Archaeologists: North America settled at least 2,500 years earlier

Mar 24, 2011, 22:51 GMT

New York - The discovery of ancient stone tools in Texas has caused archaeologists to reconsider the timeframe for the first humans arriving in North America, pushing back the settlement of the continent by some 2,500 years.

The Clovis culture had been believed to be the first settlers to arrive in North America via the land bridge that then connected the continent to Asia some 13,200 years ago.

But the discovery of the tools, believed to be between 13,200 and 15,500 years old, means other people had arrived in the continent even earlier, said researcher Michael Waters of Texas A&M University.

The findings are to be published Friday in the latest issue of the journal Science.

Waters and his colleagues uncovered the tools at a site in Texas known as the Buttermilk Creek Complex.

The similarities to later distinctive Clovis tools means the Clovis may have actually learned tool making from this older civilization, the Science article said.

The tools were double sided and made using blades, and appear to be part of a 'mobile toolkit' that could be easily taken from place to place, researchers said.

The 15,528 pre-Clovis artefacts were found at the site under a layer that contained known Clovis artefacts.

Earlier findings in the far-flung US states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida and also South America had indicated the possibility of a pre-Clovis civilization, but those finds had not consisted of such vast amounts of artefacts and were not considered conclusive.

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