Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas

Human footprints found in New Mexico are about 23,000 years old, a study reported, suggesting that people may have arrived long before the Ice Age’s glaciers melted.

Ancient human footprints preserved in the ground across the White Sands National Park in New Mexico are astonishingly old, scientists reported on Thursday, dating back about 23,000 years to the Ice Age.

The results, if they hold up to scrutiny, would rejuvenate the scientific debate about how humans first spread across the Americas, implying that they did so at a time when massive glaciers covered much of their path.

Researchers who have argued for such an early arrival hailed the new study as firm proof.

“I think this is probably the biggest discovery about the peopling of America in a hundred years,” said Ciprian Ardelean, an archaeologist at Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico who was not involved in the work. “I don’t know what gods they prayed to, but this is a dream find.”

For decades, many archaeologists have maintained that humans spread across North and South America only at the end of the last ice age. They pointed to the oldest known tools, including spear tips, scrapers and needles, dating back about 13,000 years. The technology was known as Clovis, named for the town of Clovis, N.M., where some of these first instruments came to light.

No one 25,000 B.C. could have known about Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. They probably wouldn't think of earth as a planet.

Maybe the 9 stands for 9 bright objects in the sky--the sun, the moon, Mercury as a morning star, Mercury as an evening star, Venus as a morning star, Venus as an evening star, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Or perhaps the 8 brightest stars in the Big Dipper and Polaris. Ca. 25,000 B.C. Polaris would have been the bright star nearest the north pole.

Many, many moons ago (a little indian lingo there) I had a double college major of Spanish and archeology. Excavating ancient America and Central America was fascinating, but it could not pay a mortgage. Back then the idea that man had only been in the Americas for a short time seemed ludicrous. I did not argue with older professors who would not consider that we really didn’t (don’t) know when and how it all happened. We keep finding more clues and information, and it is all so very cool.

Keywords Solutreans, MonteVerde, CactusHill, sorted and edited, and with one addition:

Monte Verde: Our Earliest Evidence of Humans Living in South America [11/07/2019]
The new face of South American people [Luzia not African or Australasian] [07/03/2019]
Rethinking the First Americans [05/19/2019]
And two became one: ancient American lineages reunited to head south [06/01/2018]
An Inconvenient Truth About the First Peoples [04/11/2017]
New clues emerge about the earliest known Americans [11/21/2015]
The Iceman Cameth [Solutreans, Pre-Clovis] [10/02/2015]
Iberia's Neolithic Farmers Linked to Modern-Day Basques [09/08/2015]
Teams digging into history of the earliest people [07/25/2015]
Discoveries Challenge Beliefs on Humans' Arrival in the Americas [03/28/2014]
Montana Boy: Bones Show Ancestral Links to Europe [02/24/2014]
When Did Humans Come to the Americas? [01/27/2013]
Younger Dryas -The Rest of the Story! [06/21/2012]
New evidence suggests Cabot may have known of New World before voyage [05/07/2012]
America 'discovered by Stone Age hunters from Europe' [02/28/2012]
Ancestry of polar bears traced to Ireland [07/07/2011]
15,000-year-old campsite in Texas challenges conventional story of American settlement [03/25/2011]
First Americans arrived as 2 separate migrations, according to new genetic evidence [01/09/2009]
First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia.... [07/03/2008]
Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago, Study Says [03/13/2008]
Does Skull Prove That The First Americans Came From Europe? [11/24/2007]
Constructing The Solutrean Solution [08/28/2007]
Did comet start deadly cold snap? [05/16/2007]
Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas [02/23/2007]
Penon Woman [12/17/2006]
First Americans [05/23/2006]
NOVA | Mystery of the Megaflood | PBS [05/13/2006]
Archaeologist says Va. bolsters claim on how people got to America [ Solutrean ] [05/10/2006]
First Americans May Have Been European [02/19/2006]
Skull Study Suggests at Least Two Groups Colonized America [12/15/2005]
Stone Age Columbus [12/15/2005]
Catastrophic Flooding From Ancient Lake May Have Triggered Cold Period [12/18/2004]
The Solutrean Solution--Did Some Ancient Americans Come from Europe? [09/24/2004]
Sifting for Clues at W.Md. Dig [09/15/2004]
Stone Age Columbus - Questions And Answers [08/22/2004]
'First Americans' May Be Johnnies-Come-Lately (Topper Site) [08/22/2004]
Myth of the Hunter-Gatherer [08/13/2004]
Island Hopping To A New World [02/18/2004]
Rediscovering America. (The New World May Be 20,000 Years Older Than Experts Thought) [12/10/2003]
Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?) [11/02/2003]
Iberia, Not Siberia [12/21/2003]
Erectus Ahoy (Stone Age Voyages) [10/22/2003]
Skulls Found In Mexico Suggest Early Americans Would Have Said 'G'Day Mate' [09/03/2003]
European DNA Found In 7-8,000 Year Old Skeleton In Florida (Windover) [08/14/2003]
Bye, Bye Beringia (8,000 Year Old Site In Florida) [08/11/2003]
Discovery casts doubt on Bering land bridge theory [08/04/2003]
PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS: [07/25/2003]
Date Limit Set On First Americans [07/22/2003]
First Americans [07/15/2003]
Vintage Skulls [02/22/2003]
First Americans [10/06/2002]
Kenosha Dig Points to Europe as Origin of First Americans [03/04/2002]
Who Were the First Americans? [01/13/2002]
Calico: A 200,000-year Old Site In The Americas? [12/17/2001]
The First Americans May Have Come By Water [12/10/2001]

Clovis first is clearly a false theory to explain the peopling of America. We’ve known this for a long, long time... Entire careers and institutions have been built upon the Clovis first falsehood. To suggest anything else was a career ender up until very recently. So, if not Clovis... then who? I am not bought into Solutrean at all... but I am very convinced, based on evidence, that people were here far before the Clovis culture emerged or came.

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