近日，美国文化资源局Daniel Odess、英国伯恩茅斯大学Matthew R. Bennett等研究人员合作发现末次盛冰期北美地区的人类证据。这一研究成果于2021年9月24日发表在国际学术期刊《科学》上。

研究人员报道了来自白沙国家公园（美国新墨西哥州）发掘地表的证据，那里的多个原地人类脚印在地层上受到限制，并被种子层所包围，产生了大约2.3至2.1万年前的校准放射性碳年龄。这些发现证实了人类在最后一次冰川期出现在北美，为人类殖民美洲的古老性增加了证据，并为早期居民和更新世巨型动物的共存提供了时间范围的扩展。

据悉，考古学家和相关领域的研究人员长期以来一直试图了解人类对北美的殖民化。关于人类何时和如何迁徙，他们来自哪里，以及他们的到来如何影响现有的动物和景观等问题仍然存在。

附：英文原文

Title: Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum

Author: Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Kathleen B. Springer, Thomas M. Urban, Vance T. Holliday, Sally C. Reynolds, Marcin Budka, Jeffrey S. Honke, Adam M. Hudson, Brendan Fenerty, Clare Connelly, Patrick J. Martinez, Vincent L. Santucci, Daniel Odess

Issue&Volume: 2021-09-24

Abstract: Archaeologists and researchers in allied fields have long sought to understand human colonization of North America. Questions remain about when and how people migrated, where they originated, and how their arrival affected the established fauna and landscape. Here, we present evidence from excavated surfaces in White Sands National Park (New Mexico, United States), where multiple in situ human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between ~23 and 21 thousand years ago. These findings confirm the presence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum, adding evidence to the antiquity of human colonization of the Americas and providing a temporal range extension for the coexistence of early inhabitants and Pleistocene megafauna.

DOI: abg7586

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586