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News Science

38,000-year-old Human Footprints in Mexico 46

Posted by timothy from the too-early-for-good-mexican-food dept.
bornyesterday writes "The dominant theory that the earliest settlers of the American continents is that our ancestors crossed a land bridge in the Bering Strait 11,000 years ago. New evidence of human footprints in volcanic ash in Mexico suggests that humans were present 38,000 years ago."
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38,000-year-old Human Footprints in Mexico More

38,000-year-old Human Footprints in Mexico

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  • But... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MobileMrX ( 855797 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:26PM (#12996757)
    But the bible says the world is only 6000 years old. This article is full of LIES AND DECEIT.

    • Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Gherald ( 682277 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:28PM (#12996774) Journal
      Or vice-versa.

      • Re:But... (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Or vice-versa.

        The article say the world is 6,000 years old?

      • If you're trying to suggest In Soviet Russia the bible is full of lies and deceit, I'm sorry to inform you that that is not the proper joke format.

        -

    • Re:But... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by FrontalLobe ( 897758 )
      I've also heard of a farmer who took a bone from one of his animals that just died, said he found it burried, and the carbon-date testing came up with it being several thousand years old... Could be one of those urban legends though...

      • Troll? (Score:2, Troll)

        by rbarreira ( 836272 )
        How come the parent post is modded as troll? Didn't the moderator notice the last sentence?
        • It was '2, Insightful' earlier, but I guess someone who believe theories to be hard facts came along and got offended. No biggie... afterall, this is /.

          If I had said carbon dating has proven things existed for over 6000 years, I'd probably have been modded +5 insightful... Now this post is a troll, if not flaimbait...
          • Mine is a troll already. This one will probably be too. Not that I care... If you mod me down, I'll become more powerful than you could ever imagine mods ;)

    • Re:But... (Score:2)

      by SEE ( 7681 )
      But the bible says the world is only 6000 years old

      Where?

      • Re:But... (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The figure comes from the list of generations from Adam and Eve listed in Genesis, plus all that comes after, which works out to around 4000 years until Christ. It's all there in great detail. Add 2000 to that and you get 6000, if you believe in arithmetic and that the Bible is more than just some old historic document from long dead folks.

        Hinduism has a wildly different story of the world that doesn't match the tiniest way with the Judeo-Christian story. American Indians also beg to differ. Then there

      • Re:But... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Scaba ( 183684 )

        Parent poster misspoke. The Bible implies the age of the Earth is about 6000 years, and our friend James Ussher [wikipedia.org] worked it out that the Earth was created the evening before October 23, 4004 B.C. So stop blaspheming, you filthy heathen, lest I strike you down in the name of our peace-preaching Lord [blogs.com].

  • I love this stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:27PM (#12996764) Homepage Journal
    It goes to proove with every discovery like this, how little we know but how much we are finding out about our history.

  • just more evidence (Score:3, Insightful)

    by boarder ( 41071 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:30PM (#12996795) Homepage
    I remember reading a few years ago that they had evidence of African fishermen getting lost at sea and arriving in South America. I think they even had minor evidence this had occured many thousands of years before the whole land bridge thing.

    Also, I remember hearing about genetic evidence that some of the tribes in S.A. had been there before the land bridge. Who was on the continent first is a big pride issue for some people. They want to say their people were around before the nomads up north, and some don't want to have descended from them.

    I don't have links for any of this, so this post isn't informative... but it might be insightful.

  • But who survived? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:39PM (#12996870)
    It's entirely possible that humans did come to the Americas 40,000 years ago.

    But for how long did they survive and Are there any of their decendants left?
    • If they made it all the way to Mexico it may mean some degree of success. Unless you think one man crossed the ocean or the Bering sea just to reach Mexico and die and you just happen to find his footprints 38,000 years afterwards...
      If the footprint had been found in Alaska, then you may have had a point.
    • She'll tell you that 1973 digs at Hueyatlco, Mexico demonstrated human habitation ca. 250ky B.C.

