in the Americas.

in human •  4 years ago 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53486868

Very interesting. You get a lot of half-baked announcements down this line, but this one is solid in a number of ways.

The claim is that humans were in the Americas 26k to 30k years ago. That's earlier than the current-favorite "Beringea pause" hypothesis, that a group inhabited Beringea for a few thousand years before later expanding into the Americas, based on genetic evidence for a period of isolation before spreading. This new timeline would suggest they spread significantly earlier.

Anyway, it's a large number of tools and flakes, not just a couple of specimens, it's apparently undisturbed, and the charcoal carbon dating and optical dating of the stone give the same dates.

One principle in science is "oldest known" is almost never the same as "oldest". It will take decades of research and several other finds before this new one would reshape the timeline, but it looks like a solid contender.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!