Was the enigmatic Clovis culture swept by a cause of extraterrestrial origin?

The abundant presence of platinum found in the area could indicate that the old Clovis culture disappeared from North America after the impact of an asteroid, scientists say.

Archaeologists at the University of South Carolina claim to have the answer to the mysterious disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, which inhabited North America 12,800 years ago. After discovering platinum remains in sedimentary sequences from the area dating back to the early Dryas period, the researchers conclude that this "anomaly" could indicate that it was the impact of an extraterrestrial object that ended the Clovis culture and a series of Species of great animals that inhabited the planet at that time. Their study has been published in the Nature portal .

The remains of platinum, an element associated with space objects such as asteroids, found in large quantities in 11 US sites. (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina), could indicate that a major impact of a cosmic object against the Earth occurred in the recent Dryas climatic cooling period, which coincides with the end Of this mysterious prehistoric culture, explain the scientists. The authors of the study say that the results of their research are "consistent" with previous similar discoveries of platinum remains found in Greenland in 2013. Scientists also note that their findings "do not contradict" the so-called " Comet Clovis "on the astronomical impact of an object coming from outer space that hit the Earth. However, researchers admit that "detailed evidence of this impact or explosion is beyond the scope of this study."

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