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It looks like the 23k year old human footprints at White Sands are solid
- reso 3y agoWow. This looks like a very significant discovery. Humans in New Mexico in 25,000 BCE, incredible.
- galaxyLogic 3y agoThis calls for a movie
- mbgerring 3y agoIndigenous people in North America have always disputed the academic consensus on how and when humans first got there, and archeologists keep making discoveries supporting their position.
- soneca 3y ago> ”academic consensus” This should probably be qualified as US academic consensus. Academics in Brazil have disputed the 13k yo date for America occupation for some time already.
- gota 3y agoTo wit, the Luzia woman was found to be ~12 thousand years-old in South America, so it puts the 13 thousand date in question Disclaimer: I know absolute nothing about this topic and this is from my recollection of reading wikipedia and soft-science articles As I understand it, it should have taken a lot of time for full migration from North to South America; and while a thousand years seems more than enough for travel, apparently migration takes a long, long time - and the odds are that a fossil comes from a migrated population, virtually impossible to be from an odd outlier that traveled ahead (for whatever reason)
- soneca 3y agoI know very little too, but just happened to listen to an interview about this topic. Here is a paper suggesting that the region of where is Mexico had populations 30k years ago. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0
- AlbertCory 3y ago> apparently migration takes a long, long time if we take a generation to be 20 years, and the grown children move 20 miles away so as not to compete for resources and/or find fresh ones, then we get about 1 mile per year. 1000 years == 1000 miles of migration,
- themaninthedark 3y agoWeren't people hunter-gatherers at this point in time? They would be highly mobile and actively looking for new, richer ground.
- AlbertCory 3y ago.. and so? they'd spread less than a mile per year? Or more?
- AlotOfReading 3y agoTypical mobility numbers for North American lithic and archaic groups are in the hundreds of miles/kilometers annually, generally decreasing over time. Those estimates come from groups many thousands of years after the dates being discussed here, but they're the best we have.
- AlbertCory 3y agoSo: I estimated 365 miles/year and you had "hundreds of miles/kilometers annually." I don't see anything to argue about, specifically, especially no one really knows.
- marcellus23 3y agoThe academic consensus, incorrect as it may be, is based on scientific evidence of human existence in the Americas. Is there similar evidence that academia has ignored but indigenous peoples are aware of? Or are you referring to oral tradition?
- nequo 3y agoThe academic consensus is usually reached through a social process, so who wields authority within the discipline also influences what the consensus is. An example from mathematics: the shunning of Georg Cantor for his proof that the real numbers are uncountably infinite.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
- marcellus23 3y agoSure, but that doesn't mean consensus is wrong by default. If there's evidence that mainstream academia is ignoring without good reason, that's another matter, but to my knowledge that's not the case.
- calderknight 3y agoI don't think people are suggesting it is wrong by default, just that it's not correct by default, and is in this case the theory it has arrived at is deeply underdetermined by the evidence.
- marcellus23 3y agoMy understanding is that the theory made sense given the evidence we had, and now that we have new evidence, it calls that theory into question — isn't this the nature of scientific progress? And, regardless, what does any of this have to do with indigenous knowledge?
- calderknight 3y ago
- huytersd 3y agoWell what is the Native American perspective on it?
- funnywallnutt 3y agoHere's an interview. https://srslywrong.com/podcast/252-the-indigenous-paleolithic-of-the-western-hemisphere-w-dr-paulette-steeves/ https://srslywrong.com/podcast/252-the-indigenous-paleolithi...
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoIndigenous peoples of North America have a range of positions, not just one. All the way from saying maybe migration should be pushed back some X number of millennia before Clovis, to holding that the Creator created their tribes right where they are and it is offensive to claim they migrated from Asia.
- cogman10 3y agoI'd further say that even people from the same tribe will have differing views on this sort of thing. Indigenous people don't have homogeneous beliefs. It's sort of like saying "Europeans believe the Garden of Eden was in Missouri".
