January 8, 2024
Groundbreaking Study Cracks Mystery of Humans Migrating to Americas 26,000 Years Ago
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1831452/ancient-humans-americas-china-spt
June 1, 2023
Some of the first humans in the Americas came from China, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/09/prehistoric-migrations-china-americas
January 14, 2023
Pedra Furada Pre-Clovis Claims Debunked
Some researchers have been claiming that they found stone tools made by humans that were in use 50,000 years ago at the Pedra Furada site in Brazil. But new research shows that Capuchin monkeys widely made and used stone tools in this area at that time. The assemblage found at Pedra Furada does not show anything beyond crude stone tools that were probably made by the Capuchin monkeys.
The monkeys have their own rock quarries, where they selec rocks to use as hammers to crack nuts against a larger, flattened anvil rock. Rocks also come in handy for eating seeds and fruits—and the monkeys even lick the dust created from driving two rocks together, possibly as a way of adding minerals to their diets.
Stone tools assist capuchins with other tasks as well, such as digging. And the females throw rocks at potential mates as a way of demonstrating sexual interest.
All of these processes can lead to the stones breaking into smaller flaked pieces—which, the new study found, are indistinguishable from some ancient stone tools carved by early humans.
The research is published in Sage Journals’ The Holocene
Artnet.com haș the report here:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-tools-monkeys-2237820
January 14, 2023
New Research May Show People Moved Back and Forth From North America to Siberia
The remains of three people who died in Kamchatka, Siberia show they had North American genes. So people traveled back and forth across the Bering Sea region. Researchers studied genetic and linguistic evidence that showed folks in North America boated back to Siberia. This new DNA evidence bolsters the proof of this. The evidence from this new DNA study shows evidence of this return journey 5,000 years ago and 1,500 years ago.
However, critics point out that the genes identified as North American comes from a group that never left Siberia but shares ancestry with Native Americans.
Ancient Siberia is turning out to be a crossroads. Altai hunter-gatherers in Siberia are related to Bronze Age people from Central Asia. One who appears to have been a shaman in the burial remans had northeast Asian ancestry. And one has ancestry from the Jomon people in Japan.
The research is published in Current Biologynone.
Science.org has the report here.
https://www.science.org/content/article/native-americans-and-their-genes-traveled-back-siberia-new-genomes-reveal?fbclid=IwAR0j-21tyo810ODMsuTwewCA1OpXR6pMSnbvJpM2JjmwuSE5Z16foNynvFE
November 21, 2022
New Research on the Ancient White Sands Footprints
New research on the ancient human White Sands footprints which were dated by a research team to be between 23,000-21,000 years old has now been disputed by a new team of researchers from the Universities of Nevada, Kansas, and Oregon State. The original team making the claim used tiny seeds used to date the footprints using radio carbon methods. The plant seeds came from Ruppia cirrhosa, an aquatic plant that grows underwater. These plants do not get their carbon from terrestrial sources but from dissolved carbon atoms in the water. Using aquatic plants like this for radio carbon dating is problematical. Earlier radio carbon dating of these aquatic plants were found to be only 7.400 years old in a study at New Mexico labs in 1947. Finding these plant seeds in conjunction with human footprints would subtract 7,400 years from the age of the footprints, making the footprints between 15.000-13,000 years old.
Cambridge University Press published the new research here:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2022.38
Heritage Daily has the report here.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/11/new-research-questions-dating-of-ice-age-footprints-in-north-america/145212
August 12, 2022
Archaeologists Claim Humans Butchered Mammoths 37,000 Years Ago in New Mexico
Archaeologists from the University of Texas, excavating at the Hartley site in New Mexico, are claiming they have found evidence of humans butchering mammoths 37,000 years ago. They found the bones of two mammoths in a large pile. Carbon dating the collagen in the bones gave a date between 36,250-38,900 years old. The archaeologists claim that the bones had been handled by humans. Some bones look like they were made into human knives. Other bones look like they were broken by blunt force, and puncture marks on the ribs perhaps made by humans to get to nutrients.
A boulder and some first sized rocks could have been used to break the bones. There could have been a controlled fire which researchers say cooked the mammoths, along with smaller animals and fish. Crystallized ash in the sediment could have come from a fire to cook the mammoths. The researchers at the site used high-resolution CT scans and scanning electron microscopy.
But scientific critics of this claims are pointing out there is no definitive evidence of human activity. Weathering, trampling, sediment layering, landslides can cause this kind of damage to bones. There is no unambiguous human tool and no human remains at the site, no evidence of humans directly at all.
The research was published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
(My note; I always look to absolute proof of humans being involved such as human DNA evidence, Human bones or teeth, actual human tools, some kind of human habitation proof. No research like this can withstand the critiques without this kind of evidence. Pre-Clovis sites have been proven at Monte Verde in Chile and Paisley Cave in Oregon and perhaps the Page-Ladson site in Florida, but the proofs there are far more extensive and prove human activity at these Pre-Clovis sites. The research at the Hartley site is far from proven.)
Livescience.com has the report with photos here:
https://www.livescience.com/mammoth-butchering-site-new-mexico
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March 13, 2022
24,000 Year Old Tools Found in Beringia Studied
Humans were hunting mammoths, bison, caribou in Beringia, a land mass that once connected Siberia to Alaska 24,000 years ago. Archaeologists at the Blue Fish Caves have found perhaps the oldest proofs of this ancient age. Archaeologist Lauriane Bourgeon is studying the collection gathered so far from the Bluefish Caves, tools and 36,000 animal bones. She has found cut marks made by humans on 15 of these bones dated at 23,500 years ago.
