Other bones showed signs of being broken by blunt-force trauma, possibly from using rocks, which were also found in the pile of bones. The top rib shows a fracture from blunt force impact; the middle rib shows a puncture wound, potentially made by a tool; the bottom rib shows chopping-like cut marks. Fossil footprints mark earliest clear evidence of humans in North America ", Russia does not reject Ukraine peace talks - Putin, Rivals' silence shows Trump's dominance in 2024 race, Niger coup: EU suspends security cooperation, How Canadair pilots battle Europes deadly wildfires. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. ScienceDaily. Urban developed the noninvasive use of ground-penetrating radar to reveal the footprints beneath the surface and show the researchers the best places to excavate. Earliest sign of human habitation in Canada may have been found. A potential complication flagged up by the journal during the early stages of review was the "reservoir effect". It wasnt until over 10 years later, in 2016, that scientists confirmed that the ghost tracks had been made by real people and its only now that some of the ancient footprints at White Sands have been dated as the earliest in North America. "Our dates on the seeds are tightly clustered and maintain stratigraphic order above and below multiple footprint horizons -- this was a remarkable outcome," Springer said. Sci. From that moment, Watkins became more interested in looking into the unwritten past, and, with his grandmothers support, began pursuing a career in archaeology, a field he recognizes isnt always in advantage to the Native American community, he says. "People in our field usually err on the side of caution, and the simplest explanations are preferred," Tackney said. "This would suggest that the initial colonists of the Americas were replaced when the ice corridor formed and another wave of colonists came in. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the white sand reflected a near-blinding light, and the day quickly grew warm. . "This is a unique site, we've never seen anything like it before," Prof Higham, the director of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, told BBC News. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1449240174198-2'); }); Andrew Somerville, an assistant professor of anthropology in world languages and cultures, says he and his colleagues made the discovery while studying the origins of agriculture in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico. Holliday and study co-author Brendan Fenerty, a UArizona doctoral student in the Department of Geosciences, documented basic geologic layering and dating in trenches on the White Sands Missile Range near the discovery site several years before the tracks were found. "Having spent months trying to locate the bones, we were excited to find them tucked away on the bottom shelf in a dark corner of the lab," Somerville said. The scientists don't know for sure what the teenagers were doing, but it is possible they were helping the adults with a type of hunting custom seen in later Native American cultures. In the same issue of Nature, Prof Higham and Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, also from Oxford, describe how they used ages from 42 archaeological sites in North America and Beringia to explore how humans expanded. Heavy rainfall drowned them; periods of drought dried them up. At first light on a cold January morning in 2020, Bustos set out with Springer and her USGS colleague Jeff Pigati on all-terrain vehicles to visit White Sands ancient tracks. Researchers Jeff Pigati and Kathleen Springer, with the U.S. Geological Survey, used radiocarbon dating of seed layers above and below the footprints to determine their age. Bournemouth University The footprints belonged to teenagers and children who lived between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website Humans reached the Americas. Stone tools made from limestone have helped researchers to suggest that humans arrived in North America as early as 30,000 years ago. They resumed excavation in 2009. They were once believed to be the first Americans, Team members record the seed layers above the prints, The Oppenheimer dilemma: H-bomb vs A-bomb. These big game hunters were thought to have crossed a land bridge across the Bering Straits that connected Siberia with Alaska during the last ice age, when sea levels were much lower. However, determining the exact date that people first appeared in North America has been a controversial subject over the past few decades, and similar studies have been dismissed as inconclusive. "We still think the most likely scenario is for people to have come on a coastal route - hugging a coast - perhaps with some kind of maritime technology.". Materials provided by University of Arizona. Archaeologist Joe Watkins, who was not involved in the study, believes the findings have potentially massive implications. Image Credit: Courtesy of the National Parks Service. The scientists also used "environmental DNA" techniques to look for human genetic material in the cave sediments. describe how they used ages from 42 archaeological sites, Judge dismisses Trump 'Big Lie' lawsuit against CNN, Taylor Swift Seattle concert generates seismic activity, Iran's government distances itself from sex tape scandal, US nurse and child kidnapped in Haiti, says charity, Wagner could pose as migrants to enter EU - Poland PM, Twitter restores Kanye West's account after ban. The date ranges for the bone samples from the base of the cave ranged from 33,448 to 28,279 years old. NY 10036. Migration of Humans into the Americas (c. 14,000 BCE) "The traditional model is that people came into the New World from northeast Asia and walked across the Bering land bridge, before coming down the middle of the continent in an ice-free corridor," said Loren Davis, an archaeologist at Oregon State University and the lead author on the study. "There really are only a couple efficient ways to skin a