Posted on 05/16/2014 5:30:54 AM PDT by Renfield
ome 12,000 years ago, a teenage girl took a walk in whats now the Yucatan Peninsula and fell 190 feet into a deep pit, breaking her pelvis and likely killing her instantly. Over time, the pitpart of an elaborate limestone cave systembecame a watery grave as the most recent ice age ended, glaciers melted and sea levels rose.
In 2007, cave divers happened upon her remarkably preserved remains, which form the oldest, most complete and genetically intact human skeleton in the New World. Her bones, according to new research published in Science, hold the key to a question that has long plagued scientists: Who were the first Americans?
Prevailing ideas point to all Native Americans descending from ancient Siberians who moved across the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago. As time wore on, the thinking goes, these people spread southward and gave rise to the Native American populations encountered by European settlers centuries ago....
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
See my post above. C-14 dating is reliable for an age of 12,000 years. Upper limit is about 50,000 years.
How dare you question the Smithsonian! Why do you hate history and science? /s
It’s possible that there were other victims at this location, but that their skeletons, for one reason or another, did not survive to the present day. I would imagine that a well-preserved 12,000 year old skeleton would be the exception rather than the rule.
I actually love watching Smithsonian on Demand although as a rule I take it all with a grain of salt.
Mummy mia!!
Good point in your post #8.
A teenage girl? Could be an accident if she's the only one in there. (you'd expect there would be more than one if the sinkhole was used for sacrifices)
Some teenage girls seem to be in their own world, and ditty-bopping around in the boonies and karst topography with their head in the clouds could well lead to tragedy.
Human nature is pretty much human nature, whenever.
Even today, people get run over by trains and vehicles, just not paying attention to their surroundings.
I don’t think that they had cell phones back then.
Proves nothing. If the asian migration occurred 13-15000 years ago then the idea that in 1000 years some of those peoples migrated into south america is not at all surprising. I don’t subscribe to the PC concept that the asian migration was the first into North and South America. The evidence of possible earlier migrations from the Pacific areas as well as the Solutrian migrations some 15-20K years earlier are gaining ground.
I antedate the cell phone by quite a bit, myself. This is a teenage girl, in the throes of physical metamorphosis, replete with raging hormones. No cell phone required to have low situational awareness.
Radio carbon dating assumes background radiation is a constant and what would the standard deviation be at a 12000 year dating? If background radiation was less than assumed wouldn’t the dating appear older? The hole is littered with other fossils of different beast. The other dating metioned said it’s results were inconclusive but the dating was about 12000. Hmmmm! someone needs a grant?
I saw that, I was just mentioning to him they used other methods besides carbon dating to narrow down the time frame.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.