ABOVE: Excavation site at Cooper’s Ferry in 2018
LOREN DAVIS, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Charcoal and animal bones found alongside tools and other artifacts at a dig site in Cooper’s Ferry in western Idaho date back 15,000 to 16,000 years—the oldest radiocarbon-dated record of humans in North America, according to a study published today (August 29) in Science. The discovery supports the idea that the first people who lived on the continent didn’t come by a land bridge from Siberia given that the ice-free route wouldn’t open for another roughly 1,000 years. Instead, the authors write in their report, their finding “supports the hypothesis that initial human migration into the Americas occurred via a Pacific coastal route.”
Although it’s not along the coast, Cooper’s Ferry is reachable by the Columbia River and its tributaries. “Early peoples moving south along the Pacific coast would have encountered the Columbia River as the first place ...
