Were People really in North America 30,000 years ago? : The Chiquihuite Cave site
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- A recent article in Nature argues that humans were in North America by 30,000 years ago, based on evidence from Chiquihuite Cave in Northern Mexico. The article went viral in short order, but do the claims made by the team of authors withstand scrutiny?
These videos I've done previously may be helpful for understanding this discussion:
The First Americans, Pt. 3: White Sands Footprints: • 23,000 year old Footpr...
The First Americans: • The First Americans, P...
Measuring Archaeological Time: • Measuring Archaeologic...
Flint Knapping and the Reduction Process: • Knapping and the Reduc...
Instagram: / nfosaaen_archaeology
This channel is great!
When Kent Weeks discovered KV5, a massive tomb in the Valley of the Kings, he was talking to reporters about the tomb. He mentioned that it had huge, pillared room. A reporter asked him if they'd found any billiard balls, Dr. Weeks looked confused for a second and then said... pillared hall, not billiard hall. The reporter replied, a billiard hall pillared hall, what difference does it make? Since reading that I refer to all sensational archaeology articles as billiard balls.
Hey! Thanks for the great breakdown!
I'm an masters student in prehistoric archeology from Belgium (with quite a lot of field experience and a specialisation in Stone tool production) so i don't really know a lot about american archeology. I did try and explain the the problems with these findings to my friends (not prehistorians) but it wasn't as clear as your video.... Guess i'm gonna link the video instead of explaining things myself :p
BTW, great to see real archeologists on youtube!
That's rad! Good luck with your studies! I hope you find some of my other videos interesting.
@@NathanaelFosaaen Thanks! my studies are coming along quite good actually :D Your other videos are nice, a clear and correct explanation and to the point. Also very nice to see someone on youtube using the levallois method and making a biface istead of arrowheads (because clearly bifaces are way cooler)
@@studentofstones7212
Thanks! Yeah I mostly focus on the Archaic period, so atlatl dart points are what I make most often.
@@NathanaelFosaaen sure, seems only logical that you stick with a certain period. same for europe but we just have a lot more and older tools :p
@@studentofstones7212 well kinda. I focus on the Archaic in my reading, but I'm always working on a bit of everything. My crew is on a Caddoan site (~1,200 BP) right now, but it looks like it's got a Late Archaic or Early Woodland (~4,000-2500 BP) substrate in some spots. The transitions in the lithic tech can be super subtle. I'm hoping that morphometrics will sort things out, but I've got some preliminary hypotheses.
Dude, thank you so much for your insight and knowledge. I am a simple enthusiast who loves to watch shows like Time Team and often times, I get jealous of all the history and archeology in Great Britain that the show covers. I live in central Mississippi near Poverty Point and other ancient sites of the first nation peoples. I visit them all! I can't help but think that my area would have been a very profitable place to live for early peoples. However, there are only sites along the Natchez Trace that talk about early settlements. Recently, I saw an article about a lidar study in the Mississippi delta that revealed old river channels of the Mississippi river where it has been discovered more ancient sites that anyone realized on the ancient high ground of the delta. Have you studied any sites in my area that might be interesting to go see? Keep up the awesome videos! Thank you very much!
I've never worked in Mississippi myself, but I know that the Middle Woodland has the Miller phases which are part of the broader Hopewellian phenomenon. Also New South is doing a lot of survey work there these days and Miss. State just poached a bunch of good archaeologists, so you might be seeing more come out in the next several years. The Southeastern Archaeological Conference is in Little Rock this year, so you might go check that out in the fall.
I was born in Marksville LA.. I remember as a kid playing on the "Indian mounds" . So little is known about the native peoples of the southeast US. Nothing last, in the heat and humidity. Fascinating subject.
