18,000-Year-Old Oregon Rock Shelter Is Earliest Known Site of Human Habitation in North America, According to New Discovery

Artifacts found at Rimrock Draw Rockshelter. Image credit: BLM Oregon & Washington
“It’s not so much that we have such old dates, but that we’re getting consistent results,” O’Grady said. “This site is beautiful in that sense because … for the past 11 years, we’re actually seeing something that’s preserved through time that dates from about 7,000 years back to 18,000 years. And that’s magic.”

One of the most remarkable finds was a fragment of a camel tooth, which was found under a layer of volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount St. Helens that occurred about 15,000 years ago. Camels are extinct in North America, but they used to roam the continent during the Pleistocene epoch, along with other megafauna like mammoths and mastodons.