Uncovered bones suggest humans were in America 130 000 years ago 1

A major archaeological dig in Southern California could rewrite the history books until recently. Researchers believed humans reached North America 15,000 years ago, but new findings published in the journal Nature suggest there was human activity 130,000 years ago. Scientists believe these primitive beings came between Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens. Maria Villarreal is at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Maria, good morning. Well, good morning. It took more than 20 years to put together this very complicated puzzle, but in the end their findings, including this very large tusk right here, could rewrite and reshape how we feel about human evolution. Highways are an everyday part of life in Southern California, but it turns out humans may have traveled here long before anyone could have imagined. As a paleontologist, though, it's really amazing to have discovered a site of such importance in our own backyard. This archaeological shocker began in 1992 when scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum uncovered the bones of a mastodon 10 feet under a highway construction site. In a way, this is like a paleo crime scene. Paleontologist Tom Demarais was one of the first to arrive and almost instantly knew they'd uncovered something special. The important fractures are these fractures here. See how smooth and curved that is? This is the kind of fracture that's produced from impact. The team believes the heavy femur bones could only be broken by a human using a two-handed tool, possibly to extract marrow for food. By replicating the breaking patterns and using state-of-the-art dating methods, the group concluded humans first reached the Americas over 130,000 years ago, not 15,000 years ago as previous research has suggested. There's room for skepticism, for sure. But USC Associate Professor Dr. Christian Carlson wants more evidence. One instance is fascinating, but I think we need to find another site or two before we begin to accept this. I was a strong critic when I first looked at this, and I said, well, I can't believe that this is really here, but this is science. Archaeologist Stephen Holen has spent most of his career researching prehistoric human existence and is ready to face critics who aren't yet ready to rewrite history. We're expecting pushback. We expect people to be critical. We want people to be critical. What makes you so sure that something else didn't break it over time? People have been doing these experiments for years and say that only humans with hammerstones can produce these kinds of features. While there are still a lot of unanswered questions, the president of the museum joked yesterday that this is just proof that even early humans wanted to live here in San Diego. Gail. Well, why not? The weather was good. The weather is very nice here. Thank you, Maria.