      If there are ancestors left, they're probably living on Hokkaido. The best old genetic material is from Kennewick Man, who was most closely related to the Ainu.
    • I visited the US last year, and there were still some people living there. None seemed older than about 100 or so, though. Of course, some may have procreated since then.

  • Fascinating theory (Score:5, Informative)

    by FedeTXF ( 456407 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @02:58PM (#12997066)
    I think the journey mankind has done coming out of Africa and reaching all the world is fascinating. Modern theories say the African exit was crossing the the Red Sea at this point [google.com]. All of us except the ones with african ancestors may descend from a bunch of brave men and women from about 200.000 years ago that decided to cross those shalow waters to find a better place to live. It is amazing adventure form that moment. Really worth a movie or an epic novel.
    • My theory is that all the hard working cheap laborers in some old civilization got fed up with everyone else so they built a raft and piled about 20,000 people on it and pushed it to Mexico about 20,000 years ago. They then planted some agave, made tequila and started celebrating.

  • Go to Hotevilla (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @05:04PM (#12998274) Journal
    And ask the Hopi. They've been saying all along they've been here for that long. Their history fills in a lot of blanks that anthropologists appear to want left blank.

    For instance, yes it's true: People came to North America across the Bering land bridge. The Hopi know because they were there. They had traveled to the far north, and met some new people coming south. For self-apparent reasons, the Hopi called these people "They who hit you with rocks" because that's all the weapons they had. These people were the Dine'/Dene', which split, leaving one group in Canada, and another moving south and becoming the Hopi's neighbors in the southwest US, the Navajo.

    The Dine' word for the Hopi is Anasazi, meaning "ancient ones". The Anasazi did not die out, no matter how many national park signs tell you otherwise.

    While you're visiting Hotevilla, bring along a picture of the "mysterious" Nazca Plains markings. The Hopi can tell you exactly what they mean, and which of their clans during which of their migration cycles were involved. Same for Snake Mound and many other 'artifacts' of 'Mississippian' and other hypothesized cultures.

    But, I suppose the future would be bleak for anthropology if they suddenly had lots of answers -- funding would get scarce with fewer questions needing answered.

    • Re:Go to Hotevilla (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      While you're visiting Hotevilla, bring along a picture of the "mysterious" Nazca Plains markings. The Hopi can tell you exactly what they mean, and which of their clans during which of their migration cycles were involved.

      This sounds really really interesting. Could you give some details, or references?

      • Re:Go to Hotevilla (Score:5, Informative)

        by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:44AM (#13002650) Journal
        A good web site for summaries: http://www.crystalinks.com/hopi1.html [crystalinks.com]
        Several pages, put together from various sources. Contains a well known talk about an elder from another nation that had traveled to other continents to verify some of the Hopi claims that specific peoples elsewhere started out with the Hopi and had similar cultural bases. That's the "stone tablets" talk. The site isn't the most cleanly arranged so you may have to poke around.

        [You'll notice that some of the people who speak authoritatively about and/or for the Hopi are not Hopi. They know this. They often choose them. You'll also find people doing so who are not chosen or even reasonably educated by them. Much of the Wiki entries reflect this.]

        The best book is: "Waters, Frank, 1963, Book of the Hopi : The First Revelation Of The Hopi's Historical And Religious Worldview Of Life, Penguin Books, NY, 346 P. THE definitive book concerning the Hopi. Long viewed as the standard work on the tribe, although warnings have been given that the book does contain some outright errors, and things have changed in Hopiland since the book was published. Includes discussion of the religion and myths of the tribe, along with a detailed history. Frank Waters received five nominations for the Nobel Prize for Literature."

