John Hawks discusses a paper about findings that indicate humans may have been in South America up to 18,500 years ago.
Did humans approach the southern tip of South America more than 18,000 years ago? The archaeologists involved found evidence that points to intermittent occupation of a stream bank up to 18,000 years ago. This of course is considerably older than the Clovis culture which for long was considered to be the original American occupation.
Hawks suggests that the first occupation may have been along the coast. Then after people had gotten all the way to the South end of South America they might have started moving inland as they developed the cultural tools to enable their penetration of the inland areas. The result would have been that the peopling of the Americas would have taken much longer than the estimates that people have been using.
Bill Gill
