Eve of Naharon facts for kids
Eve of Naharon (which means Eva de Naharon in Spanish) is the skeleton of a young woman. She was about 20 to 25 years old when she died. Her bones were found in an underwater cave system in Mexico, near the town of Tulum. This cave system is called Sistema Naranjal, and the part where she was found is called Naharon.
Scientists used a method called carbon dating to find out how old the skeleton is. They discovered it is about 13,600 years old! This makes Eve of Naharon one of the oldest human skeletons ever found in the Americas. Other skeletons found in the same cave are also very old, between 11,000 and 14,000 years old. While carbon dating can sometimes be tricky, other tests like uranium–thorium dating have shown similar results, confirming her ancient age.
Finding Eve of Naharon
The bones of Eve of Naharon were found by Octavio del Río in the year 2000. He was exploring the Naharon cenote, which is a natural pit or sinkhole filled with water. He reported his discovery to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico.
This discovery was part of a big project to explore and list all the cenotes and caves in the Quintana Roo area of Mexico. Later, this project grew into a larger map of all known cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula. Arturo González, who was a lead archaeologist on the project, said that finding these ancient remains made scientists wonder how the first people arrived in the Americas. His team spent four years carefully digging up the bones.
Why Eve of Naharon is Important
Eve of Naharon's skeleton is very important for understanding how the first people came to the Americas. Arturo González, the lead archaeologist, noticed something special about her bones. Her bone structure looks more like people from Southern Asia than from Northern Asia.
This is a big deal because many scientists believed that the first people in the Americas came from Northern Asia. They thought these early people crossed a land bridge that used to connect Asia and North America. This land bridge is now underwater. Eve of Naharon's bones suggest that perhaps people came from different parts of Asia, or even by different routes, like in canoes along the coast.
Scientists think that the first people started arriving in the Americas from Asia during the Stone Age (called the Paleolithic period). They might have kept coming until about 10,000 BCE. Around that time, melting glaciers caused the land bridge to disappear under the sea, which then separated the American continents from the rest of the world.
The Bering Strait Theory
The Bering Strait theory is a popular idea about how the first people arrived in the Americas. According to this theory, people from Northeast Asia crossed a land or ice bridge. This bridge was located where the Bering Strait is today, between Russia and Alaska. This crossing likely happened during the last Ice Age, when much of the world's water was frozen in glaciers, causing sea levels to drop and reveal the land bridge.
See also
In Spanish: Mujer de Naharon para niños
