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Recent discoveries suggest that a human species may have formerly lived in California. If this study is correct, it would mean that humans were present in North America at a time when the climate was much different than it is today.
The mastodon bones discovered near San Diego suggest that prehistoric humans may have occupied what is now California as early as 130,000 years ago. The evidence for this claim comes from a site where the remains of a mastodon were found with signs of human-like butchering.
The bones of the mastodon were broken in a way that is consistent with the use of stone tools, and there were also found hammer stones and anvils at the site that could have been used to break the bones.
This study has been met with some skepticism from other scientists who argue that the evidence is not conclusive. However, the researchers who conducted the study say that they are confident in their findings and that they believe that the evidence is strong enough to warrant further investigation.
It makes one wonder how humans would have survived in such conditions? The researchers who conducted the study say that it is possible that humans were able to survive by hunting large mammals such as the mastodon.
The findings of this study are still preliminary, but they have the potential to significantly change our understanding of human history. If the evidence is confirmed, then it would mean that humans were in North America much earlier than previously thought, and it would raise new questions about how they arrived and how they survived in such harsh conditions during that time.
The place where the mastodon remains were discovered is known as the Cerutti Mastodon site. A team of researchers from the San Diego Natural History Museum were a part of this and they also had help from the University of California. While this information isn’t entirely new, it was first published back in the journal Nature on April 26, 2017. One complication is, there have been no human remains found yet among the ancient bones at the site.
Just like with many things such as this, the study and findings have been met with much skepticism from other scientists. However, from what is understood the researchers who were a part of this are confident in their findings. Hopefully with more time the truth will be found and if this for real then it means that humans were in North America much earlier than thought before.
Perhaps some of the most compelling evidence is the modifications that were used such as these early humans extracting bone marrow from these bones. A thorium-uranium method was used to date this estimation of time for this discovery.
“People were breaking up the limb bones of a mastodon, removing some of the big, thick pieces,” Steve Holen said at a press conference. “They were extracting marrow for food. And they were using old technology. We have evidence of people in Africa 1.5 million years ago breaking up elephant limb bones with this same [stone] technology.”
Another author on the paper, University of Wollongong archaeologist Richard Fullagar, is an expert on the kinds of microdamage that humans leave behind on stone tools. “The evidence at this site is remarkable,” he said. When he first identified stone tools from the site, he didn’t know their age.
“They were pounding stones. All the materials indicated that they had been used for smashing up bones. You can see fragments of hammers and anvils that can be fitted back into the stones… It’s rare that you get all that evidence at one site. It really does show humans have been there.”
It is interesting to think how these early humans traveled across such distances to settle in North America like they did. Of course if this is true, then it changes history and what we knew of it from before. It would have been quite a feat to make it that far after the earth warmed up. There were ice sheets that covered most of Canada and much of Northern America during that time period. These people were certainly tough and dealt with quite a bit just to stay alive.
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