Saturday, April 5, 2008

Coprolites of the Gods

Evidence Supports Earlier Date for People in North America

The exact date when humans first entered the Americas has been a long running controversy in archeology. Now, there's some new evidence pushing the date back to at least 14,000 years before the present:

...Exploring Paisley Caves in the Cascade Range of Oregon, archaeologists have found a scattering of human coprolites, or fossil feces. The specimens preserved 14,000-year-old human protein and DNA, which the discoverers said was the strongest evidence yet of the earliest people living in North America...Other archaeologists agreed that the findings established more firmly than before the presence of people on the continent at least 1,000 years before the well-known Clovis people...

The Clovis people existed between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago. For many years, this was the excepted date of North American colonization.

...Michael R. Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who was not part of the team, said, “Paisley Caves adds to the growing body of archaeological evidence that people were here prior to Clovis...

Fossil doody to the rescue!

No comments: