Posted on 05/10/2020 1:06:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The first settlers of the Yucatán Peninsula built bonfires 10,000 years ago in a cave now flooded with water, studies have confirmed.
Charcoal samples from 14 prehistoric bonfires removed from the Ancestors Chamber of the Aktun Ha cenote, or natural sinkhole, in Tulum, Quintana Roo, in 2017 and 2018 were analyzed by scientists from the National Autonomous University (UNAM).
They used a range of different methods including controlled heating experiments, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and carbon dating.
The scientists determined that the bonfires were lit between 10,250 and 10,750 years ago. Corresponding to the early Holcene period - the current geological epoch which began more than 11,000 years ago after the last glacial period - the charcoal remnants of the fires are the oldest ever discovered in a Yucatán Peninsula cenote.
The scientists determined that the fires reached temperatures as high as 600 C. They ruled out any possibility that water swept the charcoal remains into the cenote cave from elsewhere.
Hunter-gatherers who lived on the Yucatán Peninsula more than 10 millennia ago may have used the Ancestors Chamber... bonfires... for both warmth and cooking.
Divers have also found stone artifacts in the cave that appear to have been used as tools such as hammers and scrapers.
(Excerpt) Read more at mexiconewsdaily.com ...
Aktun Ha cenote image search
Interesting
[[Scientists find evidence of fires built in Yucatan cave 10,000 years ago]]
...Several rubber pieces with deep treads on them were found 1/2 burned buried under mounds of melted fiberglass- a NYT article about global warming was found alongside the mound of debris, so they are certain of the date-
Rangers wrote them a ticket for improper burning and left it at the scene.
The origin of fire actually comes down to someone in the Yucatan spilled the chili sauce on a piece of dry wood.
Cue Billy Joel -
We didn’t start the fire...it was always burnin since the world was turnin
When I first began studying and performing archeology, the ‘consensus’ at the time was that humans crossed over to what is now Alaska when the continents were connected during the last Ice Age. The ‘consensus’ dictated that the first humans crossed over into what is now Alaska 10,000 years ago. Back then I immediately laughed (to myself). ‘To myself’ because to question the prevailing theory at that time would not have assisted in furthering my career. I knew instinctively that humans could have come to the New World much earlier, but back when I first began studying we just did not have the technology, or evidence, to prove it. The surface of the Earth is constantly changing, and evidence is, at times, difficult to find. Discoveries like the one in this article do not surprise me at all.
Thanks RMII, this find is really interesting, because it underlines the fact that most of the past two million years the continental shelves have been wholly or partially dry land, and most human and proto-human activity almost certainly took place there -- and that's true of the Americas as well.
Well within the Clovis horizon, but still a significant find. Sea level had not reached current levels, but was rising.
I often think we sell stone age cultures short regarding their ingenuity and ability to travel. Look at the Polynesians, a stone age culture that conquered the Pacific.
Whoa! You mean sea levels have been rising and the climate has been changing for at least the last 10,000 years? Mind blown!
Really SC .... a fire .... 10,000 years ago ? ..... No bicycle or ham radio.
I told those blasted kids not to play with matches in there!
Back then, a fire was their TV! :^)
A little peyote and a fire and you’re entertained for hours.
Having lived in Tulum and the interior jungle and visiting countless cenotes in the area, I can say that we (mankind) have about a 1% understanding of the Mesoamerican pre-Columbian era!!!
Plus, that one fire produced CO2 and made the oceans rise 20 feet, the little scamps!
Of course.
Ten thousand year old marshmallows weren’t going to roast themselves.
Also, it would not have been any fun to tell ten thousand year old stories around a ten thousand year old pile of cold sticks.
Hey, make ceyote rhyme with peyote, and ya got a Jimmy Buffett song.
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