Appreciation post: I always thought the Clovis people were the first in the Americas

I read a paper from the University of Texas last week about the Gault site. It showed tools found there are over 16,000 years old, which is way older than the Clovis timeline I learned in school. The evidence for people being here that much earlier is pretty solid now. Has anyone else had their view on early American settlement completely flipped by a single find?

3 comments

3 Comments

william91722d ago

Honestly yeah, the whole Clovis First thing was just fact in my head for years. But reading about those footprints at White Sands being dated to like 23,000 years ago totally flipped it for me. That evidence is just too physical to ignore, people were definitely here way earlier.

felix_thomas731d agoTop Commenter

Isn't it funny how we all just accept stuff as true for years?

elliotc1022d ago

I read about the Cooper's Ferry site in Idaho a while back. They found tools there dated to around 16,000 years old. That was another big crack in the Clovis First idea for me. It showed people coming down the Pacific coast, not just the ice-free corridor later on. The White Sands footprints are even older proof of that coastal route theory. It's wild how a single find can rewrite what we thought we knew for sure.