{"id":5386,"date":"2026-03-30T01:08:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/u-w-archaeologist-shakes-scientific-world-with-new-evidence-of-human-arrival-cowboy-state-daily\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T01:08:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:08:29","slug":"u-w-archaeologist-shakes-scientific-world-with-new-evidence-of-human-arrival-cowboy-state-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/u-w-archaeologist-shakes-scientific-world-with-new-evidence-of-human-arrival-cowboy-state-daily\/","title":{"rendered":"U.W. Archaeologist Shakes Scientific World With New Evidence Of Human Arrival – Cowboy State Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"

A University of Wyoming archaeologist is the lead author on\u00a0a new paper\u00a0that has potentially upended what we know about the history of humanity in the Americas. The evidence pushes back the arrival of humans in the Americas by thousands of years.
March 29, 2026<\/span>14 min read<\/span>
A University of Wyoming archaeologist is the lead author on\u00a0a new paper\u00a0<\/a>that has potentially upended what we know about the history of humanity in the Americas.<\/span>
Todd Surovell, a professor and director of the George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wyoming (UW), led an international, multidisciplinary team of scientists on an expedition to Monte Verde in southern Chile, one of the most revolutionary archaeological sites in the world.
The evidence they collected and analyzed from Monte Verde pushed back the arrival of humans in the Americas by thousands of years.
According to Surovell, the site has been \u201cthe foundation\u201d of a theory that humans migrated and settled in North and South America over 20,000 years ago.
Surovell studied the same evidence and reached a much younger, more controversial age.
He and his team dated Monte Verde to 8,200 years, at the oldest, rather than the 14,500 years that has been \u201can unquestionable scientific fact\u201d for most archaeologists.
\u201cThis site is now 5,000 years younger than the first Clovis settlements, instead of 1,500 years older,\u201d Surovell told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cMonte Verde was supposed to be game-changing. It was supposed to be paradigm-changing, a settled matter of science. In our interpretation, they got it wrong.\u201d
To understand the earth-shattering implications of Surovell\u2019s new paper, some archaeological context is required.
The date of humanity\u2019s arrival in the Americas is \u201ca hotly debated topic,\u201d according to Surovell. The most widely accepted theory, until Monte Verde, was the \u201cClovis First\u201d model.
\u201cThat was the idea that the first peoples managed to get past the continental ice sheets in the northern part of the continent and flooded into North and South America around 13,000 years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was evidenced by these big, fluted spear points we call Clovis points, which are evidence of people hunting large animals like mammoths.\u201d
The \u201cClovis first\u201d model was presented in 1936 and was \u201cthe\u201d theory for human arrival in the Americas for 60 years.
That all changed with Monte Verde II, first excavated by archaeologists Tom Dillehay and Mario Pino in 1977.
They discovered a prehistoric campsite in southern Chile that contained charcoal, animal hides, stone tools, and other artifacts that indicated humans had lived there for a prolonged period.
\u201cThey claimed to have evidence of rectangular wooden structures, cordage, medicinal plants, and plant foods,\u201d Surovell said. \u201cIt suggested that there was a lot that we didn’t understand, and there was this deep missing prehistory in North America.\u201d
When Dillehay and Pino used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the bones and charcoal at Monte Verde II, they found an average age of 14,500 years old.
The findings at Monte Verde, published in 1997, rocked the archaeological world and effectively disproved the \u201cClovis First\u201d model. This led to the pre-Clovis theory that humans had arrived in the Americas thousands of years before the Clovis.
Since then, the pre-Clovis theory has been buffeted by the discovery of other sites in North and South America that are older than 13,000 years. Footprints preserved at White Sands National Park in New Mexico have been dated to between 21,000 and 23,000 years.
And none of that sat well with Surovell and his understanding of humanity\u2019s history in the Americas.
