New Mexico footprints are oldest sign of humans in Americas, research shows
New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are probably the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew.
The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lakebed in White Sands national park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published on Thursday in the journal Science.
The estimated age of the footprints was first reported in Science in 2021, but some researchers raised concerns about the dates. Questions focused on whether seeds of aquatic plants used for the original dating may have absorbed ancient carbon from the lake – which could, in theory, throw off radiocarbon dating by thousands of years.
The new study presents two additional lines of evidence for the older date range. It uses two entirely different materials found at the site, ancient conifer pollen and quartz grains.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/06/footprints-humans-americas-oldest-sign-new-mexico
Most likely did not come via "Siberian land bridge"...so where?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Though I don't have the book handy anymore so I can't and won't include dates.
The concept in the book, 1491, a reassessment of archaeologic evidence was made. It's a really big book and took me a year to read and digest what I could from it. There is a lot of minute evidence that is more detail than I could deal with but the main thesis is; The land bridge and over to eastern pathways around great glacial masses concept is suspect. It is equally, if not more, likely that migration happened along the coast of the continent moving south to the next continent much sooner than was thought. The book provides detailed construction of this idea with over a thousand pages of description and notable speculation - which is part of the science - showing how they came to such conclusions.
There is more but years after reading it, that is one main thing that stands out for me. I was never comfortable with the land bridge is the only way, man story anthropologists were so comfy with. I had many discussions with faculty during my undergrad years about this. Hell, while I was in school, geologists decided that not only was there a Pangea, they decided there may have been a few or more. It found the book interesting in that it offered a solid basis for some idea other than the land bridge concept. Scenarios are offered which include some use of the land bridge but beyond that, there is speculation that migration down the coast happened a lot sooner than originally thought.
If there is someone more familiar with the book or the concept, please correct me if I'm missing the main theme or wish to add details!
