The controversies over the First Americans continue to rage unabated, with little fresh archaeological evidence to nourish the flames, until the feces from Oregon came along. At last something new!

Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon, explored the Paisley Caves in the Cascade Mountains in 2002 and 2003. He recovered a scattering of human coprolites, which preserved 14,000 year-old human protein and DNA. Six feces samples contained genetic material associated with native Americans and no other groups. Mitochondrial DNA from the coprolites links the people who visited the cave to two genetic groups of native Americans who arose between 14,000 and 18,000 years ago.

Unfortunately the scatter of coprolites were not associated with any artifacts or food remains, but if they are indeed human and the dates are reliable, then we have more clear evidence that humans entered the Americas before the Clovis occupation of some millennia later. This is interesting confirmation for a slowly accumulating but scanty body of archaeological evidence that places the first settlement of the Americas to at least as early as 14,000 years ago. Like all these things, more research is needed. But if this find is what they think it is, then a brief stop at cave in the Cascades was a momentous event for archaeology, indeed world history.