Scientists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim have determined the age of human footprints discovered at the bottom of an ancient lake in White Sands National Park in the US state of New Mexico. The find turned out to be the oldest sign of the presence of humans on the North American continent, according to an article published in the scientific journal magazine Science.
According to experts’ findings, the footprints in White Sands date back to 21 thousand to 23 thousand years ago. This is significantly earlier than previous estimates, according to which humans appeared in North America between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago, when there was a stretch of land passing through the Bering Strait between modern Chukotka and Alaska.
The new estimates are based on analyzes of quartz grains and fossilized pollen from ancient conifers. During the study, scientists isolated approximately 75 thousand pollen particles from the same sedimentary layer where the traces were found.
According to the researchers, this discovery overturns archaeologists’ current ideas about when the ancestors of modern humans arrived in the New World.
Earlier archaeologists discovered There are hundreds of jugs of wine in Egypt that are over 5 thousand years old.
Source: Gazeta
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