Direct dates and mtDNAfrom Late Pleistocene human skeletons from South America: a comment on Chatters et al. 2014.

MENDEZ, C.; JACKSON, D.; DE SAINT PIERRE, M.; POLITIS, G.; ASPILLAGA, E.

PaleoAmerica

Routledge

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015 vol. 1 p. 213 - 216

2055-5563

In a recent paper in thejournalScience(2014, Vol.344, pp. 750?754), J. Chatters etal. present a newearly human skeleton from the Yucatan, Mexico, con-sidering itin the context of eight other early?Paleoamerican?individuals?allfrom NorthAmerica?that previously yielded ancientgenetic evi-dence and/or direct radiocarbon ages.Despite includ-ing the archaeological site of Monte Verde II, Chile, intheirdiscussion, we were alarmed that the authorsotherwise ignored the SouthAmerican record, pre-senting a map with the southern continent beingdevoid ofPaleoAmerican human remains. We felt it important to remind our colleagues thatSouthAmerica has produced numerous directly dated human skeletal remains thatare as old as the onescited by Chatters et al. for North America, and that severalof these have actually yielded mitochondrial(mt) DNA. Significant implicationscan be derived from this radiocarbon, bioanthropological, and mtDNA dataset,especially considering the antiquity of the earliest human populations andprocess of peo-pling of the New World.