"Holy moly, that's old!" is a quote directly taken from Alisha Gauvreau, PhD candidate at the University of Victoria. At the time, Gauvreau was presenting her finds on an archaeological dig that may change the way we think about how First Nation people originally came to North America.
Apparently, the annual meeting of the American Society of Archaeology was last week. At this meeting, which sounds pretty dope by the way, Alisha Gauvreau gave the findings of her dig at Triquet Island, BC. What she found was pretty standard for what you would expect from a stone age settlement--atlatl, fish hooks, hand drills for making fire. It wasn't necessarily what she found that was interesting (although that's still some cool stuff), but how old it was. When her finds were carbon dated, they learned that the settlement she and her team had discovered was nearly 14,000 years old.
Now, just in case you're confused, let me explain why this is significant. The most common theory for how people migrated from what is now Europe to North America is that people crossed over on the Bering Land Bridge--an area of land connecting modern Japan (or Siberia, depending on who you ask) with Alaska. Supposedly, First Nation people spread out over the continent from there. However, recent finds suggest that this isn't the case. In 1996, the discovery of a nearly 10,000 year old skeleton in Kennewick Washington, known as 'Kennewick Man' provided evidence that there were people in North America long before anyone crossed the Bering Land Bridge. Gauvreau's find helps support the theory that a small area of British Colombia and Washington didn't entirely freeze over during the ice age, and ancient people settled there.
This find was only presented a few days ago, so there's not a lot of in-depth scientific information about it available to the general public yet, but I, for one, am very excited. Finding a village like this can provide valuable insight to how stone age people lived, and who they were. I hope we hear more about this soon!
Sources
Smithsonian
Anthropology.Net
Newser
Apparently, the annual meeting of the American Society of Archaeology was last week. At this meeting, which sounds pretty dope by the way, Alisha Gauvreau gave the findings of her dig at Triquet Island, BC. What she found was pretty standard for what you would expect from a stone age settlement--atlatl, fish hooks, hand drills for making fire. It wasn't necessarily what she found that was interesting (although that's still some cool stuff), but how old it was. When her finds were carbon dated, they learned that the settlement she and her team had discovered was nearly 14,000 years old.Now, just in case you're confused, let me explain why this is significant. The most common theory for how people migrated from what is now Europe to North America is that people crossed over on the Bering Land Bridge--an area of land connecting modern Japan (or Siberia, depending on who you ask) with Alaska. Supposedly, First Nation people spread out over the continent from there. However, recent finds suggest that this isn't the case. In 1996, the discovery of a nearly 10,000 year old skeleton in Kennewick Washington, known as 'Kennewick Man' provided evidence that there were people in North America long before anyone crossed the Bering Land Bridge. Gauvreau's find helps support the theory that a small area of British Colombia and Washington didn't entirely freeze over during the ice age, and ancient people settled there.
This find was only presented a few days ago, so there's not a lot of in-depth scientific information about it available to the general public yet, but I, for one, am very excited. Finding a village like this can provide valuable insight to how stone age people lived, and who they were. I hope we hear more about this soon!
Smithsonian
Anthropology.Net
Newser
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