Spear Tip Suggests Americas Settled Earlier Than Imagined

A spear tip found in a mastodon bone in Washington state adds to the case that the Clovis culture wasn't the first in North America.

It turns out that not only did life appear on land earlier than anticipated, so too did the first humans in North America. School kids across the continent learn that the first humans to cross from Asia to the Americas were the Clovis people, who arrived in the New World around 13,000 years ago. But carbon-14 dating has determined that a spear tip that had been lodged in mastodon ribs found in Washington State is 13,800 years old, meaning our plucky little species has been laying waste to the continent's resources for at least 800 years longer than widely believed. The new evidence adds to a growing body of literature that disputes that the Clovis people were the first inhabitants here, as sites uncovered in Wisconsin and Texas in recent years point to humans having been in North America as long as 15,000 years ago.