How a pile of BONES in San Diego is upsetting everything we know about human arrival in North America

How did humans disturb mastadon bones in North America 115,000 years before they were supposed to be here?

According to the conventional theory, humans migrated into the Americas just about 15,000 years ago, following herds of animals they hunted into North America. Then, as the climate warmed, the glaciers melted, and sea level rose, cutting off the Americas from the rest of the world. It's a neat theory, and it's also wrong, according to a wealth of new evidence.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- There is one problem with the old theory for how the Americas were populated. The idea that humans came in waves over land is too simple. It fails to take into account human ingenuity, wanderlust, and the remarkable resilience of our prehistoric ancestors.

There are two key discoveries that directly challenge this notion. First, new evidence suggests humans also traveled by sea from Asia to North America, following the coast from Siberia to Alaska and into what is today, British Columbia.  The second is that humans appear to have been in North America much, much earlier than 15,000 years ago. Evidence now suggests people may have lived in the Americas as early as 130,000 years ago.

In the winter of 1992, freeway workers in San Diego discovered the bones of a mastodon buried in a layer of sediment, dated to 130,000 years ago. The bones alone weren't a surprise. The surprise is that the bones showed obvious signs of human-inflicted damage.

Apparently, humans using stone tools, broke the bones apart to extract the nutritious marrow. A tusk from the animal had also been planted upright, presumably to mark the location. They were left in piles along with the heavy stones used to break them.

Using a sophisticated dating method, scientists were able to reliably date the bones to around 130,700 years ago.

So, here's where the story gets weird. According to all the evidence, humans -- meaning homo sapiens, did not leave Africa until 100,000 years ago.

Some human cousins had left Africa, such as Neanderthal and Homo erectus. In fact, Homo erectus has already reached Asia and spread across China and India. Could it have been a band of Homo erectus who disturbed the bones?

The fact remains a mystery, and there is simply not enough evidence to figure it out.

It is possible that an exceptionally intrepid band of Homo erectus could have made their way to North America. It is also possible the bones were disturbed more recently by modern humans, who simply did not recognize the bones were already ancient, but there are some immediate objections to this idea. For example, it is likely the band that disturbed the bones would have been able to tell at a glance if the bones were fresh or old since they worked with bones daily.

Could there have been some disturbance of the site or soil? Could the testing have been wrong? These are also unlikely, but possible. A final objection points out there is no DNA evidence of a successful human migration into the Americas from that time. So, it these were humans, their DNA likely did not survive into the modern age. If they were Homo erectus, no such remains have been found, not even a tooth or fragment of bone.

More work needs to be done, and more evidence must be found before we agree to rewrite the books, but it is breathtaking to consider that humans, or possibly Homo erectus, could have been present in America 130,000 years ago.

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