Footprints (one left) left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico’s Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years could be evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer than previously confirmed. Laser scans of the prints (right) confirm their human origins, the researchers report today at the American Geophysical Union meeting.
Footprints left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico’s Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years ago are evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer than previously confirmed, a new study suggests.
Analyses of three-dimensional laser scans of the imprints (example at right) confirm their human origin, says Silvia Gonzalez, a geoarchaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University in England.
Previous finds of human remains elsewhere in the region couldn’t be precisely dated because they were found in layers of mixed gravels that probably incorporated materials of many different ages.
However, a new analysis of the coarse-grained, print-ridden volcanic ash — which would have hardened quickly after it fell, says Gonzalez — strongly suggest the material fell around 40,000 years ago, she and her colleagues reported today in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Excavations at several sites have suggested that humans have inhabited the Western Hemisphere for at least 20,000 years, but results suggesting dates of occupation before 14,000 years ago typically haven’t been confirmed and remain controversial.
Nevertheless, says Gonzalez, recent excavations at a site in Baja California have unearthed a rock shelter containing heaps of shells that have been carbon-dated as 44,000 years old, a finding that bolsters the notion that people lived throughout the region about 40 millennia ago.
Could'a, might'a, maybe .. does, is, suggests, confirms ....
No wonder people are confused.
It's so easy to accept God and His word and the most generally accepted dates of recent creation and 10,000 or so years of existence.
You are, of course, totally entitled to your religious beliefs. However, the oldest historical culture is the Sumerian, which arose in the Mesopotamian region (the delta region formed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) about 6,000 years ago. We know without any doubt that human pre-history extends over 200,000 years. The oldest modern human skeletal remains found so far date to 195,000 BC. There are numerous fossilized modern human skeletal remains, and artifacts such as tools, artwork and ceremonial burials, that have been found around the world which are tens of thousands of years older than the "10,000 years of existence" you cite. A few examples:
Bitumen-coated flint implements as old as 40,000 BC. have proved that Neanderthal people in the Syrian desert used it to fix handles to their tools.
Modern human skeletal remains dating to 42,000 years ago have been found in China.
The earliest known European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago.
Stone tools made by hominids have been found dating to about 2.3 million years ago.
Neanderthals, and later modern humans, used a variety of tools and buried their dead during the Middle Paleolithic era from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago.
Human human artwork and language extends back at least 50,000 years.
No wonder people are confused.
It's so easy to accept God and His word
Unfortunately, there are many things we don't know about the Bible. We don't know who wrote many of the books in the Bible, or when. This, I'm afraid, causes a certain amount of uncertainty in any conclusions we base upon the Bible.
Do you actually believe the earth is only 10,000 years old?
That is shear lunacy and how can you be a Christian when Christ brought light to man - he did not bring lunacy.
The people are not confused. The data is confused. There are as many hypotheses as dig coordinators, and the origin or purpose of the Crystal Skull remains unknown.
Science and academia will correctly embrace the new information and factor it in to the chronology of events from which they construct their theories. I doubt few will discard the finding as nonsense neglecting the opportunities it provides. For there to be but one accepted theory about the origin of man, would disgrace our collective God given creative intellect.