Emily Chan
The question of when humans came to the Americas has always been fiercely debated among experts.
But now, a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution believes he has resolved the argument once and for all after unearthing some strong evidence in Maryland.
A geologist named Darrin Lowery has visited Parsons Island in the Chesapeake Bay a total of 93 times and found 286 artifacts from when humans first settled in North America.
The oldest of the objects was buried in charcoal and dates back 22,000 years, which makes their arrival in America 7,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Similar discoveries at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico suggested that human settlement occurred between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, supporting the idea that humans have been in America longer than we ever knew. The new findings could change the course of history as we know it.
Over the past decade, Maryland’s Parsons Island has been eroding at rapid rates due to rising sea levels. This means that researchers are running out of time to explore the area.
In 2010, Lowery described in a study how layers of windblown silt were deposited near the island between 13,000 and 41,000 years ago. However, a lot of information was missing from the sediment layers.
Then, he discovered a black streak of sediment from Parsons Island. Three years later, he stumbled across a prehistoric stone tool shaped like a leaf.
After analyzing it, he found that it was more than 20,000 years old. At that time so long ago, the region was actually covered in a sheet of ice. There was a dune, small trees, and a pond, which attracted both animals and humans, as proven by the fossilized molars of bison, llamas, and musk oxen along the shore.
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