Another outstanding video ! I've been arrowhead artifact hunting here in western Pa for over 35yrs..I live about 85 miles north of Meadowcroft rock shelter..and approximately 30 or so miles north of where the Laurentide ice sheet kinda stopped..I'm sure it wasn't a straight line longitudinal wise..about 20miles north of me I know a Farmer in his 90s who has a whole picture frame of Clovis points ..like 50 of them made from several different lithograph materials including quartz..I have a picture of the frame..he comes to the local arrowhead artifact relic show every year and the old dude picked them all out of the dirt himself..Their real alright..I myself have some weird ass knives,scrappers and points and stone tools that are definitely old..I'm not saying Neanderthal or Solutrean..but old ass stuff that even the old timers and exsperts just can't put a finger on time frame wise..I always like to keep an open mind..I remember the day when Clovis and Folsom were the oldest culture ..now Meadowcroft rock shelter is pushing those dates way back and we're on the east coast..the glacier should have wiped out these Clovis points..maybe ?? And I understand there are some questions about Meadowcroft rock shelters dates..maybe I'm just saying it was the stone age for a reason..the ancient ones used whatever resources they had to get the job done and survive..I have knives and scrapers made from a type of granite here..and maybe like some kind of convergent technologies going on maybe.. because there are artifacts here that look exactly like Solutrean Neanderthal..I have a degree but not in archeology..I highly respect your opinions observations and knowledge..I do a lot of reading and research and your information is the best..and I'm sure there are simple explanations for some of the old weird ass artifacts we find here..occams razor and all..there are no absolutes..and tomorrow science could find more info that changes everything ✌️
Thank you so much for not only a very well argued and to a layman still easily understood review of the paper. Had already seen another youtuber's critical take on the findings, but yours went into much deeper details and made an already convincing argument all the more so.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@NathanaelFosaaen Enjoyed it so much that I subscribed to your channel.
"I'm am expert in the making and the use of stone tools". I can see in the background you're also an expert in the use of [metal] tools. 🤘
Thanks for the excellent breakdown.
Widdleywiddleychuggachugga sir.
Hell yeah brother!
@@NathanaelFosaaen Can you play Freebird?
@@NathanaelFosaaen Can you play Freebird?
@@NathanaelFosaaen Can you play Freebird?
Fascinating & informative. Looking forward to seeing your other videos. Delighted to have found this channel. Thank you.
Very interesting & informative. Looking forward to seeing Your other videos. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Nathanael. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Glad you enjoyed it! Honestly, they might be completely right, but my point here is that they haven't made a particularly convincing case. Our job is to poke as many holes in the narrative as we can and see what holds up to scrutiny. It'll probably be a decade before this is really settled.
@@NathanaelFosaaen I'm absolutely dying to be convinced they're right!
Nicely done analysis of the paper. I wish reviewers were as critically caring about conclusions by authors. We all must be critical in science. It needn't be harsh and closed minded as that suffered by James Adavasio and Bruce Bradford (RIP). Southwestern footprints are a help. Keep up the good work!
Such a good breakdown.... I want to see a video like this on the Cerutti mastodon site!
Bulldozers. Done
I wonder what do you think about the so-called "clay mammoth" (Denver museum, Snowmastodon project, Daniel Fisher participated in discovery)? This one, as long as I remember, was carbon dated to approximately 45000 (I bet they need to calibrate it). A mammoth found in the middle of an ancient lake, with boulders inside, and some bones with cut marks? Fisher said (before he got the dates) that it looks like "meat cash".
Great video, as usual. I surely wished I had you as a professor when taking my archeology courses. You should consider writing a textbook. By the way, are you familiar with George F. Carter? He taught Early Man in America when I was at Johns Hopkins in 19666-67. Pleistocene Man at San Diego.
Thanks, that was metal! It is awesome to see a subject specialist giving their take. Subscribed
Welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey loved the video and you make some very good points that make would make a lot of sense especially on the spatial analysis, features, and burnt bones. I found out about this cave through a documentary on HBO Max but it seemed too good to be true. Maybe you could make a video reviewing this documentary since the documentary seems to be sensationalizing these claims. It's titled "Ice Age America" on HBO max.
Thank You thank you thank you ! Just found you on youtube and love your 'classes' for newbies . Just moved to ohio and am able to walk some fields and creeks .was looking for solid info and found you . Wonderful ! Puts a whole new outlook on it . Love the breakdown and explanation of pre landbride migrations .about 10 years ago I brought this up to a friend in a similar field to yours and was told outright that that is a white supremacst veiw ! I thought was interesting because the show I saw was a Nat Geo special . Any way really enjoying and learning m.baker
White supremacists are really into the Solutrean hypothesis, which is bogus because 1. all the data we have indicates that it didn't happen, and 2. even if it did, the Solutreans weren't what we would consider "white" people today.
