A&M, Baylor find changes idea of how America was populated

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Two Texas universities studying ancient spear tips found in northwest Alaska have raised intriguing questions about how people spread throughout the Americas.

A research team led by Texas A&M University Professor Ted Goebel has been analyzing "fluted," or grooved, stone spear points discovered in 2005 at Bering Land Bridge Preserve on the Seward Peninsula.

Archaeologists with the National Park Service, who are also participating in the study, found a fluted spear tip fragment in an area called Serpentine Hot Springs, according to an A&M news release.

Goebel and the team later excavated the site and found more fluted spear tips, which are recognized as a hallmark of North American Paleoindian cultures, the release said.

Carbon-dating of charred animal bones as well as charcoal found with the spear tips proves humans were on the land bridge by the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago, Goebel said.

"So the question becomes, 'Who were these people, and where did they come from?' " Goebel said. [...] chron.com/