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How the discovery of an ancient mastodon ignited debate over humans’ arrival in North America
LA TIMES ^ | Dec. 22, 2017 | Thomas Curwen

Posted on 12/22/2017 10:34:31 AM PST by PIF

Accidental find that could revolutionize North America Archeology


"Jim Paces, a geochronologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, took dozens of slices from a rib and two femurs. Each slice, no wider than a millimeter, was dissolved in nitric acid.

"The resulting solution contained trace amounts of uranium and thorium, which Paces extracted. After measuring those concentrates in a mass spectrometer, Paces concluded that the bones were 130,700 years old, plus or minus 9,400 years."


"The conclusion seemed clear: Hominids, wandering through Southern California, had found a mastodon carcass and gone to work. They hauled cobblestones to the site and pounded the bones, cut out the marrow for food and broke off splinters for tools."

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Education; History; Society
KEYWORDS: dna; mastadon; pleistocene
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Very interesting - no one knows who these people were - choices for that period are Neanderthal, Denisovan, Home Sapiens.
1 posted on 12/22/2017 10:34:31 AM PST by PIF
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To: PIF

The indigenous peoples lived peacefully with the mastodons, until the Europeans arrived and hunted the mastodons out of existence.


2 posted on 12/22/2017 10:37:15 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: PIF

They we’re obviously in soCal illegally


3 posted on 12/22/2017 10:38:40 AM PST by morphing libertarian (Build Kate's Wall)
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To: BenLurkin

Of course. Everything is the fault of white people of European descent.


4 posted on 12/22/2017 10:41:03 AM PST by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
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To: BenLurkin

Of course. Everything is the fault of white people of European descent.


5 posted on 12/22/2017 10:41:25 AM PST by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
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To: BenLurkin

Very true.

Often times the Indians would invite the mastodons over for some coffee and cake and to play some cards.


6 posted on 12/22/2017 10:41:34 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

and they would pack their trunks and stay over


7 posted on 12/22/2017 10:44:48 AM PST by morphing libertarian (Build Kate's Wall)
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To: BenLurkin

Same with the estimated 40,000 000 buffalo. But we never see the piles of bones from those.


8 posted on 12/22/2017 10:44:53 AM PST by shotgun
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To: PIF

See! see! again more examples of Neanderthal genocide by the hated Cro-Magnon oppressors!


9 posted on 12/22/2017 10:46:21 AM PST by Reily
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To: PIF

Add Homo erectus. They survived in Asia maybe as recently as 25Kya. I think a case can be made for them in the America’s.


10 posted on 12/22/2017 10:47:35 AM PST by Varda (Liberalism IS hate)
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To: Varda
That's Homo Erectus on the right...
11 posted on 12/22/2017 10:49:10 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: PIF

Hippies.

Dirty, filthy, stinking hippies eating roadkill and making jewelry out of dead possums.


12 posted on 12/22/2017 10:49:58 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: morphing libertarian

Sometimes, it was like they were never going to leave.

“Dang It! Who ate the last piece of cake?”

“It was Mike Mastadon.”

“When is that freeloader going to leave? He’s really stretched out my pajamas.”


13 posted on 12/22/2017 10:54:14 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: PIF

I do not find the evidence convincing.

It is clearly a fragmentary bit of mastodon. No skull to go with the tusks, much of the skeleton smashed.

So something smashed and separated the skeleton. There are many possibilities.

I recall a very similar analysis by Robert Audrey, in African Genesis. Eventually it came out that all could be explained by leopards preying on early hominids and stashing the carcasses in a tree that overhung a cave mouth (which would be a very popular site for ancient leopards).

Imagine a big tree with broken limbs, caught in a flood and smashing up and down on a bit of mastodon carcass, for example.


14 posted on 12/22/2017 10:58:11 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: shotgun
Same with the estimated 40,000 000 buffalo. But we never see the piles of bones from those.

Buffalo bones were gathered up and sold. They were shipped east where they were put to various uses.

15 posted on 12/22/2017 10:58:18 AM PST by Wissa ("Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult." - Michael Corleone)
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To: PIF

Obama says they were Muslims


16 posted on 12/22/2017 10:59:22 AM PST by faithhopecharity (“Politicians aren’t born, they’re excreted.” - Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: BenLurkin

I thought I could get through the day without seeing a picture of that faggot. Thanks, man.


17 posted on 12/22/2017 11:05:17 AM PST by Salvavida (The Missouri citizen's militia sends its regards.)
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To: blam

For your review!


18 posted on 12/22/2017 11:08:18 AM PST by Alas Babylon! (Keep fighting the Left and their Fake News!)
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To: marktwain

Imagine that your mechanism pushed a mastodon tusk many feet absolutely straight down into the ground ... One of the possibilities are the man-made round stones found with the bones, and that the one inch thick bones had the marrow removed by use of said stones. That’s just the neighborhood smilodon, you say? Using tools ... clever cats, eh?

Whether you are convinced or not, it seems that many of those with credentials, who have actually looked and studied this find over the years, do no dismiss this find out of hand as you have sight unseen.


19 posted on 12/22/2017 11:08:34 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: PIF

So? We finally found that America was found before Columbus? Who knew? (LOL)


20 posted on 12/22/2017 11:09:09 AM PST by Bringbackthedraft (Damn, the tag line disappeared again? Coursors!)
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