- telotortium 3y agoI believe there was another recent study that found some pre-Clovis ancient DNA and concluded that modern Native Americans shared little in common, implying that pre-Clovis people were largely wiped out and thus are not ancestors of modern Native Americans. Also not sure that the academic consensus has been that Clovis was the earliest settlement for maybe a decade.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoDo you have any more details than that? The only purported preclovis sequencing I'm aware of are the paisley caves coprolites, for which the genetics didn't indicate that, had a much more complicated story, and aren't even this old.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yencabulator 3y agoAnd claimed what, instead? Stating they've "always been here", rode on a giant bird from "another world", or that they emerged from the Earth's navel just aren't things a scientist expects to find evidence for...
- astrodust 3y agoI mean they are made of rock.
- bumby 3y agoThe article explains the carbon dating comes from seeds, pollen, and quartz from the sediment layer and not directly from the footprints themselves.
- bloopernova 3y agoI wonder, did humans cross the Bering Strait much earlier whether by boat or foot? Or did they travel by boat to the west coast from Pacific islands? Actually, question for those who know: what is the earliest evidence of human occupation of the various islands in the Pacific?
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoIt wasn't from Pacific islands, they're not close enough to America. The closest polynesian island is Easter Island and it's 2,000 miles away and was only reached 1,000 years ago.
- bhickey 3y agoWell, it might've been from the Pacific. There's genetic evidence for Polynesian individuals in S. Amer prior to the settlement of Easter Island. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641827/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641827/
- AlotOfReading 3y agoPolynesians were among the greatest navigators in world history and didn't reach the eastern Pacific until many thousands of years later. It's like pointing to Alex Honnold to argue that ancient people climbed cliffs instead of walking around. Yeah, it's physically possible but there's a hell of a lot of skill, knowledge, and technology that goes into supporting those physical feats. Besides, Polynesians are genetically distant from the oldest DNA we've recovered in the Americas, which universally points to a northeastern Asian origin for early Americans.
- bhickey 3y agoI was responding to the GP who incorrectly stated that there wasn't Polynesian gene flow to the Americas prior to 1000 years ago. The evidence of early admixture events is quite strong. No one thinks the Americas were initially peopled across the Pacific — please do pardon my imprecision!
- antiquark 3y agoIMO, these look totally fake. [1] Just compare the footprints to real verified footprints [2] [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/10/07/1204031535/fossil-footprints-in-new-mexico-suggest-humans-have-been-here-longer-than-we-tho https://www.npr.org/2023/10/07/1204031535/fossil-footprints-... [2] https://fineartamerica.com/featured/footprints-in-sand-on-beach-fat-tony.html https://fineartamerica.com/featured/footprints-in-sand-on-be...
- thechao 3y agoHow did you determine that? Could you link to a preprint or a publication where you make your argument?
- s1artibartfast 3y agoYour response comes across even more shallow than the original post - As if putting those two sentences and pictures in a pre-print would validate the position.
- sonofhans 3y agoAssuming that you’re serious, let me reply with two things. First, fossilized impressions in sand and mud are always distorted. Look at more and you’ll see. These impressions are actually remarkably well-preserved. Second, you can’t be sure that the second footprints are any more real. I could easily carve fake feet out of wood and make those impressions. So could the artist. Epistemology is everywhere, eh?
- greggsy 3y agoThankfully, you’ve prefaced your comment with an indication that your observation — based on a visual comparison of two photographs on the internet — is just your opinion. Why bother going to the effort of applying the footnote notation for something so unashamedly un-academic?
- galaxyLogic 3y agoJust thinking, HN is not an academic forum. It is ok to propose not so well-thought-out questions and propositions here. Nobody is really trying to scientifically prove anything here. Stupid questions and propositions are good here, because then someone can explain why they are stupid. They would not be ok in academic setting of course.
- iJohnDoe 3y agoWhite Sands, New Mexico is also a region where a ton of UFO activity has been observed for many years.
- spandextwins 3y agoWas that before the native Americans from the South Pacific arrived?