The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Avella, Pennsylvania. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Humans in Pennsylvania 19,000 Years Ago

Witness History Rewritten at Meadowcroft Rockshelter

Recently, 21- to 23-thousand-year-old footprints discovered in New Mexico reignited the dogmatic debate in archaeology over when the first humans arrived in North America. (See Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586).

Evidence overturning traditional theories has been piling up for about fifty years. But some old archaeologists stubbornly cling to earlier interpretations with a viciousness leading a New York Times article on their stance and practices to be titled “Archaeology As Blood Sport”.

Main Entrance at Meadowcroft Rockshelter historic site — oddly enough, up the road from the rockshelter itself. Photo by Mike Luoma.

Which may be why this site of an amazing discovery — the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Avella, in southwestern Pennsylvania near the Ohio border, about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh — isn’t as well-known as it perhaps should be, even though it’s open to the public, for you to see for yourself.

The site is preserved as it was left after Dr. James Adavasio and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh conducted their main dig here in the 1970s.