cat, so to speak," Rowe said. Iceland's 'baby volcano' is still spewing lava rivers, in a tantrum visible from space, Plastic-eating fungi could help take a bite out of Earth's rampant pollution crisis, study suggests, Salmonella outbreak in 4 states linked to ground beef, CDC warns, US government is hiding evidence of 'non-human intelligence', UFO whistleblower tells Congress, Buddhist ritual saves exotic fish from slaughter only for 'adventurous' Tibetan otters to feast on them instead, Mars rover is spying on the sun's far side to hunt for hidden, dangerous sunspots. The discoveries push back the earliest date of our species Homo sapiens in Europe by roughly 10,000 years, to about 54,000 years ago, according to a study on the findings published . "A recreational diver and a . This document is subject to copyright. The seeds revealed that the footprints they were embedded within are between 21,000 and 23,000 years oldthousands of years older than what scientists generally consider to be the earliest evidence of people in the Americas. The overwhelming evidence of ancient plant life excited Bustos. Iowa State University. But more recent finds have revealed that there was likely a genetically separate group of humans, known as pre-Clovis people, living in North America before the Clovis people arrived. This leaves the door open for doubt about their identity. "Footprints aren't like stone tools. They traveled from Asia to North America by island-hopping and hugged the shore, following a coastal "kelp highway" full of sheltered bays and rich with food. The footprints belonged to teenagers and children who lived between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago, Researchers dated seeds found above and below the layers containing the footprints, A stone point made by the Clovis people. The find iscontroversial, as there has been a consensus among paleontologists and anthropologists that humans made the journey to North America roughly 15,000 years ago. Geologist Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce of Appalachian State University in North Carolina, who has studied ancient human footprints in Tanzania and wasnt involved in the White Sands research, said it was often difficult to date just when fossilized footprints were made, especially when they were pressed into layers of mud as at White Sands and not into more easily dated volcanic ash. Ruins of ancient Roman emperor Nero's theater unearthed in 'exceptional' discovery in Rome, Machu Picchu's servants hailed from distant lands conquered by the Incas, genetic study finds, Save big on a small computer with $100 off the latest Mac Mini at B&H Photo. As the "Clovis First" idea took hold, reports of more ancient settlement were dismissed as unreliable and some archaeologists actually stopped looking for signs of earlier occupation. While the nature of the physical evidence here is harder to dismiss, the researchers had to ensure the dating evidence was - quite literally - watertight. Tommy Urban, from Cornell University, led this part of the work. Archaeology may not hold all the answers to these questions: I do think its important for American Indians to be involved so they can offer their insights so we can better understand who these people were, Watkins says, reflecting on his own Choctaw roots. Those people supposedly brought the technology to make Clovis-type blades and spear points with them, and then spread their shared culture across the continent. If Springer and Pigatis cross-section was a sandwich, the footprints would be the filling and the dateable material around the footprints would be the bread. In the 1980s, solid evidence turned up for a 14,500-year-old human presence at Monte Verde in Chile. Prof David Meltzer, from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, who was not involved in the research, said the findings were "interesting". The oldest Clovis site in North America has been suggested to be El Fin del Mundo in northwestern Sonora, Mexico, discovered during a 2007 survey. The team wore parkas to keep warm amid a prevailing wind. "I know people will be skeptical of this because this is so surprising," Holen said. / The University of Texas at Austin), Massive ice wall may have blocked passage for first Americans, Analysis of ancient teeth questions theory that Native Americans originated from Japan, Oldest evidence of humans using tobacco discovered in Utah, One of the world's most active volcanoes is spewing out weird rings of smoke, How to watch the Delta Aquariids meteor shower kick off 'shooting star' season this weekend. The researchers are confident that under careful examination, other scientists will come to the same conclusions. Humans reached the Americas 15,000 years earlier than thought The artifacts are part of a trove discovered where Coopers Ferry, Idaho, now stands. A single tooth found in France's Rhne Valley shows that modern humans had arrived in western Europe by about 54,000 years ago. Any traces of early human habitation had been disputed because they relied on what seemed to be stone tools that might have formed naturally, Bennett said, or on artifacts that might have moved from their original stratigraphic layers. The results are published in the academic journal Latin American Antiquity. Its great to see that this team was able to constrain the date of the footprint formation using radiocarbon dates from the [layers] above and below, she said in an email. Some of the bones appeared to have been crafted into makeshift knives, possibly used to butcher the mammoths, the researchers said. Get the latest science news in your RSS reader with ScienceDaily's hourly updated newsfeeds, covering hundreds of topics: Keep up to date with the latest news from ScienceDaily via social networks: Tell us what you think of ScienceDaily -- we welcome both positive and negative comments. YouTube video (Bournemouth University): Earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas found at White Sands National