I always figured the Clovis people were the first in the Americas, but a podcast changed my mind

I was listening to an episode about the White Sands footprints in New Mexico. They dated those human tracks to 23,000 years ago, which is way before the Clovis timeline. It made me realize the peopling of the continents was a lot more complex than a single migration event. Has anyone else dug into the evidence from sites like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

adams.henry2mo ago

Wait, 23,000 years? That's insane. I thought the ice sheets blocked the way back then.

patricia6342mo ago

Oh totally, that White Sands find blew my mind too. I got sucked into a rabbit hole about the Monte Verde site in Chile after hearing about it, which also predates Clovis by thousands of years. It really does make you picture small groups coming in at different times, maybe even by boat along the coast.

finleyl554d ago

And speaking of boats along the coast, I tried to picture myself in a little raft crossing the ocean back then and I'd probably end up lost within an hour. Monte Verde is wild though, right? It's like they found stuff there that just completely rewrites what we thought we knew, like those preserved mastodon bones and bits of seaweed that gotta be over 14,000 years old. I can't even keep track of my keys for five minutes and these folks were navigating the coastline and setting up camp in southern Chile.