Stone tools and other artifacts have revealed the presence of hunter-gatherers at about 14,700 feet above sea level,... (Associated Press) 
 
 This undated image provided by journal Science shows Sonia Zarriollo during an excavation at Cuncaicha rock shelter in the Peruvian Andes. "Bands of hunter-gatherers are small and not many could fit into the rock shelter, perhaps just a few families," said University of Maine archaeologist Dan Sandweiss, another of the researchers. They lived there nearly 1,000 years earlier than any other known human habitation anywhere above even 13,000 feet, researchers report. "I can't say why people first went there," said Rademaker, an author of a report released Thursday by Science. "Whatever reason they initially went up there, there were reasons to stay despite the challenges." Among the bogs, wetlands and grasslands of the treeless plateau, the ancient people found plentiful deer and wild ancestors of llamas and alpacas to hunt for food and clothing between 12,000 and 12,500 years ago. The tools included spear points, scrapers for working animal hides and implements for cutting and butchering. Stone tools and other artifacts have revealed... (Associated Press) 
 
 Now, their stone tools and other artifacts have revealed their presence at about 14,700 feet above sea level, about as high as the Matterhorn and much higher than Machu Picchu. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
– Archaeologists who found ancient settlements high up in the Peruvian Andes were surprised to learn that humans were there between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago. At nearly 3 miles above sea level, that makes them the "world's highest known Ice Age settlements," in the words of Reuters. It also means that humans got to these sites in the Pucuncho Basin about 2,000 years earlier than thought, reports National Geographic. Researchers found tools and animal bones in the rock alcoves, along with artwork on the walls and soot on the ceiling from fires. "What this tells us is that hunter-gatherers were capable of colonizing a very extreme environment, the high Andes, despite the challenges at the end of the Ice Age," says an archaeologist from Germany's University of Tübingen who led the study published in Science. One theory is that these first inhabitants braved the cold temperatures and thin air because of the abundance of llamas and alpacas for hunting. They also would have found deposits of obsidian to make their stone tools, reports AP. (In another archaeological find, researchers discovered a missing sphinx head inside a Greece tomb.)