Monte Verde: Seaweed, Food, Medicine, and the Peopling of South America

Abstract

The identification of human artifacts at the early archaeological site of Monte Verde in southern Chile has raised questions of when and how people reached the tip of South America without leaving much other evidence in the New World. Remains of nine species of marine algae were recovered from hearths and other features at Monte Verde II, an upper occupational layer, and were directly dated between 14,220 and 13,980 calendar years before the present ( approximately 12,310 and 12,290 carbon-14 years ago). These findings support the archaeological interpretation of the site and indicate that the site's inhabitants used seaweed from distant beaches and estuarine environments for food and medicine. These data are consistent with the ideas that an early settlement of South America was along the Pacific coast and that seaweeds were important to the diet and health of early humans in the Americas.

Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska

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Contradictions and Concordances in American Colonization Models

“…There is little current evidence for human occupation in the high arctic of Canada during the LGM, but a wealth of data on other species confirms that biotically rich refugia existed in the area and could have provided some resource patches for human populations (Shafer et al 2010;Rock ptarmigan, Holder et al 1999;arctic grayling, Stamford and Taylor 2004;collared lemming, Federov and Stenseth 2002). The Northwest Coast refugia are better documented (e.g., Haida Gwaii) and have been instrumental in recent suggestions for an early coastal migration route to the west coast of the Americas (Dixon 1999;Kemp et al 2007;Dillehay et al 2008, Erlandson et al 2011, an archeological perspective supported by several genetic studies (e.g., Fix 2002;Fagundes et al 2008a, b). Loehr et al (2006) also inferred evidence for two interior refugia between the Corilleran and Laurentide ice sheets from mtDNA sequence data from two species of mountain sheep, supporting the lack of continuous glacier coalescence postulated by Barendregt and Duk-Rodkin (2004) and Catto et al (1996).…”

Paleontología social: una esperiencia educativa sobre ciencia, patrimonio e identidad

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