Man hunted in North America 1000 years earlier than previously thought

The date of man's migration to North America keeps moving back in time.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — A new and astonishing chapter has been added to North American prehistory in regards to the first hunters and their hunt for the now extinct giant mammoth-like creatures -- the mastodons. Professor Eske Willerslev's team from the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, has in collaboration with Michael Waters' team at the Center for the Study of the First Americans, University of Texas A&M, shown that the hunt for large mammals occurred at least 1,000 years before previously assumed.

This new study concludes that the first-known hunters in North America can now be dated back at least 14,000 years.

"I am sure that especially the Native Americans are pleased with the results of the study. It is further proof that humans have been present in North America for longer than previously believed. The "Clovis First" theory, which many scientists swore to just a few years back, has finally been buried with the conclusions of this study," says Professor Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen.

Spearhead found in mastodon
It is the finding and analysis of a tip from a human-made projectile point (spearhead) gathered from the remains of a mastodon that is behind the rewriting of North American prehistory. The spearhead, which itself was carved out from a mastodon-bone, was found at the Manis site in the state of Washington when archaeologists excavated a mastodon in the late 1970s.

However, 30 years would pass before a team of researchers was able to put a date on the spearhead and establish the identity of both the bone and the spearhead that had been embedded into the rib of the defeated mastodon. This was done through, amongst other things, DNA analysis, protein sequencing, advanced computer technology, Carbon-14 dating as well as comparisons with other mastodon findings in North America, for instance in the state of Wisconsin.