originally submitted by coldrum
One of archaeology's most interesting questions is, "When and how did the earliest humans first arrive in the New World?" During the past decade, fresh and challenging answers have emerged. Much of the new data comes from the work of Tom D. Dillehay of Vanderbilt University and his colleagues who study Monte Verde, an ancient site in Chile.
They recently reported new findings in the journal Science that suggest strongly that early humans in North and South America were using boats to work along the shoreline; the Pacific Coast was an inviting way to move from Asia and southward from Alaska.
In 1976, Dillehay began work at Monte Verde. Later he published reports which included shockingly early human occupation dates of about 14,000 years ago. Other archaeologists more readily accept such early dates now than they did when he first reported them.
The Monte Verde site has living huts, animal processing areas, and extensive plant and animal remains, including mastodons, attesting their value to early humans.
Dillehay and others recently published new findings from Monte Verde: new species of marine algae, and a stone tool with algae remains. This new evidence was analyzed by radiocarbon-14 dating, and is about 14,000 years old.
The results provide several important increments in our understanding of early humans in the New World.
First, the radiocarbon dates provide additional and compelling evidence that humans arrived in the New World at least as early as 14,000 years ago. This point had been under continual debate by archaeologists over the past decade.
Second, the algae itself -- including its appearance on a stone tool -- suggests that early humans in the New World were well aware of coastal marine resources, and were accustomed to relying on them for food and medicine.
Monte Verde, at nearly the opposite pole from Alaska, could be our best model for the culture, the behavior, and the intelligence of the earliest people in the New World.
For more, see the article by Walter Witschey.
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