PEOPLE arrived in South America at least 12 500 years agomore than 1000 years earlier than most anthropologists believed. This conclusion, which follows two decades of painstaking research, is forcing a rethink of the history of humans throughout the Americas.
Tom Dillehay, now at the University of Kentucky, first discovered the remains that led him to this conclusion 20 years ago at a site in Chile known as Monte Verde. But it has taken him until now to persuade sceptical colleagues that he is right, after taking a group of specialists to the site. "I was thoroughly convinced," says Dena Dincauze, an anthropologist at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Dillehay carbon-dated samples of wooden tools, bone and charcoal from the site. He estimated their age at around 12 500 years, a figure the expert group now accepts. The Smithsonian Institution Press will publish his analysis next month.
Anthropologists believe ...
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