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Humans in America '115,000 years earlier than thought'


EdEarl

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phys.org

High-tech dating of mastodon remains found in southern California has shattered the timeline of human migration to America, pushing the presence of hominins back to 130,000 years ago rather than just 15,000 years, researchers said Wednesday. (April 26)

They weren't homo sapiens; who were they? This info opens a lot of questions, for example did these people get here by boat?

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If they didn't build boats, how did they get here?

 

I think the article hinted at migration perhaps across a land bridge that might have connected Asia to North America before sea levels rose. Still, no hominid remains were found. So, the jury's still out on this one for me.

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In a companion analysis, Holen and his team argue that—despite rising seas 130,000 years ago due to an inter-glacial period of warming—the overseas distances to the Americas were within the capacity of human populations at the time.

 

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-humans-america-years-earlier-thought.html#jCp

It seems the land bridge had some parts missing. Unfortunately, they let us guess how long these gaps were.

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They weren't homo sapiens; who were they? This info opens a lot of questions, for example did these people get here by boat?

My bet would be either Neanderthals or homo erectus, both of whom were already known to be migrating around the european continent during the time of approx. 130,000 years ago. It was the former, Neanderthals, who we homo sapien sapiens vanquished there, about thirty to forty thousand years back. In other words, those guys were our most recent rivals.

 

And what makes you think that whoever got here first did so by boat?? This certainly did not happen, the original immigrants arrived via one of two land routes, as had always been surmised. Either via Alaska, after the Bering Bridge theory, o from the South, coming up through what is now Mexico and Central America. Of those two, the former is the more popular theory.

 

This discovery in the OP doesn't surprise me. I always have felt this continent was populated far longer than a mere fifteen thousand years. I thought anthropologists put too much importance on the Bering Strait migratory theory. As if that was the earliest possible route.

 

Neanderthals..The more we discover about them the more formidable a rival we realize they were. Much smarter than we originally thought. And far stronger than us. We're still not sure how we managed to best them when we met up in Europe. It's a hotly debated topic in anthropological circles. My bet is it was they who slayed those Mastadon remains that were mentioned in the article.

 

Thanks for this!

Edited by Velocity_Boy
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I think the article hinted at migration perhaps across a land bridge that might have connected Asia to North America before sea levels rose. Still, no hominid remains were found. So, the jury's still out on this one for me.

Indeed; http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s2_9519.pdf

 

The first question to myself was "What was the geography like at that time". Chance pointed me to a map with possible migration paths as well. the brown lined area is the Neanderthal range. If the data is correct, then it needs extending.

 

Edited to add:

 

The BBC reports expert scepticism which is an interesting read with photos from the site. This statement from one expert seems to illustrate the problem:

 

 

"To demonstrate such early occupation of the Americas requires the presence of unequivocal stone artefacts. There are no unequivocal stone tools associated with the bones... this site is likely just an interesting paleontological locality."

Edited by StringJunky
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