09 July 2023

Earliest evidence of humans in North America


The video above is from several years ago, by the Bureau of Land Mangement, describing Rimrock Draw Rockshelter and why it is important.  

The content below is from an announcement this week by the same organization of new discoveries in the rockshelter:
"Oregon archaeologists have found evidence suggesting humans occupied the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter outside of Riley, Oregon more than 18,000 years ago... 

In 2012, O’Grady’s team found camel teeth fragments under a layer of volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount St. Helens that was dated over 15,000 years ago.... Radiocarbon-dating analysis on the tooth enamel – first in 2018 and then again in 2023 – by Dr. Thomas W. Stafford, Jr. of Stafford Research and Dr. John Southon of University of California, Irvine, yielded exciting results: a date of 18,250 years before present (14,900 radiocarbon years).

That date, in association with stone tools, suggests that Rimrock Draw Rockshelter is one of the oldest human-occupation sites in North America..."


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