That’s not Spanish. It’s the native language of Nahuatl
I was about to say that...😊
How was the pronunciation, if you happen to know?
Another great video 👍
Excellent presentation thank you.
The video was a very good peer review of a technical paper. THX
I apologize to you and other readers for a question that is off topic. As you mention your interest is lithics. Your comment caught my attention because I have been a knapper for over 30 years.
I have a stemmed point from Afghanistan. A laurel leaf Pressure Flaked point from Pakistan and a Polished Axe Head fro Papua New Guinea. All three artifacts can be found elsewhere in the world. So it is not uncommon that the methods of lithic manufacture, and point styles have similarities in very far flung locales.
So I am asking your “opinion” regarding “Solutrean” in appearance tools found long the USA Eastern shoreline and true Solutrean lithic tools found in southern France and Spain. The contentious issue in my mind is the use of Overshot Flaking. This technique is uncommon as it relates to the size of artifacts. The probability of concurrent technology development would seem just too much of a stretch. Or what say you?
Sorry, I typed out a response to this weeks ago and apparently never hit "reply."
So I'm planning on doing a more thorough examination of the Solutrean Hypothesis later, but in brief:
1, Indigenous North Americans pre-contact do not belong to the same genetic groups that the Solutrean groups do. This means that some small group of Solutrean people would have had to make it to North America, teach their tool-making practices to the locals, and somehow not leave any descendants here. A genetic dead end where their technology spread across the entire continent in a few hundred years. That is hardly probable.
2, there are several thousand years that separate the end of the Solutrean technology in Europe and the beginning of Clovis technology, and other overshot flake technology in North America. So Solutrean tech disappearing in Europe, leaving no known trace anywhere else in the world, and then suddenly re-appearing again in the Americas is also a difficult scenario to defend.
3, The physics involved in launching a projectile by hand and successfully penetrating cold-weather adapted megafauna in order to kill them is fundamentally the same on either side of the Atlantic. For biface producing cultures to make similar innovations in similar survival-dependent scenarios is hardly surprising. Hell, I do it all the time on obsidian and I'm not even doing it for any functional reason. It's just the most efficient way to thin down a spall into a biface.
I'm not an archaeologist, but my first thought when I heard that the 30,000 year old dates on artifacts were under the mud was Duh. Got washed in. Also, thanks for pointing out the lack of features. One would think that continual human occupation would cause multiple makeovers of the environment inside.
Do you have a take on the Olmec’s as in any connection to North America ?
Thanks, how about the supposedly 50,000 yo layer at Tupper, SC?
Even Al Goodyear doesn't think that date is real. He was the guy who reported it, and he acknowledges that it's most likely out of context.
Do you think this “bad archaeology” has completely contaminated the cave site, or can further investigation address the study’s shortcomings?
with the white sands foot prints 25,000 is now reasonable as is 30 but this cave dosent mean anyone was there. there are several of these areas such as in california where they find crude rocks and visualize "they were ape type grunting cavemen" when of course at that time humans were as smart as us if not more so except we have education. Those broken shards they have i see lots of places where the shattered flint thousands of items like that are all over but there ARE arrowheads and such in the area. so then people start thinking everything is an artifact like "hand ax" and they return home with 500 pounds of rocks
So when did the huge ice sheet that covered Canada melt?
when it got warm enough.
Have you heard the song "Pangea" by Valiant Thor?
I went to highschool in their hometown. Great live shows.
@@NathanaelFosaaen Nice!
@@NathanaelFosaaen Where History and or archeology a prominent subject in that area during that time?
What they mean is, this rewrites history that 99%+ of us know. It's great that this knowledge exists, and I personally really enjoying your videos, but for the VAST majority of us a lot of these broadly publicised findings do rewrite history. Most people don't go hunting for archaeology channels on youtube to stay up-to-date with the latest facts
How come 'behaviorally modern' humans are 50000 years old, but there are extant groups of humans that can trace a common ancestor with other humans that is over 50000 years old? ie. khoi san people in southern africa. Is 50kya just the oldest evidence of 'behavioral modernity?'
Great video! And don’t worry about pronouncing Chiquihuite, it’s not a Spanish word. It’s indigenous.
So is "Appalachian" but there's still a right way to say it in English.
thanks. uno aprende también de escuchar críticas al trabajo de otros profesionales.
