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Discovery in paleontologist's backyard reveals evidence of North America's early humans - CNN

Discovery in paleontologist's backyard reveals evidence of North America's early humans - CNN

Discovery in paleontologist's backyard reveals evidence of North America's early humans - CNN
Aug 04, 2022 1 min, 36 secs

Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

The roughly 37,000-year-old remains of a female mammoth and her calf show distinct signs of butchering, providing new evidence that humans may have arrived in North America much earlier than believed.

Paleontologist Timothy Rowe first learned of the fossils in 2013 when a neighbor noticed something sticking out of a hillside on some New Mexico property belonging to Rowe.

Analyzing the site

Multiple finds at the site paint a portrait of what took place there thousands of years ago, including bone tools, evidence of a fire, bones bearing fractures and other signs of animal butchering by humans.

Long mammoth bones shaped into disposable blades were used to break down the animal carcasses before a fire helped melt down their fat.

Fractures created by blunt force can be seen in the bones, according to the study.

"I have excavated dinosaurs that were scavenged, but the pattern of bone disarticulation and breakage from human butchering was unlike anything I had seen," Rowe said.

The most surprising detail about the site is that it's in New Mexico -- and previous evidence has suggested that humans weren't there until tens of thousands of years later.

Retracing early human steps

Collagen taken from the mammoth bones helped the researchers determine that the animals were butchered at the site between 36,250 and 38,900 years ago.

This age range makes the New Mexico site one of the oldest that ancient humans created in North America, researchers said.

Scientists have debated for years when early humans first arrived in North America.

The 16,000-year-old Clovis culture is known because of the stone tools it left behind.

The older sites have a different kind of evidence, such as preserved footprints, bone tools or animal bones bearing cut marks older than 16,000 years ago.

"Humans have been in the Americas for more than twice as long as archaeologists have maintained for many years," Rowe said.

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