12,000-Year-Old Bones Found in Kansas posted by Ben

12,000-Year-Old Bones Found in Kansas - AP

There has been considerable discussion over the years about when exactly humans crossed a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska. The general scientific consensus, if there is one, is that the migration happened rather later than earlier. The discovery of these signs of human habitation in Kansas may throw a number of theories into disarray. It will be fascinating to see how the scientific community absorbs and analyzes these discoveries!

Archaeological geologist Rolfe Mandel of the Kansas Geological Survey said carbon-14 dating completed last week shows the bones are between 12,200 and 12,300 years old, which could mean humans lived on the Great Plains 1,300 years earlier than previously thought.

Conventional wisdom has been that people came across the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago. But Mandel said the northwest Kansas dig means "we're rethinking not only when people arrived, but where they came from."

That "where they came from" line, of course, is the biggest potential shocker. The whole article is definitely worth a read!