Surovell\u2019s archaeological research at UW has focused on the first people of the New World. He published dozens of papers on Paleoindians, including the ground-breaking discovery of bone beads<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0needles<\/a>\u00a0at the La Prele Mammoth Site near Douglas.<\/span>
Surovell heard Dillehay give a presentation on his findings at Monte Verde while he was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. As he continued to build his expertise through fieldwork and research, Monte Verde II seemed too \u201canomalous\u201d to fully accept.
\u201cIt\u2019s been the backdrop of my entire career,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in my second year of graduate school when this dropped, and I\u2019ve always been skeptical of it. It doesn’t fit in so many ways.\u201d
One reason Surovell was skeptical is that Monte Verde is at least 500 years older than any known archaeological sites in Alaska.
The accepted theory, to this day, is that America\u2019s first peoples reached North America by crossing the land bridge from Northeast Asia to Alaska, migrating south from there.
\u201cHow do you get people to southern Chile over 14,000 years ago, while leaving basically an invisible record further north? Occasionally, we find remarkable things, but Monte Verde was a statistical outlier in terms of age, location, and human behavior,\u201d he said.
Even as he taught classes at UW that included Monte Verde, he was stuck on how unusual it was for a site of that age to exist so far south. It left him with a desire to return to the important site, collect more evidence, and either confirm or refute the work from the past.
\u201cI developed a research project with Claudio Latorre, a paleoecologist and my collaborator in Chile,\u201d he said. \u201cWe expanded our team to include\u00a0archaeologist\u00a0Cesar Mendez, geomorphologist Juan Luis Garcia, and two radiocarbon dating specialists.\u201d<\/span>
Surovell, Latorre, and their team received a permit from the National Monuments Council of Chile to return to Monte Verde in 2023. It was the first independent archaeological investigation of the paradigm-shifting archaeological site since 1997.
As soon as they arrived at Monte Verde, Surovell said his peers were questioning what had been an \u201cunquestionable scientific fact\u201d for the last 29 years. The first clue came from Latorre\u2019s assessment of the site\u2019s geological context.
\u201cHe’s looking at the deposits and immediately recognized what he thought was a problem with the dating of the site,\u201d he said. \u201cAt that point, we decided that we needed to collect data to test this idea.\u201d
If the number wasn\u2019t enough of a clue, Monte Verde II isn\u2019t the only archaeological site of interest at this spot. Monte Verde I is a distinct site below Monte Verde II, but it\u2019s an older layer that preserves evidence of a treeless periglacial environment.
\u201cMonte Verde is in what’s called a glacial outwash\u00a0plain<\/span>\u00a0between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west,\u201d Surovell said. \u201cIf you go there today, you can see 14,000-year-old remarkably well-preserved pieces of wood sticking right out of the bank.\u201d
The wood was preserved by an organic marsh deposit, which was buried by a layer of volcanic ash.
That volcanic ash was very important to Surovell\u2019s work at Monte Verde because of its \u201cunique chemical fingerprint.\u201d
\u201cAll volcanic ashes are geochemically unique,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce you do the geochemistry of the ash, you can identify exactly what ash it is, the volcano it came from, and its age. It\u2019s a regional stratigraphic marker.\u201d
The volcanic ash layer was dated to 11,000 years, while the wood in the organic marsh layer was dated to 14,000 years. Then, those layers were buried by the outwash from glaciers moving in and out of the area, covering the ash and the marsh with more sediment.
This layered explanation is critical to Surovell\u2019s conclusions because these layers remained buried until Chinchihuapi Creek, which still exists today, began eroding through the glacial, volcanic, and marsh layers, spreading sediment and organic material throughout the area.
That leads to the critical \u201cold wood problem.\u201d
When Monte Verde II was dated in 1977, one of the materials used to date the site was charcoal. That was, unquestionably, the remains of wood burned by the ancient peoples who settled there.
Charcoal is excellent for radiocarbon dating. Surovell said it\u2019s very common for archaeologists to date sites with charcoal, even though there\u2019s one significant caveat that can make all the difference.
