Pretty interesting….
“Our interpretation of the Hartley locality as a cultural site is consistent with other recent archeological discoveries placing humans in the Americas during or before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). These include multiple in situ human footprints from New Mexico that date from ∼22,860 to ∼21,130 cal BP (Bennett et al., 2021), and footprints from Argentina that date to ∼30,000 cal BP (Azcuy et al., 2021). Simple stone tools discovered in Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico, date from ∼26,500 to 19,000 cal BP and represent a previously unknown tradition (Ardelean et al., 2020; Becerra-Valdivia and Higham, 2020). At Coxcatlan Cave, Mexico, re-dating butchered small mammals associated with minimally worked stone tools established a 33,448 to 28,279 cal BP date for the site’s lowest cultural level (Somerville et al., 2021). Simple flaked stone artifacts are known from numerous ancient South American sites. These include Toca da Tira Peia, Brazil, which dates to ∼20,000 cal BP (Lahaye et al., 2013), and Vale da Pedra Furada, Brazil, which dates to ∼24,000 cal BP (Boëda et al., 2021); older artifacts dating to ∼32,000 cal BP are also reported from this site (Guidon and Delibrias, 1986; Guidon et al., 1994). At Toca do Serrote das Moendas, Brazil, faunal remains associated with human bones were dated to between ∼29,000 and ∼24,000 cal BP (Kinoshita et al., 2014). And at Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay, a fossil-rich 30,000 years old megafaunal locality with cut-marked bones (Fariña et al., 2014) adds to a growing record of probable human occupation sites in the Americas that predate arrival of the Native American clade by millennia.”…….
…..“In summary, taphonomic and genomic evidence accord in detecting at least two founding populations for the Americas, and in viewing the story of Native Americans expanding into virgin country as “profoundly misleading” (Reich, 2018). The position of the Hartley site deep in the North American Western Interior suggests that the first human arrival in North America, whether overland or via a coastal route, occurred well before ∼37,000 years ago. The Hartley site shares much in common with Old World proboscidean butchering sites; it appears that while hunting technologies evolved steadily, butchering practices preserved more stable procedural efficiencies. The Hartley locality exemplifies new methods and nuanced criteria for diagnosing early human occupation sites in the archeological record. It raises provocative new questions about when, where, and how the Native American clade, with its unprecedented technology, intersected with earlier human occupants of the Americas. It also provides a new deep point of chronologic reference for occupation of the Americas, for attainment by humans of a global distribution, and a temporal recalibration of human ecological impacts across the Western Hemisphere.”
“Our interpretation of the Hartley locality as a cultural site is consistent with other recent archeological discoveries placing humans in the Americas during or before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). These include multiple in situ human footprints from New Mexico that date from ∼22,860 to ∼21,130 cal BP (Bennett et al., 2021), and footprints from Argentina that date to ∼30,000 cal BP (Azcuy et al., 2021). Simple stone tools discovered in Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico, date from ∼26,500 to 19,000 cal BP and represent a previously unknown tradition (Ardelean et al., 2020; Becerra-Valdivia and Higham, 2020). At Coxcatlan Cave, Mexico, re-dating butchered small mammals associated with minimally worked stone tools established a 33,448 to 28,279 cal BP date for the site’s lowest cultural level (Somerville et al., 2021). Simple flaked stone artifacts are known from numerous ancient South American sites. These include Toca da Tira Peia, Brazil, which dates to ∼20,000 cal BP (Lahaye et al., 2013), and Vale da Pedra Furada, Brazil, which dates to ∼24,000 cal BP (Boëda et al., 2021); older artifacts dating to ∼32,000 cal BP are also reported from this site (Guidon and Delibrias, 1986; Guidon et al., 1994). At Toca do Serrote das Moendas, Brazil, faunal remains associated with human bones were dated to between ∼29,000 and ∼24,000 cal BP (Kinoshita et al., 2014). And at Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay, a fossil-rich 30,000 years old megafaunal locality with cut-marked bones (Fariña et al., 2014) adds to a growing record of probable human occupation sites in the Americas that predate arrival of the Native American clade by millennia.”…….
…..“In summary, taphonomic and genomic evidence accord in detecting at least two founding populations for the Americas, and in viewing the story of Native Americans expanding into virgin country as “profoundly misleading” (Reich, 2018). The position of the Hartley site deep in the North American Western Interior suggests that the first human arrival in North America, whether overland or via a coastal route, occurred well before ∼37,000 years ago. The Hartley site shares much in common with Old World proboscidean butchering sites; it appears that while hunting technologies evolved steadily, butchering practices preserved more stable procedural efficiencies. The Hartley locality exemplifies new methods and nuanced criteria for diagnosing early human occupation sites in the archeological record. It raises provocative new questions about when, where, and how the Native American clade, with its unprecedented technology, intersected with earlier human occupants of the Americas. It also provides a new deep point of chronologic reference for occupation of the Americas, for attainment by humans of a global distribution, and a temporal recalibration of human ecological impacts across the Western Hemisphere.”
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