Controversial cave discoveries suggest humans reached Americas much earlier than thought

Controversial cave discoveries suggest humans reached Americas much earlier than thought

Stone tools hint Americans arrived earlier

A massive haul of stone tools discovered in a cave in Mexico is evidence that people occupied the area more than 30,000 years ago. The finding suggests that humans arrived in North America at least 15,000 years earlier than had been thought. The discovery is backed up by a separate statistical analysis incorporating data from sites in North America and Siberia. But some researchers are unconvinced. They question the age of the tools, and whether the artefacts are tools at all, rather than objects created by natural processes. Data from caves are “notoriously troublesome” to interpret, says archaeologist François Lanoë.

Nature | 5 min read
Go deeper with anthropologist Ruth Gruhn’s expert analysis in the Nature News & Views article.Reference: Nature paper 1 & Nature paper 2
New evidence from Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico joins other sites across the Americas where scientists have found signs of early human occupation (kyr, a thousand years ago).