Could history of humans in North America be rewritten by broken bones?
by Ian Sample Science editor from on (#2MDXK)
Smashed mastodon bones show humans arrived over 100,000 years earlier than previously thought say researchers, although other experts are sceptical
The history of the people of America, a story that dates back to the last ice age, has been upended by the battered bones of a mastodon found under a freeway construction site in California.
Archaeological sites in North America have led most researchers to believe that the continent was first reached by humans like us, Homo sapiens, about 15,000 years ago. But inspection of the broken mastodon bones, and large stones lying with them, point to a radical new date for the arrival of ancient humans. If the claim stands up, humans arrived in the New World 130,000 years ago.
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