Early Humans Entered the American Continent 130,000 Years Ago

Archaeologists say they have found evidence that humans set foot on the American continent much earlier than previously thought. According to the Washington Post and The Guardian, Dr. Thomas Demir and his assistants at the Natural History Museum in San Diego, Southern California, claim in a paper published this week in the prestigious scientific journal Nature that a species of humans arrived on the southern California shores 130,000 years ago, nearly 100,000 years earlier than previously assumed. This group of paleontologists states that the examination of the bones of a mastodon (an extinct animal from the order of elephants) discovered twenty years ago during excavation for a highway in San Diego indicates that these unknown people used five heavy stone tools to break the bones of this animal and consume its brain. They then left these tools and bones in the soft soils of the area and disappeared. It is unclear to which category of prehistoric humans these individuals belonged. If Dr. Demir and his colleagues' claim is correct, then the timeline for the arrival of humans on the American continent would be pushed back thousands of years, challenging the belief that modern humans were the first type of humans to set foot on this continent. According to The New York Times, if this claim is valid, it may be necessary to search for another species of humans, as evidence suggests that modern humans only left the African continent between 50,000 to 80,000 years ago. However, there are many doubts about this claim. Many argue that extraordinary evidence must accompany such an extraordinary claim. Dr. David Meltzer, a paleontologist at Southern Methodist University, states, 'You cannot push back the timeline of human presence in the New World (the American continent) by 100,000 years based on ambiguous evidence like broken bones and unknown stones. The authors of the paper need to find a better way to prove that the existence of these bones and stones is not a natural occurrence.' For years, the timing of the first humans' arrival on the American continent has been debated among paleontologists. Most archaeologists believe that humans entered the American continent at the end of the Ice Age, approximately 25,000 years ago. They say these early humans arrived via the land bridge between Alaska and Asia. Although there is no consensus among archaeologists regarding the exact timing of this journey, their estimates vary from several hundred to several thousand years. This new research pushes that timeline back by 100,000 years. Dr. Demir acknowledges that he and his team have made a significant claim, stating that the magnitude of this number should not lead to the existing evidence being overlooked. According to him, the goal is to now look at the existing evidence from a different perspective.