"Tepexpan Man" or the demise of an old New World (Mexican) controversy.

All:
Here is the sad story of a poor fellow who not only died at a young age but also died late.

You cou can read the press story here: <http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=478 >, and here are the journal's title and abstract:

Angela L. Lamb, Silvia Gonzalez, David Huddart, Sarah E. Metcalfe, Christopher H. Vane, Alistair W.G. Pike. Tepexpan Palaeoindian site, Basin of Mexico: multi-proxy evidence for environmental change during the late Pleistocene–late Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews xxx (2009) 1-17.

" The Tepexpan Palaeoindian skeleton was discovered in 1947 close to the former Lake Texcoco margin, in
the Basin of Mexico. The find has been the object of considerable interest and discussion over the last
60 years regarding its real age and archaeological interpretation. Here we report new AMS radiocarbon
dates associated with the sedimentary succession at Tepexpan with ages between 19,110 90 and
612 22 14C years BP and a new uranium-series date for the skeleton with an age of 4700 200 years BP
that indicates a mid Holocene age. The sedimentary succession was studied in detail using: stable
isotopes, diatoms, organic geochemistry and tephrochronology. The multi-proxy evidence suggests large
changes around the margins of Lake Texcoco in terms of the balance between aquatic and terrestrial
plants, C3 and C4 plants, saline, alkaline and freshwater conditions, volcanic activity, marginal reworking
of lake sediments and input from the drainage basin through the late Pleistocene–late Holocene. These
changes had large impacts on the prehistoric human populations living by the lake shores since the late
Pleistocene in the Basin of Mexico."

Not much to say about this except that the news must have been a very pleasant one to the north of the Mexican border Clovis First hardliners. But wait for the next story ...

Jacques