Re: 40 kya footprints in Mexico?



caldervangogh@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32728/title/Footprints_in_the_ash

Footprints left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico�s
Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years ago are evidence that humans have
inhabited the Americas far longer than previously confirmed, a new
study suggests.

Analyses of three-dimensional laser scans of the imprints (example at
right) confirm their human origin, says Silvia Gonzalez, a
geoarchaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

Previous finds of human remains elsewhere in the region couldn�t be
precisely dated because they were found in layers of mixed gravels
that probably incorporated materials of many different ages.

However, a new analysis of the coarse-grained, print-ridden volcanic
ash � which would have hardened quickly after it fell, says Gonzalez �
strongly suggest the material fell around 40,000 years ago, she and
her colleagues reported today in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at a meeting
of the American Geophysical Union.

Excavations at several sites have suggested that humans have inhabited
the Western Hemisphere for at least 20,000 years, but results
suggesting dates of occupation before 14,000 years ago typically
haven�t been confirmed and remain controversial.

Nevertheless, says Gonzalez, recent excavations at a site in Baja
California have unearthed a rock shelter containing heaps of shells
that have been carbon-dated as 44,000 years old, a finding that
bolsters the notion that people lived throughout the region about 40
millennia ago.

This is fairly old news now & was highly controvesial when it first
appeared. Concensus among thos who were skeptical was that what was
found were not human footprints.

I have no problem with pushing earliest occupation of the Americas
back a few thousand years from Clovis - i.e. to 14KYA or maybe even
16KYA, but there's a big gap without much sign of archaeological
evidence (at least that isn't seen as controversial) if they want to
push that back to 40 KYA.

There is plenty of evidence from a range of locations & ages to put
human occupation of Australia at least to 40, if not 60 KYA. But for
the Americas - it just isn't there...

Ross Macfarlane
.

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