Tooling around: dates show early Siberian settlement
Holden, C.
Science 275(5304): 1268
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9064782 Document Number: 470442
A report in this issue stretches human history at the edge of the Arctic close to an amazing 300,000 years ago. The evidence comes from a site in Siberia called Diring Yuriakh, which lies at 61 degrees north latitude. Geoarchaeologist Michael Waters and colleagues came up with the startlingly early dates using a technique called thermoluminescence (TL) on sediments surrounding the site's thousands of stone fragments and artifacts. If correct, the new dates could spark fresh speculation about the settlement of northern regions and even of North America, but not everyone is convinced. Although dating experts say the work looks reliable, anthropologists like Richard Klein from Stanford University are not content to rewrite human history on the basis of a single data point. Geologist and dating expert Jack Rink of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, says he would like to see the dates verified with another dating method, given the pitfalls associated with TL.