Scientists Find, Earliest Definitive Evidence, of Humans in the Americas.<br />The topic of when the Americas were first settled has been controversial for decades.<br />The BBC reports that a team in New Mexico has now found human footprints dating back to between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago.<br />The discovery suggests there could have been great migrations completely unknown until now.<br />The footprints were formed in soft mud <br />on the edge of a lake which now forms <br />part of Alkali Flat in White Sands.<br />According to the BBC, scientists think the tracks were primarily made by teenagers and younger children.<br />The age of the discovery is key because there have been countless disputed claims of early human settlement in the Americas.<br />However, the BBC points out, virtually all of those claims have been disputed and largely ignored since the "Clovis First" idea was widely accepted. .<br />One of the reasons there is so much debate is that there is a real lack of very firm, unequivocal data points. That's what we think we probably have, Prof Matthew Bennett, first author on the paper from Bournemouth University, via BBC.<br />According to the BBC, in the 1980s, evidence <br />was found of a 14,500-year-old <br />human presence at Monte Verde, Chile.<br />According to the BBC, in the 1980s, evidence <br />was found of a 14,500-year-old <br />human presence at Monte Verde, Chile.<br />Since the 2000s, other sites, such as the 15,500-year-old <br />Buttermilk Creek Complex in central Texas...<br />... and the 16,000-year-old Cooper's Ferry site <br />in Idaho, have become widely accepted.<br />The new footprint evidence suggests <br />humans reached the North American <br />interior by the height of the last Ice Age
