An excavated Monte Verde structure, thought to be a medicine hut, with masticated seaweed cuds.
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First Humans in America
MONTE VERDE, Chile (By Henry
Fountain, NYTimes) May 13, 2008 ―
The coastal route would seem more likely. The migrants would have had an obvious direction to travel, full of familiar resources. In fact, some researchers have argued that these ancient people would have spread along the coast rapidly. But there is little archaeological evidence. For one thing, rising sea levels since then would have submerged any sites. New findings from a 14,000-year-old settlement in southern Chile support the coastal idea. But they also suggest that the migration may have been relatively slow. The evidence is in the form of seaweed found at Monte Verde, a site that back then was on a small river about 50 miles east of the Pacific and 10 miles north of an inland bay. Tom D. Dillehay, a professor at Vanderbilt University, and colleagues discovered the seaweed, some of which had been chewed into a cud, as well as a stone tool with remains of seaweed on an edge. The findings were reported in Science. Dr. Dillehay said the work showed that the seaweed was used for food and medicine and indicates that these people had a very sophisticated knowledge of these marine ecological zones to the west and south. Gaining such knowledge takes time and many trips back and forth to the coast, he added. That suggests that rather than traveling steadily southward, early migrants may have occasionally settled upstream along some of the thousands of rivers on the coast. The temptation may well
have been to turn upriver, Dr. Dillehay said. And if that did take place,
then the type of site youd expect to find would be like Monte Verde. |
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