A study published Wednesday found that humans were living in parts of South America at least 25,000 years ago.
Osteoderms (spikey boney bits on the skin) of an extinct giant ground sloth were found at the Santa Elina rock shelter in central Brazil It appears humans manipulated and carved them to create jewelry at least 25,000 years ago, according to the study published by the Royal Society. More than that, the remains at the site suggest that multiple groups have occupied the area throughout history, and dating as far back as the last glacial maximum (LGM).
The osteoderms of the now-extinct sloth featured tiny holes that scientists believe could only have been made by humans. The findings were called “controversial” by LiveScience, which also noted that it is not the first discovery to push back the timeline on human development in the Americas.
Archaeologists have found 23,000-year-old artifacts in the Santa Elina rock-shelter in eastern Brazil.https://t.co/91difMOgso pic.twitter.com/CBQ2fwzVI8
— Archaeology Magazine (@archaeologymag) September 7, 2017
Another study found that humans were clearly developed enough 22,000 years ago to leave a significant trace of themselves at another site in eastern Brazil.
“It is virtually impossible to define the real meaning these artifacts had for the occupants of Santa Elina,” study co-author Mirian Pacheco wrote in an email to LiveScience. But it could be argued that the meaning behind this discovery is that humans settled in the Americas far earlier than mainstream archaeologists would want us to believe.
“This is an exciting piece of work which may, in time, support the idea of peopling of the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum,” one geologist noted to the outlet. (RELATED: Archeologists’ Findings Prove We Need To Rewrite Human History)
It also doesn’t help mainstream archaeology’s fight against emerging evidence that humans were not only in the Americas, but far more developed than we have given them credit. It might take the gradual retirement of the current generation of establishment archaeologists for the narrative to shift publicly, but humans were clearly around and doing things far deeper into our history than we knew possible.