First Americans may have been Neanderthals 130,000 years ago

[pscot]

By Colin Barras

An extraordinary chapter has just been added to the story of the First Americans. Finds at a site in California suggest that the New World might have first been reached at least 130,000 years ago – more than 100,000 years earlier than conventionally thought.

If the evidence stacks up, the earliest people to reach the Americas may have been Neanderthals or Denisovans rather than modern humans. Researchers may have to come to terms with the fact that they have barely scratched the surface of the North American archaeological record.

“We often hear statements in the media that a new study changes everything we knew,” says Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London. “If this result stands up to scrutiny, it does indeed change everything we thought we knew about the earliest human occupation of the Americas

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129042-first-americans-may-have-been-neanderthals-130000-years-ago/

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Full Circle: We now have a Neanderthal in the White House. n/t

[cstanleytech]

4. You might be giving him to much credit for even being that evolved. nt

[gopiscrap]

2. 60 million + still are

[Warpy]

3. Nah, Neanderthals had bigger brains

and developed processes we're just starting to figure out. Neanderthal tools might look primitive, but they're harder to make and it turns out the ergonomics are better. Some are still razor sharp tens of thousands of years later. They were damned smart.

I don't know what Trumpers are, maybe a throwback to our last dalliances with chimpanzees two or three million years ago. Or maybe they're just addicted to the rush that rage gives them. Dunno. They're just not smart enough to be Neanderthals.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they found Neanderthal cave burials here.