New Evidence Supports Controversial Claim of Humans in The Americas 130,000 Years Ago

CARLY CASSELLA11 DECEMBER 2020

Three years ago, a team of archaeologists in the United States proposed an extraordinary idea: the first human settlers in the Americas arrived at least 100,000 years earlier than we thought.

The evidence came from a collection of mastodon bones and ancient stones dating back to around 130,000 years ago, which appeared to have been hammered and scraped by early humans.

The remains were found in the suburbs of San Diego in the 1990s, and the researchers think that the nearby stones may have been used as hammers and anvils to work on the bones. But outside of them, no other traces of human activity were found.

Today, the Cerutti Mastodon (CM) site remains one of the most controversial archaeological digs in the world. For years, scientists have been going back and forth over the results and whether or not they indicate the presence of humans in North America 130,000 years ago, but the original authors are not giving up.

The team has now published a follow-up paper which claims to have found traces of ancient mastodon bones on the upward facing sides of two cobble stones collected from the site.

According to the paper, the new data suggests mastodon bones were indeed placed on top of these rocky 'anvils' and struck with some sort of hammer - presumably by humans.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/mastodon-residue-supports-controversial-theory-about-the-first-settlers-in-america