Park, https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/news/2021-09-23/earliest-evidence-human-activity-found-americas, https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/09/earliest-evidence-human-activity-found-americas, https://www.usgs.gov/news/fossilized-footprints-reveal-human-habitation-north-america-thousands-years-earlier-previously, https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm, Complex Brain Cell Connections in Cerebellum, Secret of Virgin Birth Switched On in Flies, Scientists Discover Secret of Virgin Birth, and Switch on the Ability in Female Flies, Researchers Tickle Rats to Identify Part of the Brain Critical for Laughter and Playfulness, 'Time-Traveling' Pathogens in Melting Permafrost Pose Likely Risk to Environment, Egg 'Signatures' Will Allow Drongos to Identify Cuckoo 'Forgeries' Almost Every Time, Study Finds, It's Sewage, Not Fertilizer Fueling Nitrogen Surge in Florida's Indian River Lagoon, Wormlike Animals Are First Amphibians Shown to Pass Microbes to Their Offspring, Paleontologists Identify Two New Species of Sabertooth Cat, Unusual Fossil Shows Rare Evidence of a Mammal Attacking a Dinosaur, Footprints from Site a at Laetoli, Tanzania, Are from Early Humans, Not Bears, Oldest Human Traces from the Southern Tibetan Plateau in a New Light, Cliff Collapse Reveals 313-Million-Year-Old Fossil Footprints in Grand Canyon National Park, Tiny Footprints, Big Discovery: Reptile Tracks Oldest Ever Found in Grand Canyon, Bournemouth University: Earliest evidence of human activity found in the Americas (, Cornell Chronicle: Earliest evidence of human activity found in the Americas (, U.S. Geological Survey: Fossilized Footprints Reveal Human Habitation of North America Thousands of Years Earlier than Previously Thought (, National Park Service: Information on White Sands National Park's fossilized footprints (. In 2020, another group of researchers claimed to have found unusually shaped rocks in a Mexican cave that may have been used as stone tools and date to around 30,000 years ago. We have the juvenile and adult megafauna prints with the babies and adult [humans]., A footprint from a Harlan's ground sloth at White Sands National Park. Trails of footprints called "ghost tracks" have been seen in the White Sands area for years, but usually only when the ground was wet. In an announcement sure to spark a firestorm of controversy, researchers say they've found signs of ancient humans in California between 120,000 and 140,000 years agomore than a hundred thousand. "They've also argued, I think justifiably, that the lake must have been shallow at the time people walked there, mitigating the effect of reservoir effects introduced by old carbon sources." HUMANS seem to have been living in the Americas as early as 33,000 years ago - 15,000 years before the most widely accepted date. Springer recalls the hour-and-a-half journey through the dunes being like a Disney ride. It was the funnest thing in the world, she says. Thank you for visiting nature.com. "What's truly remarkable about this site is that you can actually identify a particular hammer that was smacked on a particular anvil in a bunch of broken bones, and fragments of those hammers and anvils that can be refitted to the stones. However, a number of recent contentious studies have claimed that the pre-Clovis people may have dated even further back, potentially to before the LGM. Anything downstream at a lower elevation would have been obliterated. However, questions still remain. Image Credit: NOVA/GBH, When Dave showed us these things and we had our eyes trained on them, we were almost afraid to step down, Pigati says. Whats really interesting about Coopers Ferry is that it takes things a little further, Braje says, It offers some potential avenues for figuring out these big questions.. Wed been suspicious of the age for a while, and so now we finally have that its really exciting, Bustos said. Using a different criterion, here are the nations World Population Review lists as the oldest in the world according . Other early sites challenged this theory, but none were this old, and the oldest were dated with a method considered less precise than radiocarbon dating. We have a window from 21,000 to 23,000 [years]. including the 15,500-year-old Buttermilk Creek Complex in central Texas. The footprints were formed in soft mud on the margins of a shallow lake which now forms part of Alkali Flat in White Sands. As the story goes, ice sheets in what is now Canada blocked passage between what is now Alaska and the rest of the Americas. The site at Coopers Ferry doesnt fit with this model. "What we've got is amazing," lead study author Timothy Rowe, a paleontologist at The University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement. Mammoth bones show evidence of North America's early humans | CNN of the first people in North America is about 16,000 years ago, and recent studies estimate . New research into the ancient footprints at White Sands National Park establishes they are the earliest-known evidence of humans in North America. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg7586 (2021). During their press conference on Tuesday, they invited other researchers to examine the evidence, some of which will be on display at the San Diego Natural History Museum next week. Instead, humans are just one possible explanation. ", More information: Dr Andrea Manica, a geneticist from the University of Cambridge, said the finding had important implications for the population history of the Americas. Why it's getting easier to be a single mum in China, The Texas town caught in America's border battle, The Chilean band speaking out against police violence, The Oppenheimer dilemma: H-bomb vs A-bomb. The emerging picture suggests that humans may have arrived in North America at least 20,000 years agosome 5,000 years earlier than has been commonly believed. The discovery could transform views about when the continent was settled.

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