New Evidence Suggests Humans Lived in the Americas 30,000 Years Ago

An anthropologist from Iowa State University has found evidence in Mexico that humans lived in the Americas as far back as 33,000 years ago. This is 20,000 years earlier than the accepted date of arrival for the “First Americans,” who supposedly crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Asia before migrating southward around 11,000 BC. 

The new Iowa State University discovery doesn’t negate the evidence that supports a more recent arrival. But it does contradict the theory that those later settlers were the first to occupy the lands of North and South America.

Iowa State anthropologist Andrew Somerville organized an expedition to Mexico to study the origins of agriculture in the Tehuacán Valley. Previous studies have shown that this region played a foundational role in the development of agriculture in the Americas, with samples of the earliest forms of several domesticated plant species having been found there during archaeological explorations.

Professor Andrew Somerville of Iowa State University led the recent study of the remains found in a Mexican cave that challenges the current theory of the first humans in the Americas. (Christopher Gannon / Iowa State University)