Chiquihuite Cave is a high-altitude site located in the Astillero Mountains in northern-central Mexico. Sitting at 2,750 meters above sea level, its height is unusual compared to other archeological sites in the Americas: most are open sites, megafauna kill-sites or shallow rock-shelters.The location of the cave—and its antiquity—challenge commonly held models in First Americans research.
"The First Americans are popularly believed to have arrived in the continent between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago," says lead author of the statistical modeling study, Dr. Lorena Becerra-Valdivia. Formerly of the University of Oxford, where she completed this research, Dr. Becerra-Valdivia is now a postdoctoral research fellow at UNSW Sydney. "Our findings show evidence of humans around 15,000 years before then."
"Using the archeological evidence and Bayesian age modeling—a powerful tool that incorporates dates and archeological evidence through statistics—we can estimate humans arrived at Chiquihuite Cave as early as 33-31,000 years ago. These findings help us understand the initial human occupation of the Americas in greater detail than ever before," says Dr. Becerra-Valdivia.
"The First Americans came from eastern Eurasia, and it looks as though there was a surprisingly early movement of people into the continent," says Prof. Higham.
"The people that traveled into these new lands must have used maritime technology, because the northern parts of North America were impenetrable and sealed off from eastern Eurasia by a massive ice sheet until 13,000 years ago."
"The discovery that people were here more than 30,000 years ago raises a range of key new questions about who these people were, how they lived, how widespread they were and, ultimately, what their fate was."
These findings—published across two papers in Nature today—are based on archeological research at the Chiquihuite Cave in central Mexico and statistical modeling of dates from 42 archeological sites, including from Chiquihuite Cave.
Read More: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-humans-americas-years-earlier-previously.html
"The First Americans are popularly believed to have arrived in the continent between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago," says lead author of the statistical modeling study, Dr. Lorena Becerra-Valdivia. Formerly of the University of Oxford, where she completed this research, Dr. Becerra-Valdivia is now a postdoctoral research fellow at UNSW Sydney. "Our findings show evidence of humans around 15,000 years before then."
"Using the archeological evidence and Bayesian age modeling—a powerful tool that incorporates dates and archeological evidence through statistics—we can estimate humans arrived at Chiquihuite Cave as early as 33-31,000 years ago. These findings help us understand the initial human occupation of the Americas in greater detail than ever before," says Dr. Becerra-Valdivia.
"The First Americans came from eastern Eurasia, and it looks as though there was a surprisingly early movement of people into the continent," says Prof. Higham.
"The people that traveled into these new lands must have used maritime technology, because the northern parts of North America were impenetrable and sealed off from eastern Eurasia by a massive ice sheet until 13,000 years ago."
"The discovery that people were here more than 30,000 years ago raises a range of key new questions about who these people were, how they lived, how widespread they were and, ultimately, what their fate was."
These findings—published across two papers in Nature today—are based on archeological research at the Chiquihuite Cave in central Mexico and statistical modeling of dates from 42 archeological sites, including from Chiquihuite Cave.
Read More: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-humans-americas-years-earlier-previously.html
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