\u201cWhen you radiocarbon date charcoal, you\u2019re dating the age of the wood that was burned, not the time it was burned,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I go out to the Laramie Basin today, burn an old western red cedar, and date the charcoal, I’m going to get a radiocarbon date of 600 BP. That\u2019s not when I burned it. That\u2019s the age of the red cedar.\u201d
It\u2019s well within the realm of possibility. Last year, a team of scientists published research on more than 30 whitebark pine trees exposed by melting snow in the Beartooth Mountains, which were\u00a0nearly 6,000 years old<\/a>.<\/span>
The \u201cOld Wood Problem\u201d isn\u2019t a problem at most archaeological sites, as wood typically doesn\u2019t preserve unless it\u2019s burned into charcoal. Unburned wood often decays before it can be recovered.
However, Monte Verde II isn\u2019t a typical archaeological site. Surovell said it\u2019s unusual because it preserves a large amount of ancient wood, which can still be recovered in the 14,000-year-old organic marsh layer underneath the 11,000-year-old volcanic ash layer.
\u201cThis site has a really unique preservational situation,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Chinchihuapi Creek cut through these layers, so you would have Ice Age wood and organic matter piling up on the surface that ancient people would have been living on.\u201d
Using radiocarbon dating, tephrochronology (a technique for dating volcanic ash), and optically stimulated luminescence dating, the team redated nine alluvial layers and the volcanic ash layer at Monte Verde.
They determined that the sediment that buried and preserved Monte Verde II was between 3,000 and 8,000 years old. The wood and charcoal were still dated to around 14,500 years, but Surovell believes that\u2019s due to the redeposition of much-older wood at the much-younger archaeological site.
\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to date when people were at Monte Verde, but you’re dating redeposited wood from the Ice Age, you’re going to have a serious dating error of at least 6,000 years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reason why they thought this occupation was 14,500 years old is that they were dating wood and organic matter that was redeposited onto this 8,000-year-old surface.\u201d
Surovell\u2019s paper was published in Science on March 19. The reaction was immediate and intense, as would be expected for anything that upends nearly 30 years of established knowledge.
Dillehay, the original investigator, has already said he disagrees with the paper\u2019s findings.
He told Live Science that \u201cthere is no 11,000-year ash layer under the Monte Verde II site\u201d and they are projecting the geologic context from another site onto their interpretation of Monte Verde II.
Surovell noted that he approached Dillehay \u201cin a collaborative spirit\u201d to join his team for their project.
\u201cI’ll just say that he said, \u2018No, thank you.\u2019 He wasn\u2019t interested,\u201d Surovell said.
In fact, Dillehay and other members of the 1977 team objected to this new project. Surovell said they tried to prevent the National Monuments Council of Chile from issuing a permit for them to return to Monte Verde.
\u201cGetting access to the site and actually being able to do this work was challenging,\u201d he said. \u201cWe required permission from the National Monuments Council of Chile, and I’m really grateful they gave us a permit.\u201d
David Melzer, an archaeologist who was part of an independent team that verified Dillehay\u2019s conclusions in 1997, told Live Science there are \u201cseveral problems\u201d with the new research. One problem he believed was that Surovell\u2019s team worked in sediment that was \u201ctens to hundreds of meters distant,\u201d which he feels is too far to provide an accurate analysis of the Monte Verde II site.
Surovell is aware of the positive and negative feedback on his paper and isn\u2019t deterred by the dissent. In fact, he\u2019s encouraging it.
\u201cIf anybody wants to replicate what we’ve done, or try to show that we’ve done something incorrectly, I 100% encourage it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf anybody wants to re-date any of the samples that we’re currently in possession of that we collected for this study, they are more than welcome to.\u201d
One of the major problems Surovell encountered is that Dillehay and the original team maintained exclusive permits to Monte Verde since they found it. That\u2019s made independent investigations difficult, if not impossible, without the consent of the original team.
Surovell and his team got their permit to work at Monte Verde in a brief window when the original permits expired. Even if their findings are completely refuted by future research, he believes the archaeological community needs to be more open to independent research.
