New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.
In the past decade, other research has challenged the conventional wisdom that people didn’t reach the Americas until a few thousand years before rising sea levels covered the Bering land bridge between Russia and Alaska, perhaps around 15,000 years ago.
The team of researchers from Brazil, France and the United States said their analysis shows this handiwork was done within days to a few years after the animals had died, and before the materials had fossilized. The researchers also ruled out natural abrasion and other things that might explain the shapes and holes. They reported their findings Wednesday in Britain’s Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.
Once among the largest creatures in South America, giant ground sloths were 10 to 13 feet in length and usually walked on all four legs, using their sharp claws to dig burrows. They weighed more than a thousand pounds and their skin included bony structures under their fur — somewhat similar to the bony plates of modern armadillos.
Jennifer Raff, an anthropological geneticist at the University of Kansas, who was not involved in the study, said the new paper was “an important addition” to the conversation, but like any findings on the topic, it may also draw pushback.
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