        [Waters is one of those chosen. As for 'outright errors', trust me, you talk to different elders from any tribe, and some of them are going to tell you that some of the things other say is 'wrong'. Not so different here. You'll also find some of the material in the "recent" prophecies was the same 100 years ago, prior to those things happening which were subsequently 'recognized' as having been what was prophesized.]

        I can't find much on the web about the Nazca symbols beyond a single quote by one elder who recognized the symbols. What it claims he said is not what I heard, and it appears to me someone is taking advantage of the case to promote their own agenda. I do know that it was two anthropologists (one from Cornell, IIRC) that approached them. There are similar figures in the Four Corners region, made the same way, referenced in "Archeology of Arizona".
        • This is a little late, but thanks for this info! I'll definitely look into this (I wasn't the a/c, but I happened to catch your comment and was hoping someone asked for links, articles, etc.)
        • Quote from http://www.crystalinks.com/hopi1.html [crystalinks.com]

          "Today we know that UFO's often hide in what we call Lenticular Clouds, which are cloud formations that seem to be produced to conceal the ships from the visible eye spectrum. Real lenticular clouds move with the rest of the clouds. Whereas the UFO clouds do not - often sitting 5 hours in one place."

          Yep, people pulling crap out of their asses and hurling them at innocent slashdot readers!
          • Kafteinn (542563) sez: "Quote from http://www.crystalinks.com/hopi1.html [crystalinks.com]

            "Today we know that UFO's often hide in what we call Lenticular Clouds, which are cloud formations that seem to be produced to conceal the ships from the visible eye spectrum. Real lenticular clouds move with the rest of the clouds. Whereas the UFO clouds do not - often sitting 5 hours in one place."

            Yep, people pulling crap out of their asses and hurling them at innocent slashdot readers!"

            Some of what I referenced, and much else tha
    • The only problem with the Hopi notions of history is the same one that I have with the Australian Aboriginal notions. Both say they are the original race of human beings from which all others descended. Well, literally they both say they were created in the spot on earth where they have dwelled historically. The 'created' thing is the problem I have with these. There is and can be no more evidecne for this 'creation' than there is for Biblical creation. There is scientific evidence that contradicts the
  • I fairly distinctly remember hearing in my Ancient History class that there was a theory that there may have been a northward migration from South America long before the crossing of the Bering Strait. So was that just a hypothesis, and now we have evidence? Or am I inventing memories? (I wouldn't be surprised. My younger brother tells stories about when I was born.)

  • good thing (Score:3, Informative)

    by truckaxle ( 883149 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @11:45PM (#13000421) Homepage
    That this was not found in the US. the local tribes would work at getting these tracks buried after a proper ceromony and prevent any further research.

    Take Kennewick Man [kennewick-man.com] found on the shores of the columbia river. the skeleton was complete and was in unusually good condition. The presence of caucasoid traits, lack of definitive Native-American characteristics, led the original investigator, a Coroner, to assume it was a early homesteader.

    However the investigator detected a stone point partially healed within the right ilium. CT scans revealed the leaf-shaped, serrated Cascade projectile point typical of Southern Plateau tribes from 8500 B.P. to 4500 B.P. So he decided to get a dna analysis and carbon date.

    Wow the results came back of over 9000 years old!

    Three tribes sued to have the skeleton rebuired quickly to refuse scientist the opportunity to research this unusual find. The Corp of Engineers whose land the skeleton was found on sided with the tribes. Fortunately the scientist won out and are just starting their own research sans any government funds.

    • Re:good thing (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      enough with the politically correct B.P. crap! it's B.C. and A.D.

      political correctness has no place in science.
    • B.P.? Before Petroleum? Before People?

      What's wrong with B.C.E and C.E.?

  • Somebody's ancestors, anyway.
  • I guess there is also the highly improbable possibility that these were time travelers....

    I always seem to wonder that every time we find evidence of a human's presence in an odd era.

    The evidence usually seems to point to one or two people instead a whole civilization or even a small tribe/family.
    *Shrug*

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