Scientists from the United States conducted a study and suggested that humans may have come to the New World more than 30 thousand years ago. This is much earlier than expected.
The work was published in the journal Latin American Antiquity. The question of when ancient people first set foot on the American continent remains open to anthropologists. Different studies show different results: from 23 thousand to 13 thousand years ago. There are earlier dates, but they are rather dubious.
Scientists from Iowa State University studied the origins of agriculture in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico to establish the date of the earliest human settlement of the Coxcatlan Cave, located in the area.
Through radiocarbon dating, they were able to determine the age of the bones of a rabbit and a deer, which were found in this cave back in the 1960s. The finds unexpectedly turned out to be ancient - their age was estimated at about 28,297 - 33,448 years. However, there is no exact connection between these remains and the presence of people. Scientists intend to examine them for traces of stone tools cuts and heat treatment.
However, not far from the bones, stone artifacts were found that looked like tools. This, too, has yet to be proven. But it is worth it, because the postponement of the arrival of people in North America more than 30 thousand years ago will mean that they were there before the period of the last glacial maximum, that is, at the time of the most severe cold snap.
And at this time, most of North America was inhospitable to people: the glacier pinned down the passage by land from Alaska and Canada. Thus, according to scientists, people would have to migrate to the New World by boat along the Pacific coast.