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eppur_se_muova

(36,246 posts)
Wed May 2, 2018, 01:33 PM May 2018

The oldest footprints in North America are right where native historians said they should be (WaPo)

by Sarah Kaplan March 30 Email the author

The Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv people of British Columbia have long spoken of a time when most of Canada was entombed beneath glaciers, and their ancestors fished and foraged along the coastline that formed a thin green margin between open ocean and impenetrable ice.

Now an archaeological dig has unearthed physical evidence of ancient human presence: 29 footprints pressed into the shoreline of Calvert Island, part of the First Nations’ traditional territory. The prints represent at least three people — perhaps two adults and a child — and they date back more than 13,000 years, to the end of the last ice age.

“Just to know that it’s a place that our ancestors previously walked and now here we still are today, it’s really powerful for us,” said William Housty, a member of the Heiltsuk Nation.

Archaeologists say the footprints are the oldest in North America — proof that humans were here at the end of the Pleistocene. But they are not simply evidence of where people have been. Footprints tell you where someone was going, and these tracks lend credence to the theory that North America's earliest inhabitants navigated the continent's Pacific coastline by boat, following a “kelp highway” to greener regions in the south.
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more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/30/the-oldest-footprints-in-north-america-are-right-where-native-historians-said-they-should-be/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ce6b32d427bf




Not exactly LBN, but I thought it was too interesting to ignore. Read the article itself to see if you agree with the title.

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The oldest footprints in North America are right where native historians said they should be (WaPo) (Original Post) eppur_se_muova May 2018 OP
Its amazing to read about the human history story that unfolds as procon May 2018 #1

procon

(15,805 posts)
1. Its amazing to read about the human history story that unfolds as
Wed May 2, 2018, 02:16 PM
May 2018

the archaeologists piece together the puzzle. Now I wonder where those early humans were going...

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