Lifestyle

TOPICS:

Previous

PAGE: 

1 ... 

312 | 313 | 314

 ... 944

Next

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2

Next

SomeOneUK

SomeOneUK

United Kingdom
June 2004

JUL 05, 2005 04:54 AM

Footprints recently found in a Mexican quarry suggest humans had arrived in the Americas by 40,000 years ago. Scientists had previously suggested 22,000 - 11,000 years ago as the date for colonisation, favouring the more recent dates.

“If true, this would completely change our view of how and when the Americas were first colonised,” says Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. But like several US experts, he is reserving judgement until the dates can be independently confirmed.

The discovery was made by an international team led by Silvia Gonzalez, a geoarchaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. She found the fossilised footprints in 2003 in a quarry near the city of Puebla, 100 kilometres southeast of Mexico City. “I walked 1 metre and started to see them,” Gonzalez says. “It felt like a thunderbolt.”

In just two days, Gonzalez and her colleagues found hundreds of human and animal footprints preserved in a layer of ash from a nearby volcano. The footprints were made along the shore of a lake and were submerged after the water level rose, preserving them under sediments.

“They are unmistakably human footprints,” says team member Matthew Bennett at Bournemouth University in the UK. “They meet all the criteria that were set up after the Laetoli prints were found [in Tanzania in 1976].” The sizes suggests that about one-third of them were made by children.


The earlier dates have been heavily criticised, but this study has used several state of the art techniques to produce this one date:

The key date came from shells in the lake sediments, which the team carbon-dated to 38,000 years ago. Sand grains baked into the ash and dated using optically stimulated luminescence corroborated the finding.

The researchers also used argon-argon, uranium series and electron spin resonance techniques to date the layers. “The footprints are clearly older than 38,000 years,” says team member Tom Higham of the carbon-dating lab at the University of Oxford, UK.

The conventional view is that humans arrived in the Americas via Beringia around 11,000 years ago, when a land bridge became available between Siberia and Alaska. There have been claims about earlier waves of settlers, who must have made the crossing over water, based mainly on sites with signs of habitation dated up to 40,000 years ago, but these claims have drawn intense criticism.

Gonzalez and her team expect the same. “This will be incredibly controversial, there’s no doubt about that,” Higham says. They invite other researchers to scrutinise their findings, due to be published in the journal Quaternary Science Review.

“We have done a year of solid work to make sure it’s accurate and reproducible,” Higham stresses.

eScottie

eScottie

Minneapolis, MN
August 2003

JUL 05, 2005 05:56 AM

nah...it was aliens. there was another one a few yards away pointing and saying "ha! look what you stepped in, quebak! stupid martian!"

[Edited on Jul 05, 2005 5:56AM]

SurfBetty

SurfBetty

Atlantic Beach, FL
December 2003

JUL 05, 2005 06:05 AM

cool...I love stuff like this.


Science makes me happy. biggrin

frankjohnson

frankjohnson

I'm lost
November 2004

JUL 05, 2005 06:32 AM

Hopefully now the 40,000 yr old group will be taken seriously.

comicking

comicking

Rosemount, MN
May 2004

JUL 05, 2005 06:33 AM

I'm confused. The first link takes me to a KBP Google search which resulted in several chess references. The 2nd link talks about the theories. Where is the article from?

It sounds interesting though.

SomeOneUK

SomeOneUK

United Kingdom
June 2004

JUL 05, 2005 07:13 AM

comicking said:
I'm confused. The first link takes me to a KBP Google search which resulted in several chess references. The 2nd link talks about the theories. Where is the article from?

It sounds interesting though.



link fixed....

smile

MistressMissy

mistressmissy

Grand Rapids, MI
March 2003

JUL 05, 2005 07:42 AM

im actually confused as to why scientists think that man came from just one place.

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

JUL 05, 2005 07:44 AM

MistressMissy said:
im actually confused as to why scientists think that man came from just one place.


well, there are those who believe... that life here... began out there. Far across the universe. With tribes of humans... who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians... or the Toltecs... or the Mayans... that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids... or the lost civilizations of Lemuria... or Atlantis... Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man... who even now fight to survive... far, far away amongst the stars...

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUL 05, 2005 07:49 AM

I'm sorry, but the Book of Mormon says that it was only like 3000 years ago when the two tribes of Jews came sailing over from Egypt. Clearly, these "scientists" didn't do their research.

Lotusmonger

Lotusmonger

Chicago, IL
May 2004

JUL 05, 2005 07:49 AM

errr... Didn't the Clovis site already push the date back to about 32,000 years ago?

I'm waiting for the proof that the sailors from Mediteranean countries sailed here to the America's just like the Vikings did.

alpha_hazard

alpha_hazard

Fort Collins, CO
April 2004

JUL 05, 2005 08:34 AM

come on, everybody knows that it was aliens...the same ones who built the pyramids and hunted geiger art...

