A wooden tool (pictured) dating back to the Ice Age was found by researchers excavating one of the oldest human settlements ever found in North America

The 14,000-year-old village was found on Triquet Island 310 miles (500km) northwest of Victoria, Canada.

The discovery is three times older than Egypt's pyramids.

A researcher excavates the ancient site. Artefacts unearthed include tools for creating fires and fishing hooks and spears dating from the Ice Age

Artefacts unearthed include tools for creating fires and fishing hooks and spears dating from the Ice Age.

The discovery could shed more light on how civilisation began in North America, CTV Vancouver Island News reports.

Alisha Gauvreau, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Victoria and a researcher at the Hakai Institute, helped make the discovery.

The 14,000-year-old village was found on Triquet Island (pictured). The discovery is three times older than Egypt's pyramids

She said: 'I remember when we get the dates back and we just kind of sat there going, holy moly, this is old. 

'What this is doing is just changing our idea of the way in which North America was first peopled.'

The main theory is that the first people to live in America traversed a long-vanished land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska over the Bering Strait.

Another theory suggests people arrived on the coast, rather than a land corridor through the Rocky Mountains as many had believed.

Some researchers believe that earlier settlers may have have used a Pacific coastal route to reach the present-day US.

By examining DNA evidence from thousands of steppe bison fossils, geneticists from the University of California, Santa Cruz were able to plot movements of these beasts – and with it the people who hunted them.

New evidence shows that two great ice masses – the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheet – merged into a single unit around 21,000 years ago, closing the corridor much earlier than previously thought. 

The earliest evidence of human occupation dates to about 15,000 years ago, while this research shows that the corridor was not fully open until about 13,000 years ago. 

Gauvreau claims that their latest find backs up that idea. 

The discovery was made on Triquet Island, which is 310 miles (500km) northwest of Victoria, Canada

Oral accounts of the Heiltsuk Nation, a First Nations government in British Columbia, also back up the theory.

The oral traditions passed down stories of ancient coastal villages between generations.

William Housty, from the Heiltsuk Nation, told the Independent: 'To think about how these stories survived all of that, only to be supported by this archaeological evidence is just amazing'

 

 

According to dailymail.co.uk

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