Footprints discovered in Mexico are either more than 1 million years older than other evidence of humans in the Western Hemisphere or not footprints at all, according to a new report that was to be published in the journal Nature on Thursday.
In July, researchers in England claimed the prints proved that humans were in the Americas 40,000 years ago -- much earlier than the accepted date of 11,500 years ago.
But Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center and an adjunct professor at Uni- versity of California-Berkeley, says the prints are about 1.3 million years old.
"You're really only left with two possibilities," Renne said. "One is that they are really old hominids -- shockingly old -- or they're not footprints."
The footprints were first discovered by a team of British scientists in 2003 in an abandoned quarry close to the Cerro Toluquilla volcano in the Valsequillo Basin, near Puebla, Mexico.
The researchers hypothesized that early hunters walked across ash freshly deposited near a lake by volcanoes that are still active.
The so-called footprints, subsequently covered by more ash and inundated by lake waters, eventually turned to rock.
The new study was conducted by geologists at the Berkeley Geochronology Center and the University of California, Berkeley, who were part of an investigative team of geologists and anthropologists from the US and Mexico.
Paleoanthropologist Tim White, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, said he was not surprised at the new finding.
"The evidence [the British team] has provided in their arguments that these are footprints is not sufficient to convince me they are footprints," said White, who did not contribute to the new study.
The oldest accepted human fossil from the Americas is an 11,500-year-old skull. Homo sapiens are not thought to have appeared in Africa until about 160,000 years ago.
Geologist Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool's John Moores University, who was the leader of the British team, said she would not rule out the possibility that her theory was correct without doing further research.
"The new finding doesn't necessarily mean that [1.3 million years ago] is the correct date. The results would need to be replicated to make sure that everything makes sense," Gonzalez said in an interview on Wednesday.
She also said part of the problem in verifying the dates of the deposits in Mexico's Valsequillo Basin is the amount of different materials in the particles.
"But the fact that that is the case doesn't automatically mean that they aren't footprints," Gonzalez said.
Her team has funding to do further analysis in the basin for the next three years, she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese