07-07-2005, 07:59 AM
<b>History re-printed</b>
Were the earlier step in the Americas?
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY is bracing for a
potential revolution in the theories about the Americas'
earliest settlers after British scientists confirmed that
footprints found in central Mexico are 40,000 years ago-
25,000 to 30,000 years older than the earliest settlers
were supposed to have arrived on the continent.
The team stumbled on the prints <b>two years ago</b>
as they were hiking from one archaeological site to
another. They found more than 200 individual prints from
several people, including children, in petrified volcanic ash
near the dried bed of Valsequillo Lake. The researchers
believe the foot prints may have belonged to people who
were fleeing an erupting volcano.
<b><i>It took the team two years to confirm the age
of the footprints.</i></b>
The prevalent theory has been that the Western
Hemisphere's earliest people arrived at the end of the
last ice age. The migrants supposedly used a land bridge
over the Bering Strait that existed at the time, crossing
from Asia to Alaska.
But Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool John Moores
University, one of the researchers who found the prints,
says the footprints could support a theory that the first
colonizers arrived by water, landing on the Pacific coast.
"We think there were several migration waves into the
Americas at different times by human groups," Gonzales
said in the Scotsman.
Most anthropologist and archaeologists are reserving
judgement until the footprints' age can be independently
confirmed. Many researchers say the scientific community
shouldn't jump to conclusions until more research can be
done.
So far, no other evidence exists of a human
presence in the Americas that long ago. The oldest
known evidence is in Chile's Monte Verde ruins, which
date human in South America to some 14,500 years ago.
Thanks DOSE- Toronto
based daily news paper. www.dose.ca
Were the earlier step in the Americas?
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY is bracing for a
potential revolution in the theories about the Americas'
earliest settlers after British scientists confirmed that
footprints found in central Mexico are 40,000 years ago-
25,000 to 30,000 years older than the earliest settlers
were supposed to have arrived on the continent.
The team stumbled on the prints <b>two years ago</b>
as they were hiking from one archaeological site to
another. They found more than 200 individual prints from
several people, including children, in petrified volcanic ash
near the dried bed of Valsequillo Lake. The researchers
believe the foot prints may have belonged to people who
were fleeing an erupting volcano.
<b><i>It took the team two years to confirm the age
of the footprints.</i></b>
The prevalent theory has been that the Western
Hemisphere's earliest people arrived at the end of the
last ice age. The migrants supposedly used a land bridge
over the Bering Strait that existed at the time, crossing
from Asia to Alaska.
But Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool John Moores
University, one of the researchers who found the prints,
says the footprints could support a theory that the first
colonizers arrived by water, landing on the Pacific coast.
"We think there were several migration waves into the
Americas at different times by human groups," Gonzales
said in the Scotsman.
Most anthropologist and archaeologists are reserving
judgement until the footprints' age can be independently
confirmed. Many researchers say the scientific community
shouldn't jump to conclusions until more research can be
done.
So far, no other evidence exists of a human
presence in the Americas that long ago. The oldest
known evidence is in Chile's Monte Verde ruins, which
date human in South America to some 14,500 years ago.
Thanks DOSE- Toronto
based daily news paper. www.dose.ca
[size=11]<b>Freedom is never given. It has to be fought for and won. </b>
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