PHOTO: iflscience.com
One archaeology team’s research is beginning to drastically change how we view the story of pre-European America.
For years, the general belief among the archaeological community has been that the Americas were first colonized by humans somewhere around 24,000 years ago. This new discovery, however, made in California, has pushed that date back to 131,000 years. It’s a staggering discovery that’s sparked a heated debate.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Richard Fullagar, Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Wollongong and co-author of the study said, “The dates are truly remarkable, but it’s hard to argue with the clear evidence we see. It’s incontrovertible.”
Archaeologists were working on a site in San Diego County, unearthing the remains of an ancient mastodon, when they discovered something odd: cuts in the tusks that appeared to be tool-marks.
This shocked the scientists. The mastodon skull was over 131,000 years old, and humans supposedly arrived on the North American continent much later. Further searching found ancient stone tools near the remains.
After some testing, the archaeologists found that the marks in the mastodon’s tusks did seem to match the tools found en-situ.
“What’s truly remarkable here is that you can match the hammers to the anvils to the stones,” Fullagar said, “it really does demonstrate human interference.”
No known carnivore or geological process could have made those marks. The team approached their find with the utmost care. Unless someone comes up with another solid theory as to how those markings were created, it seems that our explanation of how humans got to the Americas may need some reconsidering. History as we know it may be about to change forever.