New Clues Put Humans in New World 28,000 Years Ago
An archeologist Sunday reported dramatic new evidence that humans came to the New World at least 28,000 years ago--twice as far into the past as has been universally accepted--and perhaps 38,000 years ago.
Richard S. MacNeish, of the Andover Foundation for Archeological Research in Massachusetts, led a team that made the discoveries in a New Mexico cave on the grounds of Ft. Bliss. He pronounced them “incontrovertible evidence of the presence of humans” earlier than 11,500 years ago, the time usually cited.
Although claims of comparable or even older finds have been made, none has offered both indisputable evidence of human presence and secure dating. Experts in the long-simmering controversies over just when ancient Asians crossed into North America said that the discoveries may come closer than ever before to providing the solution.
Scientists who heard the report at the annual meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science said the most tantalizing signs of human presence are what appear to be human palm and finger prints on clay found in a 28,000-year-old layer of earth, and a number of hearths in various layers that go back perhaps 38,000 years, many of them ringed with fire-cracked stones and still holding charred logs up to eight inches thick--far bigger than could have been brought in by animals.
The prints, verified as human by police forensic scientists, were on clay that had been shaped to serve as a fire pit.
The shallow cave, called Pendejo, reaches into a limestone bluff and contains 25 distinct layers, dating from modern times at the top to progressively older layers deeper down. The dating was done by the radiocarbon method and, in some cases, confirmed via thermoluminescence, a newer method.
Scattered about many of the layers were bones from tapirs, horses, llamas, giant bison and other animals of species now extinct. MacNeish said the bones were mainly of limbs--suggesting that these parts were cut off in the field and carried into the cave to be cooked and eaten.
