Earliest humans stayed at the Americas 'oldest hotel' in Mexican cave


Date:
July 22, 2020
Source:
St John's College, University of Cambridge
Summary:
A cave in a remote part of Mexico was visited by humans around
30,000 years ago - 15,000 years earlier than people were previously
thought to have reached the Americas. Excavations of Chiquihuite
Cave, located in a mountainous area in northern Mexico controlled
by drugs cartels, uncovered nearly 2000 stone tools from a small
section of the high- altitude cave. Analysis of the sediment in
the cave uncovered a new story of the colonisation of the Americas.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A cave in a remote part of Mexico was visited by humans around 30,000
years ago -- 15,000 years earlier than people were previously thought
to have reached the Americas.


========================================================================== Painstaking excavations of Chiquihuite Cave, located in a mountainous
area in northern Mexico controlled by drugs cartels, uncovered nearly
2000 stone tools from a small section of the high-altitude cave.

Archaeological analysis of the tools and DNA analysis of the sediment
in the cave uncovered a new story of the colonisation of the Americas
which now traces evidence of the first Americans back to 25,000-30,000
years ago.

The results, which have been published in Nature today (July 22 2020), challenge the commonly held theory that the Clovis people were the first
human inhabitants of the Americas 15,000 years ago.

DNA scientist Professor Eske Willerslev, of St John's College, University
of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen, led the study with archaeologist Dr Ciprian
Ardelean, of the University of Zacatecas in Mexico.

Professor Willerslev said: "For decades people have passionately debated
when the first humans entered the Americas. Chiquihuite Cave will create a
lot more debate as it is the first site that dates the arrival of people
to the continent to around 30,000 years ago -- 15,000 years earlier
than previously thought. These early visitors didn't occupy the cave continuously, we think people spent part of the year there using it as
a winter or summer shelter, or as a base to hunt during migration. This
could be the Americas oldest ever hotel." The 10-year long research
project raises more questions about the early humans who lived in the
Americas than it solves.



==========================================================================
Dr Ardelean said: "We don't know who they were, where they came from or
where they went. They are a complete enigma. We falsely assume that the indigenous populations in the Americas today are direct descendants from
the earliest Americans, but now we do not think that is the case.

"By the time the famous Clovis population entered America, the very
early Americans had disappeared thousands of years before. There could
have been many failed colonisations that were lost in time and did not
leave genetic traces in the population today." Chiquihuite Cave is a high-altitude site, 2750 metres above sea level. Nearly 2000 stone tools
and small tool fragments, known as flakes, were discovered.

DNA analysis of the plant and animal remains from the sediment packed
around the tools in the cave dates the tools and the human occupation
of the site to 25,000-30,000 years ago. Human DNA was not found which
adds weight to the theory that the early people didn't stay for long in
the cave.

Dr Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a geneticist from the University of Copenhagen
and one of the first authors of the paper, said: "We identified DNA from
a wide range of animals including black bears, rodents, bats, voles and
even kangaroo rats. We think these early people would probably have come
back for a few months a year to exploit reoccurring natural resources
available to them and then move on. Probably when herds of large mammals
would have been in the area and who had little experience with humans
so they would have been easy prey.

The location of Chiquihuite Cave definitely rewrites what has
conventionally been taught in history and archaeology and shows that
we need to rethink where we look for sites of the earliest people
in Americas." The Chiquihuite Cave site is very difficult to reach
and would have been a good vantage point for the early people to defend themselves from as they could look out for miles over the valley without
being seen. It is in an area of Mexico that is now controlled by drugs
cartels. The academics were escorted by armed police to the base of the mountain before they made their way up to the cave on foot.



==========================================================================
Dr Pedersen said: "It was an unforgettable experience. It is a very
unsafe place to travel so we were accompanied by Mexican police officers
in armoured cars to the foot of the mountain. We left before sunrise
to climb up to the cave so that we weren't spotted." The visiting DNA scientists slept in the cave during their research visit and over the
past 10 years Dr Ardelean has spent a number of months living in the
cave to carry out the painstaking excavations.

Dr Ardelean added: "The peopling of the Americas is the last holy grail
in modern archaeology. Unconventional sites need to be taken seriously and
we need to go out and intentionally look for them. This site doesn't solve anything, it just shows that these early sites exist. We are dealing with
a handful of humans from thousands of years ago so we cannot expect the
signals to be very clear. We have literally dug deeper than anyone has
done in the past." The earliest human DNA from the Americas currently
remains at 12,400 years ago, Dr Ardelean explained: "We have shown the previously long held date of human presence is not the oldest date
for populating the Americas, it is the explosion date of populating
the Americas." Professor Willerslev concluded: "I will never forget
being part of this research, it was an unbelievable experience. The implications of these findings are as important, if not more important,
than the finding itself. This is only the start of the next chapter in
the hotly debated early peopling of the Americas."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
St_John's_College,_University_of_Cambridge. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ardelean, C.F., Becerra-Valdivia, L., Pedersen, M.W. et al. Evidence
of
human occupation in Mexico around the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature,
2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2509-0 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200722112726.htm

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