Old, cold and bold: Ice Age people dwelled high in Peru's Andes
Old, cold and bold: Ice Age people dwelled high in Peru's Andes
Source: Reuters - Thu, 23 Oct 2014 18:00 GMT
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - In a bleak, treeless landscape high in the southern Peruvian Andes, bands of intrepid Ice Age people hunkered down in rudimentary dwellings and withstood frigid weather, thin air and other hardships.
Scientists on Thursday described the world's highest known Ice Age settlements, two archaeological sites about 2.8 miles (4.5 km) above sea level and about 12,000 years old packed with artifacts including a rock shelter, stone tools, animal bones, food remnants and primitive artwork.
"What this tells us is that hunter-gatherers were capable of colonizing a very extreme environment, the high Andes, despite the challenges at the end of the Ice Age," said archaeologist Kurt Rademaker of Germany's University of Tübingen, who led the study published in the journal Science.
"And they did so quite successfully. It pushes back the date of initial entry of humans to this kind of elevation."
More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20141023175918-b8003/
