» Home > In the News

Humans in America

1 September 2017
Dating

At https://phys.org/print423323399.html … analysis of skeletons from a cave in the Yucatan peninsular of Mexico has proven settlement of humans in the Americas goes back into the Late Pleistocene period – or prior to the Younger Dryas event. Mexico is 4000 miles away from the Bering land bridge (but see also www.seeker.com/culture/archaeology/the-oldest-known-human-remains-in-the… ). The cave is now under the sea as a result of sea level changes in the early Holocene period. The cave system would have been dry and accessible in the Late Pleistocene, it is said. The author of the research went so far as to say this part of Mexico was a savannah environment – with no sign of tropical forest as it is nowadays. Absence of stone or bone tools suggests the caves were not lived in – but visited, possibly seasonally. The caves may also have been used for other reasons – and the word ritual is mentioned (which means they don't have a clue why the bodies were in the cave system).

  and at www.nature.com/news/skeleton-plundered-from-mexican-cave-was-one-of-amer… … which provides another slant on the story – a body snatch if you like. Somebody took a fancy to one of the skeletons and whisked it away. Where is it now? Did somebody object to skeletons ending up in laboratories?

 

Skip to content