"People living in the earliest known settlement in the Americas harvested seaweed and other marine plants from a coastline more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, new research shows.
Scientists discovered several species of seaweed and marine algae dating back more than 14,000 years at the Monte Verde archaeological site in south-central Chile.
The findings suggest that these early Americans were beachcombers with a tradition of using coastal resources, says study lead author Tom Dillehay.
"At least some first Americans had a broad spectrum diet, because we're seeing that they exploited a wide range of resources from multiple environmental zones--terrestrial, coastal, and so forth," said Dillehay, an anthropologist at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University."
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