Free Republic

IN CEDROS ISLAND IN MEXICO—Matthew Des Lauriers got the first inkling that he had stumbled on something special when he pulled over on a dirt road here, seeking a place for his team to use the bathroom. While waiting for everyone to return to the car, Des Lauriers, then a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, meandered across the landscape, scanning for stone tools and shell fragments left by the people who had lived on the island in the past 1500 years. As he explored, his feet crunched over shells of large Pismo clams—bivalves that he hadn't seen...

A new settlement has been discovered by researchers from the Hakai Institute, University of Victoria and local First Nations members, and it changes everything scientists thought they knew about early civilization in North America. The 14,000-year-old village contains artifacts that date all the way back to the Ice Age and is believed to be one of the oldest human settlements ever uncovered in North America. It’s even suspected to be older than the Giza pyramids! As IFL Science reports, the discovery lines up with the oral history of the Heiltsuk Nation. For generations, stories have been handed down that tell...

Did you see this? Scientists say an ancient settlement discovered in Western Canada predates the pyramids.Triquet Island on B.C.’s Central Coast An ancient village believed to be one of the oldest human settlements ever found in North America has been discovered during an excavation on a remote island in British Columbia.  The village, which is estimated to be 14,000 years old, has been found on a rocky spit on Triquet Island, about 500 kilometres northwest of Victoria, Canada.  It is estimated the village is older than Egypt’s pyramids.  And according the CBC the find supports the oral history of the...

The oral history of the Heiltsuk Nation, an Aboriginal group based on the Central Coast of British Columbia, tells of a coastal strip of land that did not freeze during the ice age, making it a place of refuge for early inhabitants of the territory. As Roshini Nair reports for the CBC, a recent archaeological discovery attests to an ancient human presence in the area associated with the tradition. While digging on British Columbia’s Triquet Island, archaeologists unearthed a settlement that dates to the period of the last ice age. The archaeological team, supported by the Hakai Institute, sifted through...