http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080903-oldest-skeletons.html?source...
Deep inside an underwater cave in Mexico, archaeologists may have discovered
the oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas.
Dubbed Eva de Naharon, or Eve of Naharon, the female skeleton has been dated
at 13,600 years old. If that age is accurate, the skeleton—along with three
others found in underwater caves along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán
Peninsula—could provide new clues to how the Americas were first populated.
The remains have been excavated over the past four years near the town of
Tulum, about 80 miles southwest of CancĂşn, by a team of scientists led by
Arturo González, director of the Desert Museum in Saltillo, Mexico
We don't now how [the people whose remains were found in the caves] arrived
and whether they came from the Atlantic, the jungle, or inside the continent,"
González said.
"But we believe these finds are the oldest yet to be found in the Americas
and may influence our theories of how the first people arrived."
In addition to possibly altering the time line of human settlement in the
Americas, the remains may cause experts to rethink where the first Americans
came from, González added.