With footprints bracketed 23ky-21ky at WhiteSandsNP having cave evidence to 30ky ago isn't a stretch.
The abstract looks ok, I'd suggest waiting longer before too much skepticism sets in.
MonteVerde at >20ky looks ok with the WhiteSandsNP find, Clovis wasn't very old, the river site west of Burns, OR, is 15ky+ was a Class 3 rapids in the day.
Fwiw 🍺
What about the archeological site in Piauí-Brazil?
You're going to have to be a LOT more specific. There are tons of sites there.
@@NathanaelFosaaen Serra da Capivara National Park, with cave paintings dated 20,000 BC and others even older.
is there any doubt about these dates?
I'm fairly skeptical of those dates. There's no way to date rock art unless the pigment has some sort of organic component. the one article I looked at said they used Thermolumenescence dating on the paintings, which is asinine, because thermolumenescence only works on silicates that have been fired to a very high temperature, and you've got to be able to control for the rate of radiation entrapment, which wouldn't be easy to do in an open-air environment. I'm having trouble finding a solid site report in English for it though.
@@NathanaelFosaaen got it
A very good, analysys
Thoughts on the timeline being a tad more condensed?
What do you mean by that?
Polynesians were in the America's as Early as 60,000 Years Ago .
@stem50 • Kinda a racist comment made by you but whatever.
you are an dumbb@@raunchyrarebit
I’m no authority, but the tool at 1:00 looked a little “iffy”.
Hey! I am from Northern Texas. And you kind of look like me. UNT?
While I am pretty sure native occupation of the Americas does indeed go back that far the way they have dealt with this site and its documentation does not offer any solid proof that it is that old
That is essentially where I'm at with this whole thing.
The name of the cave is not Spanish though. So don't worry too much about the enunciation.
When they built the mouse house come the dirt had to be in from other places far away. I don’t understand what they were doing. The Aztec courtesies tell a lot about all this and I’m not real good at reading. Those the one really bothered me. It was like they were Conjuring some kind of spiritual beings or demons in their ritual or whatever what not I don’t understand. I’m not educated like you and I need help with those understanding them and I need help with what I’m seeing spiritually in these rock, especially the rock from Ohio and right in the Ohio valley in the places where they say that there were giants and things like that Show you some of the pieces I found. I thought the Indians were making that in the stone and then I realized that it seems like the rock is disturbed like something bad happened there and then when I started looking at what it was showing me it was almost like a photograph in this one stone. I feel like the Indians got this different kind of flint, especially Ohio flint
I don't think professional archeologists failed to account for water transfer.
Modern Humans can move fast; ancient humans could have as well. Each year several thousand people hike the Appalachian Trail, a trail that runs 2,200 miles. Starting in Georgia, about 1/4 of the people who start, complete it ending up in Maine. It normally takes 6 months, but it can be be done in as fast as two months with people averaging 50 miles a day. Clearly, people today can cover a lot of ground fast, in the past people could have also covered a lot of ground fast as well. Imagine how much motivation you might have if people were chasing you to kill or eat you. A few hundred year ago, Indians moved easily and quickly through the land, while white man moved slowly, with mule trains of supplies. For example, the Indians used bows and arrows, something light, reusable and easily made, while white man had to carry lead bullets and gunpowder. White men were not the fastest or most effcient at moving. The Indians were so much better at it. My point is that, one should assume ancient man were as smart as modern man, and had the ability to go a long way. If you move fast, you can also leave behind very little evidence of travel. It is very conceivable an early tribe of people moved fast and would not have wanted to leave evidence behind (as other tribes might have hunted or killed them). Now there are places, -where rivers came together, springs, sea shores, that all explorers and people naturally would have come to, but determining who and when thousands of years later after Indians roamed for thousands of years might be exceptionally difficult.
Weren't you the drummer for Twisted Sister?
That point had what seems to me a distinctly paleolithic look.
The one in the first 2 minutes of the video? I'm not convinced that's actually an artifact. No lateral flake scars.
Where are all the artifacts of the Indians? That’s all they show is as stone tools they destroyed a major mound that was even carved lying aren’t they? They knew about this place and there was a whole nation of people here that they wiped out so the mass genocide story is probably the truth. The ground became 15° colder. They wiped out so many Indians at once and when you read the poetry and the library of Congressand very sad and if I would’ve known that they did that come here I wouldn’t come, but I was born here. Indian for some reason I care about them very much sometimes when I look at their Ohio Flint and what I’m seeing in it, I cry dark.
Australian Aboriginals hunted with throwing sticks and put the game whole into the hot coals to cook.
Points and cutting edges aren't really required for human existence.
Surely humans existed for millennia before discovering broken stone.
australopithecines made and used cutting tools. We've been using stone blades since before we were human.
Ok so you’re intelligent enough to when to talk experts. And trust their options.
Archaeology is a team effort.
Maybe they are hiding it
HELL YES, LAPHROAIG IS THE SHIT! Especially with an Acid Nasty or Blondie
I don’t think Chiquhuite is a Spanish word . Language might not be your area of expertise but cmon now
Depends on how you look at it. Is "Cherokee" an English word?
There is no doubt that people were in the Americas 30,000 years ago and possibly as far back to 45,000 years before present. Many of these people didn’t survive to present but some have. However much of the evidence is underwater along the west coast. There are some scattered evidence of early occupation but anything before 14,000 years is greatly criticized by the community.
Obviously this “discovery” is suspect and has little contextual evidence.
THIN LIZZY!!!
Yes there were! Theres things found in north America that the government doesn't want you to know!
Bless your heart sweetie.
What would be related to this article that the government doesn't want you to know? And why don't they want you to know it? That is, what would be the implication if you knew it?
130,000
The cave could have been for storage. Why would you make tools in a dark cave?
You give 13,000 for Clovis and say a “few thousand years”, then say 20,000 to 30, 000 years. Then you say that archeologists agree that there was occupation back that far. The problem most Archeologists might be okay with a 14,000 year dating but few would agree with 20,000 and almost none would agree with 30,000 years of occupation.
I do agree that occupation back as far as 30,000 years on the then coast is very likely. But the problem is that coast is now 200 feet or more below sea level. It’s likely that findings will be made at some point in the future that confirm these dates. I also believe that there will be confirmations that Polynesian links to South America will be made as well. Although these are likely to be very small numbers and will be difficult to find except in indigenous DNA.
Nah, most working archaeologists are good with an 18,000 - 20,000 timeframe and plenty are open to the possibility of even older occupations. We just have very little evidence for anything earlier.
Cerutti Mastadon Site 130,000
ua-cam.com/video/GVeOoWmUnLw/v-deo.html 1:30 minute mark, which they claim there is no other known answer other than hominid use.
If natural processes in caves can commonly produce rocks resembling human tools, and if early humans dwelt in caves, then perhaps cave debris originally inspired stone tool production?
Unlikely. Stone tool production starts out in Eastern Africa at Olduvai gorge. (as far as the evidence indicates anyway), not in caves.
How are we to truly know when there are thousands upon thousands of undiscovered sites in North America??
Oh sure. I have no doubt there are sites older than Bluefish Caves, but we don't have good evidence for them yet.
Angels in the Architecture: If the evidence is not yet available, what conclusion could be made?
We don't know what we don't know.
I think the time lines are way off. I would add 25000 to 50000 years at least. How many individuals came by themselves or family groups that left no trace? I'm the kind of person who can just start walking, and as long as I have food, a place to sleep, could do that forever. That had to happen as people followed game herds.
What conclusion could you draw without any evidence?
Obviously we are unlikely to find evidence of the absolute earliest humans in the Americas. That question might be too simple.
Maybe the question/answer should be more complex? For example:
Not: When did humans first exist in the Americas?
Instead: When were humans in the Americas in significant numbers? Or... What are the earliest evidences of human habitation in the Americas?
Certainly:. Where did the earliest humans in the Americas come from? That would be an amazing thing to discern.
@@jamisojo Because I'm guessing like every "educated" person out there!! Problem is, I'm just as close as they are!!
Not in the Bible…….LOL.
I stopped listening with you said Chiquihuite was a Spanish word.
I'm out on that too, last one of his videos I saw in an desperate effort to prove someone wrong disputed that the serpent mound was not a snake but a sperm cell , lol I doubt those early hunter gatherers had microscopes and biology degrees to be able to recreate a single sperms on the landscape, and resorted to calling the person he was disputing a racist and white supremist .
I mean, this was in The Smithsonian, so I wouldn't give it much more credibility than I would Teen Vogue...