Fossilized Footprints Show Humans Made It to North America Much Earlier Than First Thought
upstart writes:
Fossilized footprints show humans made it to North America much earlier than first thought:
North and South America were the last continents to be settled by humans, but exactly when that started is a topic that has divided archaeologists.
The commonly held view is that people arrived in North America from Asia via Beringia, a land bridge that once connected the two continents, at the end of the Ice Age around 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. But more recent -- and some contested -- discoveries have suggested humans might have been in North America earlier.
Now, researchers studying fossilized human footprints in New Mexico say they have the first unequivocal evidence that humans were in North America at least 23,000 years ago.
"The peopling of the Americas is one of those things that has been for many years very contentious and a lot of archeologists hold views with almost religious zeal," said Matthew Bennett, a professor and specialist in ancient footprints at Bournemouth University and author of a study on the new findings that published in the journal Science on Thursday.
"One of the problems is that there is very few data points," he added.
Bennett and his colleagues were able to accurately date 61 footprints by radiocarbon dating layers of aquatic plant seeds that had been preserved above and below them. The prints, which were discovered in the Tularosa Basin in White Sands National Park, were made 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, the researchers found.
Journal Reference:
Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Jeffrey S. Pigati, et al. Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum[$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abg7586)
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