Earlier this year , acontroversial paperconcluded that human activity in the Americas is at least 130,000 years old . Although a lot of question linger over the study , it served as a well timed monitor that the idea that the first Americans were the 13,500 - year - erstwhile Clovis citizenry demand rethinking .
Now , writing inScience , an international squad of anthropologist have essentially declare that the consensus has officially shift . The team , lead by San Diego State University , say that their reexamination of the scientific literature has reveal that the first Americans turned up at least 18,000 years ago , almost certainly by sauceboat .
The Clovis speculation postulate that humans migrated from Russia ’s northeastern bakshish through to Alaska via Beringia , a now - drop off land bridge deck that protruded from the sea during the last wintry maximum . From there , they followed an ice - free corridor down the West Coast , and their descendants proliferated when the glacier begin to melt .
This was based on archaeological grounds that still stands up today , but throughout the 20thcentury , breakthrough after discovery seemed topoke holesthrough the idea that the first Americans were 13,500 old age old . Recent work , along the coastlines of both North and South America , taper towards there being hunter - gatherers on the continents long before the Clovis ever arrive .
Take Monte Verde , for example . The land site in what is now southern Chile , first key in 1975 , was found to contain primitive family , hearths , and scraps of clothing . Human footprint were also found , include those of a kid . This site is at least 14,500 years old , perhaps even 18,500 class old – antecede the Clovis sites by at least a millenary .
Then you ’ve have Page - Ladson , another archeological site containing tool to slaughter mastodon , extinct megafauna similar to elephants . The digging of this Floridian site has been on-going since 1959 , and the most late see endeavor puts it as being around 14,500 years old .
Evidence like this has been pile up for an age , and now academia agrees : the Clovis people were the 2d wave of immigrants to find the Americas . Earlier homo could have certainly used Beringia too to get into the US , but pre - Clovis times , the ice - free corridor was closed . That leaves only boat as a viable substance of access .
TheCoastal Migration Theorysuggests that people could have made their means quite rapidly across the Pacific Ocean by surveil the islands dotted around the northern subdivision of the Ring of Fire . Thekelpthat grew along this path ensured a burgeoning ecosystem of fishable food for those brave enough to make the journeying .
This is probable how the unfeigned first Americans arrived – but who they are , or where they specifically came from , persist a total mystery .
[ H / T : ArsTechnica ]