Sesshomaru

Sesshomaru

Keene, NH
January 2004

JUL 05, 2005 08:51 AM

wow that's really cool i love reading about new finds in archeology skull

DannyDMc

DannyDMc

Fargo, ND
July 2003

JUL 05, 2005 09:09 AM

That is really interesting, and its kind of weird because me and my Dad were just talking about something similiar the other week. Naturally, I now need to send him this article. smile

TBSheets

TBSheets

I'm lost
December 2004

JUL 05, 2005 09:18 AM

Lotusmonger said:
errr... Didn't the Clovis site already push the date back to about 32,000 years ago?

I'm waiting for the proof that the sailors from Mediteranean countries sailed here to the America's just like the Vikings did.



wait no more...

hermetica

hermetica

Cook Islands
January 2004

JUL 05, 2005 09:24 AM

TBSheets said:

Lotusmonger said:
errr... Didn't the Clovis site already push the date back to about 32,000 years ago?

I'm waiting for the proof that the sailors from Mediteranean countries sailed here to the America's just like the Vikings did.



wait no more...



Nice article, but 'Eskimos'? Come on. Do people actually still call Inuit that?

Dan76

Dan76

Seattle, WA
February 2004

JUL 05, 2005 10:11 AM

Video of footprints...

PBS

n8tvegrl

n8tvegrl

Bend, OR
February 2004

JUL 05, 2005 10:26 AM

Subrosa said:
I'm sorry, but the Book of Mormon says that it was only like 3000 years ago when the two tribes of Jews came sailing over from Egypt. Clearly, these "scientists" didn't do their research.




Yeah... I love how they tell me that "my people" are the lost tribe of Israel and came over on little boats. And that science is just a giant lie to brainwash us...

whatever

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUL 05, 2005 10:28 AM

n8tvegrl said:

Subrosa said:
I'm sorry, but the Book of Mormon says that it was only like 3000 years ago when the two tribes of Jews came sailing over from Egypt. Clearly, these "scientists" didn't do their research.




Yeah... I love how they tell me that "my people" are the lost tribe of Israel and came over on little boats. And that science is just a giant lie to brainwash us...

whatever



Well, you are a Lamanite, so therefore you can never fully understand.wink

Arete

Arete

SUICIDEGIRL

I'm lost

JUL 05, 2005 10:31 AM

_Wahine_ said:
cool...I love stuff like this.



that's EXACTLY what i was thinking! smile

Lemonkid

Lemonkid

Canada
May 2003

JUL 05, 2005 10:38 AM

Actually I conquered the Americas 40,000 years ago - me and my time travelling chimpanzee Giuseppe.

[Edited on Jul 05, 2005 by Lemonkid]

Al

Al

SUICIDEGIRL

Christmas Island

JUL 05, 2005 11:01 AM

MistressMissy said:
im actually confused as to why scientists think that man came from just one place.


Well, I think it's highly unlikely that humans evolved from apes in more than one place; it'd be like two people on different continents getting the idea for the character of The Well Manicured Man on The X-Files independently of each other, without the show existing. I don't know, maybe that's a bad parallel. That's my guess, at least.

ginawa

ginawa

Newport, PA
May 2004

JUL 05, 2005 11:20 AM

Lotusmonger said:
errr... Didn't the Clovis site already push the date back to about 32,000 years ago?

I'm waiting for the proof that the sailors from Mediteranean countries sailed here to the America's just like the Vikings did.



i agree with you

jackalnoir

jackalnoir

Raleigh, NC
January 2005

JUL 05, 2005 02:30 PM

WOAH WOAH WOAH.

Everyone knows George Washington founded and colonised this country in 1776. He was fighting to free us from the shackels of the Red Menace, and we won our victory over the Huns shortly thereafter. And as we all know, USA is #1.

On another note, this makes alot of sense. Not sure why it took us this long to figure it out.

hellblazer

hellblazer

I'm lost
February 2005

JUL 05, 2005 04:08 PM

Al said:

MistressMissy said:
im actually confused as to why scientists think that man came from just one place.


Well, I think it's highly unlikely that humans evolved from apes in more than one place; it'd be like two people on different continents getting the idea for the character of The Well Manicured Man on The X-Files independently of each other, without the show existing. I don't know, maybe that's a bad parallel. That's my guess, at least.



Well, more than one person had the idea for the telephone (or something like it) and the automobile (horseless carriage) at about the same time on two seperate continents.

Not that either have the same level of creative achievement or cultural importance as the Well-Manicured Man. wink

But...

I think it's a question of what's demanded by environmental conditions. And I think this works on both evolutionary and sociological levels.

I_M

I_M

Canada
January 2004

JUL 05, 2005 04:43 PM

Al said:

MistressMissy said:
im actually confused as to why scientists think that man came from just one place.


Well, I think it's highly unlikely that humans evolved from apes in more than one place; it'd be like two people on different continents getting the idea for the character of The Well Manicured Man on The X-Files independently of each other, without the show existing. I don't know, maybe that's a bad parallel. That's my guess, at least.



Actually (unless I've missed some updates), related to apes through a common ancestor. I like to keep that one straight because the 'anti-evolutionist' forces always use it for fodder. I believe the 'Seven Daughters of Eve' theory also supports a single source of evolution (I'm not sure where it stands on The Well Manicured Man).

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2

Next