What Archaeologists Found in Oregon Could Change Human History Forever

In a dry cave in South Central Oregon, archaeologists pulled from the ground a fragment of material that should not have existed. It was sent away for dating. The number that came back made the entire team think the laboratory had made a mistake. They tested again with a different sample. Then they tested a third time, using a more independent cross check. The result did not change. Someone had been on American soil thousands of years earlier than textbooks had once considered possible. But Oregon was only the first crack. Over the following decades, four other discoveries, in four different states, would push the timeline farther and farther back, until it reached a number that the old models could barely explain.