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First Americans arrived 6,000 years earlier than believed and survived the ICE AGE

Stone tools and pit fires found at early human site in southern Chile
It suggests humans arrived in America 6,000 years earlier than believed
Burned animal bones from large mammals were also near the fire pits
Archaeologists say the people may travelled over the Andes to get there

Published: 14:24 EST, 18 November 2015 | Updated: 15:33 EST, 18 November 2015

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It was a time when much of North and South America were blanketed in thick sheets of ice, yet it seems the first human settlers were able to survive in the harsh Ice Age conditions.

Archaeologists have found evidence that suggests early human settlers were living in the Americas up to 19,000 years ago – around 6,000 years earlier than had been previously thought.

Stone tools, fire pits, the remains of cooked animals and plants have been discovered at a site in southern Chile which suggest humans have been living there for some time.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence that humans were living in South America up to 19,000 years ago - at least 6,000 years earlier than had been previously thought. Stone tools (pictured) quite different from those made by early Palaeo-Indians were discovered at a site close of Puerto Montt in Southern Chile

Radiocarbon dating suggests the objects range in date between 14,000 and 19,000 years ago, suggesting these early settlers were living on the continent long before the first Palaeo-Indians were thought to have arrived.

For the past 40 years it has been assumed that the first people to arrive in the Americas were hunters who crossed a land bridge from Asia to North America around 12,000-13,000 years ago.

WERE THE FIRST AMERICANS ACTUALLY ABORIGINES?

A recent genetic study is threatening to transform theories about who the original Native Americans were after finding certain tribes in the Amazon are related to Aborigines in Australia.

The findings suggest America may have actually experienced multiple waves of migration thousands of years ago, rather than just one that spread down through the continent from the north.

Researchers found people belonging to the Suruí, Karitiana and Xavante peoples in the Amazon are more closely related to indigenous populations in Australasia than any other modern group.

Australian Aborigines, together with indigenous populations in New Guinea and the Andaman Islands, are thought to be descended from one of the earliest groups of modern humans to migrate out of Africa around 60,000 years ago.

They are thought to have been a sea faring people who were able to hop between the islands that extend from Asia to Australia.

The new findings suggest their descendants may have ranged far further and could have crossed the vast ocean expanse between Australia and south America.

However, the researchers say they could have also travelled across ice sheets to the north.

These early humans are known as the Clovis culture and were distinguished by the finely made fluted stone points they made for their weapons.

However, at Monte Verde, close to Puerto Montt in Southern Chile, Professor Tom Dillehay, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee, discovered a completely different type of stone tool technology.

Made by working on only one side of the stone rather than both, the tools appear to have been created by a group of people who were not part of the Clovis culture.

Professor Dillehay said: 'We began to find what appeared to be small features--little heating pits, cooking pits associated with burned and unburned bone.

'There were some stone tools scattered very widely across an area about 500 meters long by about 30 or 40 meters wide.'

Professor Dillehay and his colleagues, whose work is published in the journal Public Library of Science One, discovered a total of 39 stone tools and 12 small fire pits.

Many of the pits had bones and the remains of edible plants such as nuts and grasses around them.

The bones, which were often from large animals like prehistoric llamas, deer, horses or mastodons, tended to be broken into fragments and scorched, indicating the animals had been cooked.

However, Professor Dillehay said some of the tools they discovered appeared to be made with stone that was not local to the area, suggesting they had been carried from elsewhere.

This suggests the bands of humans who had lived there may have been travelling through the region.

Some of the stone tools discovered, like the sharpened piece of serpentine pictured, were not local materials at the site but were carried there by the people who inhabited the area. Radiocarbon dating has suggested the stone was made around 17,000-19,000 years ago.

The stone tools and fire pits left by these early human inhabitants in South America were discovered by archaeologists excavating a site called Monte Verde, close to Puerto Montt in southern Chile (illustrated)

He said: 'A significant percentage, about 34 percent, were from non-local materials.

'Most of them probably come from the coast but some of them probably come from the Andes and maybe even the other side of the Andes.

'Where they're going, we don't know, and where they're coming from, we don't know, but this would have been a passageway from the coast to the foothills of the Andes.'

During the last ice age much of North America and a large part of South America were locked in ice. The Monte Verde site itself is thought to have sat at the foot of a large glacier.

It is possible that as the climate warmed, the early human settlers were able to begin moving through the region.

Professor Dillehay said: 'It appears that these people were there in the summer months.

The site where the excavation was conducted (pictured) would have sat close to the foot of a glacier towards the end of the last ice age. Archaeologists found the remains of pit fires with scorched animal bones and the remains of plants around them, suggesting they had been used for cooking

Archaeologists had assumed the first Americans were hunters who travelled over a land bridge between Asia and North America towards at the end of the last ice age around 12,000-13,000 years ago. These early Palaeo-Indians (illustrated) may have been preceeded by another group who lived in South America

'Each one of these [burned] features and the bones and stones associated with them is embedded in thin, oxidized tephra.'

Tephra is a geological layer formed by airborne ash particles from nearby volcanoes that only form in rainy warmer temperatures.

However, Professor Dillehay said that while the glaciers had begun to retreat by 19,000 to 17,000 years ago, these people would have had to fight for their survival.

He said: 'We're looking at people living in some really cold, harsh areas, even in the summer months.'