Early Americans

At www.eurekalert.org March 26th there is mention of new discoveries in Texas that push known occupation of the Americas backwards – to 15,500 years ago. This is the Bolling warm period after the end of the Ice Age. The Clovis toolkit is associated with the next warming phase, known as the Alleroed, leading up to the Younger Dryas at 12,900 years ago. Hence, for stick in the mud archaeologists that insist humans entered the Americas after the ice sheets in the north melted, this new discovery is no big deal. Now, if they had found evidence of humans living somewhere in the Americas during the Ice Age (before 16,000 years ago) that would have been worth the ink. At www.kansas.com/2011/03/24/1777565/kansas-evidence-could-lead-to.html there is a claim humans were killing mammoths on the praires some 22,000 years ago – but the evidence is as yet one of interpretation rather than anything substantial.