The Peopling of the Americas [30min]

The Americas represented a New World not only to Christopher Columbus but also to his Stone Age predecessors, the first humans to colonise the continent. Until a few years ago, the story seemed clear: native Americans are descended from people who crossed from Siberia at the end of the last ice age, when melting ice opened a route 11 or 12,000 years ago. But there is an increasing body of evidence to show that there were people there before that time, reaching South America 12,500 years ago and possibly much earlier. Now, there is a sensational claim from Mexico where Silvia Gonzalez from Liverpool John Moores University and colleagues have found what they claim are human footprints 40,000 years old! This is controversial research in a highly competitive field and already critics from the United States are saying that the volcanic rocks in which the prints lie are 1.3 million years old, meaning that the traces could not possibly be from human feet. Aubrey Manning travels to the site amid the volcanoes of central Mexico to see the evidence for himself and hear the claims and counterclaims of rival research teams. He finds a mystery that is not going to be easily explained away.