Comment on UNM scientists document late Pleistocene/early Holocene Mesoamerican stone tool tradition by Belize The Cradle of Civilisation? New Discoveries Unearth Interesting Facts About Our Earliest Settlers

As the ice age ended across the New World people adapted more generalized stone tools to exploit changing environments and resources. In the Neotropics these changes would have been pronounced as patchy forests and grasslands gave way to broadleaf tropical forests. In new research published recently in PLOS One titled Linking late Paleoindian stone tool technologies and populations in North, Central and South America, scientists from The University of NewMexico led a study in Belize to document the very earliest indigenous stone tool tradition in southern Mesoamerica. “We have identified and established an absolute chronology for the earliest stone tool types that are indigenous to Central America,” said Prufer. Previously designated, these artifacts share multiple features with contemporary North and South American Paleoindian tool types.