Posted on 07/09/2021 9:10:43 AM PDT by blam
New radiocarbon dates for rabbit bones excavated in the 1960s at Mexico’s Coxcatlan Cave (shown here) raise the possibility that humans lived there roughly 30,000 years ago.
Andrew D. Somerville
Humans may have inhabited what’s now southern Mexico surprisingly early, between 33,448 and 28,279 years ago, researchers say.
If so, those people arrived more than 10,000 years before folks often tagged as the first Americans (SN: 7/11/18). Other preliminary evidence puts humans in central Mexico as early as around 33,000 years ago (SN: 7/22/20).
The latest evidence comes from animal bones that biological anthropologist and archaeologist Andrew Somerville and two Mexican colleagues found stored in a Mexico City lab. The bones had been excavated in the 1960s at a rock-shelter called Coxcatlan Cave.
Radiocarbon analyses of six rabbit bones from the site’s deepest sediment yielded unexpectedly old ages, the researchers report online May 19 in Latin American Antiquity. That sediment also contained chipped and sharp-edged stones regarded as tools by the site’s lead excavator.
Higher sediment layers yielded clearer examples of stone tools and other remnants of human activity dating to nearly 9,900 years ago. Somerville, of Iowa State University in Ames, initially suspected that rabbit bones from the deepest sediment were perhaps around 12,000 years old. But analyses revealed they were much older, hinting humans were living in the cave roughly 30,000 years ago.
Somerville will next determine whether other animal bones from the ancient sediment display butchery marks, breaks where marrow was removed or burned patches from cooking. He also wants to locate and study possible stone tools from that same sediment that may be stored in the same lab.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
When members of the Human race are separated by mountain ranges, oceans or continents, how many generations will have to pass before they are declared two different species?
The time/distance is so great that I don't think it would be possible to count the number of generations. Thousands or 100's of thousands of years at a minimum.
I have no problem with the Solutrean Hypothesis. I consider it highly likely. DNA evidence or some remains would clinch it make it interesting for the Euro-Haters.
It’s politically incorrect to suggest that the “Native Americans” were not the first Americans. I’ve read an account citing evidence that there were even earlier humans in the Americas, but a genocide was committed against them when the “Native Americans” arrived.
Probably many more discoveries and speculations to come in the fields of anthropology and archaeology.
"Lovelock, Nevada, is about eighty miles northeast of Reno. It was in a cave near here, in 1911, that guano miners found mummies, bones, and artifacts buried under four feet of bat excrement. The desiccated bodies belonged to a very tall people - with red hair. "
“...it was never a bother to cross the isthmus of panama between north and south America.So wth are you talking about?”
When I was a lad, long ago, the Weekly Reader had stories about driving from Alaska to Chile on the Pan American Highway. It has never been finished due to the ‘Darien Gap’. A quick Google search “Crossing the Darien Gap” came up with this: All but the last four would apply to the Indians trying to cross it in numbers back 10-30,000 years ago.
Here’s the website: https://www.aswesawit.com/cross-the-darien-gap/
Can you hike through the Darien Gap on foot?
Yes, you can, but we need to tell you why it’s not a good idea.
Darién Gap has not been called the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere for nothing. Let’s start with these reasons:
Treacherous jungle
Virtually impassable mountains
Impenetrable swamps
Overgrown, often unmarked trails
Almost totally uninhabited, so if you get lost or injured you’re on your own
Unfriendly wildlife – we’re talking about snakes as big as your arm, man-eating cats that are bigger than the snakes, crocodiles and caimans in the rivers, biting ants and spiders that can drop down your shirt without warning … you get the idea.
Countless mosquitoes, sometimes carrying diseases like malaria and dengue fever
Highly questionable water quality
Limited food availability (eat local plants or carry your own)
Nearly 100% humidity
Crazed drug traffickers
Desperate paramilitary Colombian guerrillas
Paranoid government police
Risk of kidnapping, rape, torture or murder
But for that darned canal...
“But for that darned canal...”
Interesting. I don’t have a reference for my recollection, but the unique remains of many humans were found in caves pretty far down in South America. The discoverers of that one termed it a likely genocide by some later, Native American arrivals.
There’s been evidence of such happenings dug up in several parts of the Western Hemisphere.
“The difficulty is in not having fun confrontations with guerillas and drug runners.”
Or - back in the day - mastodons and saber-tooth tigers.
Rabbits?! That can’t be right. Everyone knows the first humans in North America dined exclusively on mammoths and other megafauna until they’d hunted dozens and dozens of species into extinction. Rabbits. Pffft. The Science is as settled as a Glyptodon.
Thanks blam. They were seeking the paleo diet.
And they all voted in the 2020 election for Joe Bitem!
Thanks for the ping.
1st - There is zero evidence of ancient Europeans reaching the Americas. All the ancient DNA recovered so far is related to the current indigenous groups. The Solutrean blade idea was pretty weak from the beginning and it hasn’t gotten any stronger.
The current theory is that Native Americans are descended from a group that differentiated themselves from other Eurasians 35-30 kya apparently by being anti-social in Berengia for thousands of years. I always thought it was an odd idea to say they would just stop there . Maybe just maybe some of them did move on and that’s why people keep finding these really archaic flint assemblages.
Today, it's easier to walk from South America to North America...
 |  |
This is truly funny on a typical Saturday morning. I’m glad my coffee had been swallowed before seeing this. Thanks!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/88/dd/0c88dd89ed5559ef0220cfae9336b8b9.gif
There was a lot of movement of people along the shores of asia 50,000-60,000 years ago. Those are roughly the dates that the aborigines are said to have arrived in Australia—followed —over the next 10k years — by the decline and extinction of megafauna in Australia.
Hard not to believe that people stopped walking and boating along the shores of oceans.
One of the characteristics of the last couple 1000 years was the development of cross ocean sailing. In geologic time —the Europeans arrived in Hawaii at almost the same time as the polanesians. They were both able to do so because they had both learned cross ocean sailing.
In deeper time, near shore boating has been around for much longer. Hard to say how long.
So imho its not beyond the pale to think that 30k years ago—people may have walked across the bearing land bridge. But later migrations may have boated along the shore.
The dating arguement won’t come as a result of the results from one site in Mexico or another site in south america— but rather a number of discoveries that point to the earlier dates for first migrations from asia.
nor are the arguements that the clovis people were from Europe mooted. Rather the genetic and tool evidence points to them being from Europe—ie the solutreans. however, the genetic evidence suggests were likely a central or northern asian people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