Most of the bones were from Beringian horses that became extinct 14,000 years ago. These Beringian horse bones are found with few tools and no hearths. So the Bluefish Caves appear to be temporary camps.
Most of the Beringian human dwelling places are now underwater. The few places now posited as possible human dwelling places will have to be further tested for the age of the stone tools found there.
(My note; It is important to remember that these finds are in what was once Beringia. The dates where Beringians may have actually entered into Alaska are still debated. So these are not the First Americans as much as they are the first Beringians. The oldest sites for the entry of the First Americans are much further south, and had to be reached by canoe voyagers long before the Clovis entry in Alaska.)
Hakai Magazine has the report here:
https://hakaimagazine.com/news/investigating-ice-age-americans-ancient-abattoir/
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23,000 YEARS OLD HUMAN FOOTPRINTS FOUND IN NEW MEXICO
Ancient human footprints at the White Sands site in New Mexico have been uncovered. They were pressed into a local plant, spiral ditch grass. The seeds of the plant were radio carbon dated at 21,000-23,000 years ago. Seven footprint sites have been found at the site. They may represent children and adolescents because their feet were smaller. Since these foot prints were made by people who lived during the last glacial maximum, they had to have arrived by sea by some route around the glaciers.
Scientific American has the report here;
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/footprint-discovery-hints-at-humans-in-the-americas-more-than-20-000-years-ago/
The footprints were found in the dry land bed of Lake Otero. The footprints were found by the team of archaeologists studying the site on a day when wind exposed the prints;
Sci-news has that report here:
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/americas-oldest-known-human-footprints-10100.html
The team found six layers and 11 seedbeds that stretched for 2000 years. The oldest footprint being 22,800 years ago and the youngest at 21,139 years ago.
The erosion that has revealed the footprints will disappear in a matter of months or years. Countless footprints are disappearing before the scientists even lay eyes on them.
But there is one strong doubt that remains; The seeds could have absorbed older carbon from the lake water, making them seem older than they really are. That particular problem will have to be settled before this find can be labeled as genuine Pre-Clovis.
(My note; That problem and further testing often takes years to prove by other teams investigating the evidence. It took over 20 years for the Monte Verde site in Chile to be proven Pre-Clovis and many years before the Paisley Cave, Oregon find to be certified Pre-Clovis).
The NY Times has that report here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/science/ancient-footprints-ice-age.html?partner=IFTTT
August 19, 2021
Groundbreaking DNA Research Finds Australasian/Melanesian Ancestry in South America.
DNA studies in 2015 revealed Australasian/Melanesian ancestry in two Indigenous Amazonian groups, the Karitiana and Suruí, Researchers found Australasian ancestry in Indigenous groups living across South America, including those descended from Peru’s Mochica civilization.
They left Siberia 20,000 years ago to Beringia, and left Beringia 15,000 years ago. They are found at the Pre-Clovis site of Monte Verde in Southern Chile 14,800 years ago.
The key to this discovery was locating the genetic Y signal among the groups in the Amazon, on the Brazilian plateau, and in the Peruvian Chotuna people who descended from the Mochica (100-800 CE).
The migrants took a coastal route and split off in the central plateau and the Amazon 15,000-8,000 years ago.
The researchers need to find the Y signal in coastal areas to solidify their claims. And they have to find out why the Y signal has not been found in North or Central America. They may have died out by way of larger groups taking over from the north or the genocide of the Spanish conquest.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(My note: There have been many other earlier studies that pointed in this direction. This study brings us closer to the story)
Sciencemag has the report here:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/earliest-south-american-migrants-had-australian-melanesian-ancestry
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March 11, 2021
Research in Alaska Points to a Human Presence There 32,000 Years Ago
Researchers at Brown University, funded by the Shared Beringian Heritage Program believe they have found traces of human fecal matter and fire activity in Northern Alaska that date to 30,000 years ago. Their research has not been published yet. Human findings in Siberia date to 45,000 years ago. The genetic data on modern Native Americans show that they descended from a long isolated Berigian population. The Beringian Standstill Hypothesis postulates that humans populated Beringia from Siberia to Canada at 25,000 years ago before moving south as ice receded.
The researchers retrieved samples lakes on the Seward Peninsula. They found samples of human fecal matter and the use of fire were dated to 30,000 years ago. The fire presence was found on a cold, dry climate area, not in warmer areas. So they began to suspect a human presence was responsible. They then looked for human fecal matter and found it at 32,000 years ago in their core samples. They then look at another lake, Burial Lake, and found the same biomarkers of fecal matter and fire, and found them at the same date.
Their research will be published in a few months. Their proofs in the area of genetics and biochemistry will not show proof of archaeological evidence.
(My note) This is the beginning of a new branch of research as to who the First Americas were. Once the research is published, debate will begin on this new branch of study. Archaeologists may begin to look deeper in the Seward Peninsula for a definite human presence. Finds like this take decades to prove or disprove. If archaeological evidence is found in the end at 32,000 years ago, this would be a substantial discovery. And remember, the genes of modern Native Americans which match those in Beringia, groups traveling south into the Americas by canoe may originate from different genetic groups. That research is also ongoing.
National Parks Traveler has the report here;
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2021/02/research-could-reset-accepted-timeline-humans-reaching-north-america
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