Traces of Humans from 21,000 Years Ago Found in North America

[Robert Zwilling]

Fossilized human footprints in New Mexico appear to be up to 23,000 years old, left behind by teenagers and young children.

Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum

Perhaps one reason why no signs of people were found in North America past 10 to 12 thousand years ago, is that the people lived with the land and only used natural items which would decompose along with everything else and leave no trace. Lots of Indian tribes left few permanent marks on the land because of how they interacted with the Natural World. The natural existence of the Natural World was part of their existence.

Places were people were fighting the land, rebuilding the land, seemed to put more of a detectable dent in the world which could be seen at later times. The footsteps that showed people were in America 21,000 years ago were probably only inches thick. A very thin layer with very little in it that didn't naturally occur there.

 

[Danny McG]

 

[Parson]

And you want to be Rock Star?

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on topic: I've always thought the dominate theory of how humans came to live in the Americas was too simple. A certain percentage of humans are born nomads and will find their way into the strangest places.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

It was always strange how supposedly there weren't any humans here before 9000 years ago, a figure that lasted quite a long time. But that's what happens when science gets caught up in the rules game that says if there is no proof of something happening, then it didn't happen, no matter how illogical it seems.

Because of this rule, people from earlier societies are always given a lower standard of living until some one comes along and proves the experts wrong. Too many times the experts are part of an hierarchy that is based on seniority rather than originality. A hierarchy that is based on supporting opinions based only on what is known without any kind of extrapolation of what could be. It's a protective mechanism that acts as a filter, blocking concepts from both illogical and logical assumptions.

 

[CupofJoe]

Some of the reason that the Clovis line/date is so important is that part of the claims of the North American First Nations, were exactly that, the first peoples to occupy and use the land. If there were others there 5-10 thousand years earlier then it is feared that it will be used to weaken their claim to being the first Americans and hence the land.
As the Time Team frequently said "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The Time Team is the best. Several years ago, there was a lot of heated discussions when some woman, I guess doing digs, in South America, came up with dates that were 15 to 20,000 years old for human settlement. The information was not greeted with open minds.

 

[Wayne Mack]

There are also some discoveries of possible stone tools dating back 30,000 years in caves in Mexico.
First Americans may have arrived to the continent 30,000 years ago
The earliest Americans arrived in the New World 30,000 years ago | University of Oxford