Old topic, from the FRchives. Adding to the list, not pinging.
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Posted on 07/05/2005 3:38:09 AM PDT by Renfield
A plastic replica of a 40,000-year-old, size eight foot has shattered previous theories of the identity of the first humans to walk in the Americas.
Scientists made the foot from tracks left on the shore of an ancient volcanic lake in central Mexico.
The traditional view is that the first settlers walked across the Bering Strait, from Russia to Alaska, at the end of the last ice age around 11,500 to 11,000 years ago.
But the discovery of footprints in the Valsequillo Basin by a British-led team provides new evidence that humans settled in the Americas as early as 40,000 years ago, suggesting that there were several migration waves at different times by different groups.
The team, led by Dr Silvia Gonzalez from Liverpool John Moores University, has completed dating the footprints, which Dr Gonzalez found in an abandoned quarry with her Liverpool colleague Prof David Huddart and Prof Matthew Bennett, of Bournemouth University, in September 2003. The findings supported the theory that the first colonists might have been seafarers who took an "island hopping" route from Australia and Polynesia, when sea levels were lower, to the west coast, said Prof Bennett.
"There was a lot of sea ice at this time in the northern Pacific. People could have come around on the edge of the sea ice and then down the western seaboard of North America to Baja California and to Mexico," he said.
The first stage of their research, on show this week at the Royal Society in London, analysed 269 footprints, both animal and human.
DNA tests are being conducted on the remains of ancient Americans to see if genetics can help to solve the puzzle. New funding of £212,000 from the Natural Environment Research Council will allow the team to carry out more extensive investigations and to calculate the height, pace and stride of the human population present 40,000 years ago.
"The footprints were preserved as trace fossils in volcanic ash along what was the shoreline of an ancient volcanic lake," said Dr Gonzalez. They were scanned using laser technology and reproduced using rapid prototyping technology.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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Old topic, from the FRchives. Adding to the list, not pinging.
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