Archaeology has changed the way we view our ancestors.
For generations, we have dug up certain parts of the world to find evidence of how we came to be what we are. One recent study in New Mexico has uncovered something that nobody would have expected or predicted. The ancient proof of humans is becoming clearer to us.
How much do you know about human history and where we came from?
How archaeology has forever altered our understanding of human history
Archaeology is not as simple as just digging up the Earth; it acts like a time machine, giving us a glimpse into our past.
For many decades, we believed that humans first invented farming before huge complex structures. A recent archaeological find in Turkey points to the fact that the Göbekli Tepe was built around 11,000+ years ago.
Through the efforts of thousands of archaeologists, we now know that an ancient Greek analogue computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism existed.
This primitive technology proves that our ancestors were capable of inventing astonishing creations long before we thought possible. Through the use of LIDAR, teams of archaeologists have found interconnected “garden cities” beneath the Amazon rainforest.
Human history is a complex mystery that needs to be unraveled
We have made astonishing discoveries over the past few decades, but we are only scratching the surface of our long-winded history of mankind.
We know that anatomically, humans have existed on this planet for roughly 300,000 years. But modern science has only mapped around the last 5,000 years of human history, meaning that there is still so much hidden from us beneath our feet.
Recent expeditions into caves have found skulls that prove we are much older than science ever thought.
In some of the oldest civilizations, such as Rome or Greece, archaeologists have found that new civilizations were building their homes and cities on top of the ruins of the previous generation, creating a layer cake of human history.
One recent study has shown that New Mexico was home to some seriously ancient family members of ours.
Discovering the footprints of our earliest cousins in the human family tree has revealed a world of unexplored secrets that will confound the world for years to come.
The study, “Paleolake geochronology supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico,” published in Science Advances, has made a remarkable find in the arid landscape of New Mexico.
A scientific debate has finally been settled by a new discovery in New Mexico
The study has proven that humans existed in North America long before we ever knew.
It confirms the one side of the debate that humans were walking around North America approximately 21,000 to 23,000 years ago. For the past few decades, the Clovis-first theory has stated that humans arrived on the American continent around 13,000 years ago. This study has proven this to be false.
The Clovis-first theory was based on the discovery of ancient footprints left on a beach in Canada.
A lake older than the Great Lakes has made the discovery possible
The Great Lakes are relatively young, forming approximately 14,000 years ago at the point in time that the last recorded Ice Age ended. The glaciers melted and retreated as the water filled the region’s basins and carved a new path across North America for our ancestors.
The team used the geologic history of the “paleolake Otera” to determine that humans made their way to North America long before the Last Glacial Maximum. That is the period when huge ice-sheets blocked human migration into the continent.
The study paints a picture of our early human ancestors migrating to North America thousands of years before we initially thought.
Archaeology has found evidence of human existence long before we thought possible. How would you feel about knowing that your ancestors have been in North America for far longer than you, or anyone else, for that matter, thought?