It took more than 120 dives in an 11m-deep sinkhole in Florida, but a team of US archaeologists now believe they have confirmed that humans settled in the Americas some 15 centuries earlier than previously thought.
The scuba-diving archaeologists from Florida State University found mastodon bones and fossilised dung at the site along with six hand-sharpened stone tools. Radiocarbon testing indicated that the knives were used 14,550 years ago for the butchery of the animals, distant relatives of the elephant that became extinct about 10,000 years ago.
The sinkhole is 60m wide and would have been a watering hole for animals at the time, making it an ideal place for early hunter-gathering nomads to ambush prey.
It now lies on the bed of the Aucilla river in northern Florida south of Tallahassee, where the university is located. The team, led by Professor Jessi Halligan, had been aware of what is termed the Page-Ladson site but decided to carry out a concentrated underwater survey there.
Previously human colonisation of the Americas was believed to have occurred about 13,000 years ago. Its first settlers were thought to have been the “Clovis people”, who crossed via what was at that time a temporary land-bridge from Siberia.
However, the diving team’s discovery has added to a mounting body of evidence that indicates that humans arrived considerably earlier, probably by boat across the Pacific through central America.
The full report is published in the journal Science Advances here http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/5/e1600375.full
16-May-16
