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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @11:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the shoulda-made-a-left-at-Albuquerque dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39710311

A study that claims humans reached the Americas 130,000 years ago - much earlier than previously suggested - has run into controversy.

Humans are thought to have arrived in the New World no earlier than 25,000 years ago, so the find would push back the first evidence of settlement by more than 100,000 years.

The conclusions rest on analysis of animal bones and tools from California.

But many experts contacted by the BBC said they doubted the claims.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 28 2017, @01:47PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday April 28 2017, @01:47PM (#501158) Journal

    I think it's in a circumstance like this where expert opinion tells. I'm an amateur flintknapper, but most times I can only detect the signs of paleo-flintknapping after one of the experts have pointed it out. And many times scientists will point to rocks or bones or something and say, "Look, see, there's clear evidence of human activity," and I'll have no idea what they're talking about because I'm looking at the wrong details.

    Kind of how folks like us can look at code and see flaws, make a judgement about how well it's structured, etc., whereas most laymen would only see an eruption of gobblety-gook.

    Scientists can disagree about whether or not humans broke those bones, but they're disagreeing on the basis of arcana that most of us on the outside have no idea about.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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