Palaeontology

Humans lived in America earlier than thought

By T.K. Randall
May 16, 2016

Image: Cro-Magnon Artists Painting Woolly Mammoths in Font-de-Gaume
Credit: Charles Robert Knight (1920) / (PD) Copyright Expired The discovery was made following an archaeological investigation of the Page-Ladson sinkhole which is situated on the Aucilla River near Tallahassee in Florida.

Divers retrieved a number of artifacts from the bottom of the water-filled hole including a "biface" stone knife and several animal bones which appeared to have been marked by human tools.

The Americas were believed to have been originally populated by the "Clovis" people 13,000 years ago but now it looks like humans were actually living on the continent 1,500 years earlier.

"We have clear artefacts, they were excavated meticulously, and they were in place," said senior researcher Dr Michael Waters of Texas A&M University."They were in a solid geological context, covered by four meters of sediment, and covered by a shell layer that sealed the complete deposit, and itself dated to 14,400 years ago."

"If people don't believe this site, they're not going to believe anything."

The discovery not only places doubt upon existing theories about the first humans in America but also suggests that there is still much we don't know about the first settlers on the continent.

"Fifteen years ago, if you proposed a pre-Clovis site, you had to expect that everybody thought you were a quack," said Dr Jessi Halligan, an anthropology professor at Florida State University.

Source: Independent

Tags: America, Humans