Mammoth bones hint humans were in North America earlier than thought - The Future
Share this Article You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. A site where 37,000 years ago a mammoth mother and her cub met their end offers some of the best evidence for humans settling in North America much earlier than conventionally thought. Bones from the abattoir record how humans shaped chunks of their long bones into disposable knives to break up their carcasses, and make their fat over fires. But a key detail sets this site apart from others from this era. That’s in New Mexico—a place where most archaeological evidence doesn’t locate humans until tens of thousands of years later. Researchers reveal a wealth of evidence that is rarely found in one place. These include fossils with blunt force fractures, bone-chilling blades with worn edges, and signs of a controlled fire. And thanks to carbon-dating analysis of collagen extracted from mammoth bones, the site also dates from 36,250 to 38,900 years old,