Monte Verde II wishbone-shaped structure thought to be a medicinal hut and containing several masticated seaweed cuds. Courtesy of Tom Dillehay, Vanderbilt University
View of a rocky shoreline in the inland Seno de Reloncavi Marine Estuary south of Monte Verde. Image courtesy of Mario Pino.
PaleoPing...
DNA of Tierra del Fuego peoples proved they are related to aborigines of Australia.
Turns all that speculation about the northern route on its ear.
Fifteen thousand years ago the sea level was 400 feet lower than it is today. A great deal of the earth’s water was locked up in ice. A northern route may have been impassable, but the Australian aborigines traveled to Australia 40,000 years ago. By water.
DNA indicates they traveled a great deal further than that.
Thanks for posting this. It is very important.
Ping to an important historical finding.
Good article. I have never believed the story of man following migrating animals across better than 1000 miles of ice. Man might be able to carry provisions... but what, pray tell, were the migrating animals eating? The primary migratory animal presented was the Mammoth, which must consume tens of pounds of food a day - Grasses don’t grow on deep ice.
It makes more sense to me that they were on boats, following migrations of fish or hunting seals along the edge of the ice, if there weren’t full ocean-going vessels by then...
Sorry, but this comment, unrelated to the main theme, spoils an otherwise excellent article. Already at the time Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth (240 BC), most educated people knew it was round. The myth that most people believed the Earth was flat is an 19th-century invention. See Jeffrey Russel's book INVENTING THE FLAT EARTH for details.