An interesting title for a new paper: Human Occupation of the North American Colorado Plateau ∼37,000 Years Ago by Timothy Rowe et al. (Front. Ecol. Evol., 07 July 2022, Sec. Paleontology https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795).
The abstract gives this very ancient site an age of 38,900–36,250 cal BP and 37,000 years ago is well before the 15Ky usually accepted by the Out of Beringia theory that is mainstream orthodoxy regarding the peopling of America!:
" Calibrating human population dispersals across Earth’s surface is fundamental to assessing rates and timing of anthropogenic impacts and distinguishing ecological phenomena influenced by humans from those that were not. Here, we describe the Hartley mammoth locality, which dates to 38,900–36,250 cal BP by AMS 14C analysis of hydroxyproline from bone collagen. We accept the standard view that elaborate stone technology of the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic was introduced into the Americas by arrival of the Native American clade ∼16,000 cal BP. It follows that if older cultural sites exist in the Americas, they might only be diagnosed using nuanced taphonomic approaches. We employed computed tomography (CT and μCT) and other state-of-the-art methods that had not previously been applied to investigating ancient American sites. This revealed multiple lines of taphonomic evidence suggesting that two mammoths were butchered using expedient lithic and bone technology, along with evidence diagnostic of controlled (domestic) fire. That this may be an ancient cultural site is corroborated by independent genetic evidence of two founding populations for humans in the Americas, which has already raised the possibility of a dispersal into the Americas by people of East Asian ancestry that preceded the Native American clade by millennia. The Hartley mammoth locality thus provides a new deep point of chronologic reference for occupation of the Americas and the attainment by humans of a near-global distribution. "
Slowly but surely evidence is supporting the notion of an ancient peopling of America.
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Excellent post!. This paper (which fortunately has open access) has very relevant aspects to comment on. However, I would only like to briefly mention the following ones…any of which could be further discussed in more detail;
ReplyDeletea) An extremely rigorous taphonomic analysis is here presented…which, in my opinion, leaves very little room (if not none…?) to eventual claims about equifinality (that is; the feasibility of natural processes, other than anthropic ones, that can lead to similar results) concerning the butchered bones.
b) The evidence of controlled fire was too analyzed in depth, and has all the appearance (again, in my opinion) of being very solid…
c) The bones had a good degree of preservation...an aspect that allowed a reliable direct dating of them by C14. In addition, multiple samples yielded relatively consistent results…pointing, definitely, to an MIS3 archaeological assemblage…
I think that these, and also other aspects, inevitably lead to an open question;
¿ Will the evidence at Colorado Plateau be enough to trigger at least some “curiosity” on the mainstream archaeology… whose “standards” for early peopling of America evolved very, but very little since their acceptance of Monteverde II (14.5 Ka) as a pre-Clovis site…??
…or will have the only effect of turn their “danger alarm” on again…??
Glad to see you posting again!
Best regards
Marcelo