Why this mystery about the ancient Americas has sparked an explosive debate

Who were the first Americans? It's a question that archaeologists have argued over for decades—and one that National Geographic has covered for nearly as long.

In this episode of Stones & Bones, our video series covering the most fascinating finds in archaeology and paleontology, we examine the fallout from a recent study about a famous South American archaeological site called Monte Verde, which has reignited the scientific debate.

For a long time, the prevailing idea was that a group of Ice Age hunters known as the Clovis people, famous for their distinctive fluted stone spearheads, were the first Americans. These people came through a land corridor from Asia into the Americas, following big game such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison, some 13,000 years ago. 

But in the 1970s, National Geographic Explorer Tom Dillehay found the Monte Verde site in Chile, which he radiocarbon-dated to 14,500 years old—more than a thousand years older than the Clovis sites. Although it would take nearly two decades, archaeologists eventually accepted Dillehay's findings and toasted to the passing of a new paradigm in the story of the first Americans.

That is, until March of this year. As National Geographic previously reported, a new study has challenged Monte Verde's antiquity. Based on geological and stratigraphic evidence, including the discovery of an 11,000-year-old ash layer, the scientists claim that Monte Verde is only 8,200 to 4,200 years old.  

The paper set off a firestorm in the archaeological community and adds yet more fuel to the fierce debate over who were the first people into the Americas. We talked to archaeologists on both sides of this controversy: Watch the video and let us know what ancient stories we should cover next.