\u201cIndependent replication is a standard part of science, but it has never really been a serious part of archeological research,\u201d he said. \u201cFor basically five decades, (Monte Verde) was never independently investigated by anybody. If you’re going to make an extreme claim, you should encourage other researchers to come, have access to the site, and do independent work to try to verify those results.\u201d
While the study is still new, the broad consensus is that even if these new findings are accurate, and Monte Verde isn\u2019t a 14,500-year-old archaeological site, it doesn\u2019t change much. Since 1977, enough pre-Clovis sites have been found to support the theory that humans settled in the Americas before the Clovis arrived 13,000 years ago.
Surovell cautioned his peers against complacency. He harkened back to the need for archaeology to embrace independent replication, especially for pre-Clovis sites.
\u201cAll of these pre-Clovis sites are unusual, unreplicated finds,\u201d he said. \u201cEach site needs to be considered on its own merits, independently. But in most cases, nobody else has been able to go into these sites and independently validate those results.\u201d
Based on his career of research, buffeted by the findings at Monte Verde, Surovell believes there\u2019s more merit to the original \u201cClovis First\u201d model that many archaeologists have discounted because of the discovery of Monte Verde.
\u201cWe have hundreds of Clovis sites that have been independently found by hundreds of people,\u201d he said. \u201cOf those sites, a couple dozen have produced the exact same style of spear point that are all unusual in the way they\u2019re made, and date exactly to the same time. We\u2019ve found the same thing at different locations in North and South America. You can say that for Clovis. You can\u2019t say that for pre-Clovis.\u201d
He also believes that the archaeologists supporting the much older pre-Clovis sites should be open to more independent research. That, in his opinion, is \u201cthe more extreme claim\u201d for the origins of America\u2019s first peoples.
\u201cThey should be encouraging independent investigation so we can validate the strength of their claims, and that\u2019s never happened,\u201d he said.
Even Surovell admits his research at Monte Verde doesn\u2019t invalidate the pre-Clovis theory, but redating the site from 14,500<\/span>\u00a0years to 8,000 years, at the oldest, would be a significant blow to its support. He called it \u201cthe keystone in the arch\u201d of the pre-Clovis theory.
Many archaeologists have called Surovell\u2019s new paper \u201ccontroversial.\u201d That\u2019s an expected reaction, and one that he knows will come with criticism and skepticism from his peers.
\u201cYou’re going to get a range of opinions, depending on who you talk to,\u201d he said. \u201cI very much believe in the science that we did, but I’m certainly open to the possibility that we\u2019re wrong. If other researchers do their own independent work to verify or refute those results, that\u2019s great.\u201d
While he stands by his science and its conclusions, he hopes it will cajole more people to investigate and independently verify the age and significance of pre-Clovis sites.
That\u2019s bigger than any one paper, site, or artifact. It creates a stronger scientific future for archeology.
\u201cI hope this encourages other people to go to controversial sites and to try to replicate the initial results,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil we have some (research) that has been truly, independently replicated by people completely unrelated to the original investigators, I don’t think we should take these other claims terribly seriously.\u201d
As it stands, the understanding of humanity\u2019s arrival in the Americas has been upended, once again, by Monte Verde.
America\u2019s first people might have arrived 13,000 years ago or over 24,000 years ago. Archaeologists worldwide will be arguing over Surovell\u2019s findings at Monte Verde for years, but as long as they\u2019re channeling their opposition into solid research, that\u2019s a win for Surovell.
\u201cThe debate continues, but it’s a much broader debate than it was yesterday,\u201d he said.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/em>
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Andrew Rossi\u00a0is a features reporter for Cowboy State Daily based in northwest Wyoming. He covers everything from horrible weather and giant pumpkins to dinosaurs, astronomy, and the eccentricities of Yellowstone National Park.
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A University of Wyoming archaeologist is the lead author on\u00a0a new paper\u00a0that has potentially upended what we know about the history of humanity in the Americas. The evidence pushes back the arrival of humans in the Americas by thousands of years.March 29, 202614 min readA University of Wyoming archaeologist is the lead author on\u00a0a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}