New discoveries from several archaeological sites in North and South America suggest that ancient people first arrived in the New World much earlier than scientists once thought.

New discoveries from several archaeological sites in North and South America suggest that ancient people first arrived in the New World much earlier than scientists once thought.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      9·
      1 day ago

      DNA evidence sorta points that direction, but it’s complicated. There were likely waves of migration to North America from different groups. Most of the DNA in native people can be traced back about 13k years. The link in OP points to artifacts from 27k years ago.

      However, there is some evidence of mixing with a different group.

      https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-dna-confirms-native-americans-deep-roots-north-and-south-america

      Just as mysterious is the trace of Australasian ancestry in some ancient South Americans. Reich and others had previously seen hints of it in living people in the Brazilian Amazon. Now, Willerslev has provided more evidence: telltale DNA in one person from Lagoa Santa in Brazil, who lived 10,400 years ago. “How did it get there? We have no idea,” says geneticist José Víctor Moreno-Mayar of the University of Copenhagen, first author of the Willerslev paper.

      This is an area of active research where a lot of old models are being thrown out over the past few decades. The idea of a single migration from Siberia, the one most of us were taught at school, is definitely wrong. Timing of the glacier movement is too convenient, and the migration would have to have happened far too quickly. What to replace it with is still up in the air.