Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in southeastern Oregon, where the 18,000-year-old teeth and tools were unearthed.Image credit: Greg Shine/BLM; (CC BY 2.0)
Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in southeastern Oregon, where the 18,000-year-old teeth and tools were unearthed.Image credit: Greg Shine/BLM; (CC BY 2.0)
From their actions the last couple of years in Portland, I’d say they regressed.
I’ve filled about that many sandbags myself.
All we find are rhyolite. d:^)
Camel teeth? In North America 15,000 years ago?
Were there any native camels in North America at the time?
They still vote.
THE SURPRISING HISTORY OF CAMELS IN NORTH AMERICABy Anna Harnes
February 4, 2023
From the "Grunge" website.Though the idea of camels generally conjures scenes from Arabian caravans or an oasis in the desert, camels once roamed across the Americas, just as they do in Africa and Asia. While there aren't any more of these majestic creatures in the wilds of North America today, they have a fascinating history on the continent.
Many natural historians believe that camels actually originated in North America. According to Interesting Engineering, it is currently believed that camels roamed North America an eye-watering 40 million to 50 million years ago. That means that camels were around for as much as 48 million years before the first human ever existed (per History).
Those same scientists have estimated that it wasn't until 3 million years ago that camels made their way across the Bering Strait via the land bridge that once connected Alaska to Russia. It was this migration that brought camels to Asia and Northern Africa, the two places perhaps most associated with the majestic animals today.
What is even more extraordinary is that recent discoveries have suggested that camels weren't just relegated to one area of North America — they spread all over vastly different terrains. For example, construction workers building a freeway in San Diego unearthed camel fossils in 2020, per The San Diego Union-Tribune. The fossils have since been dated to be around 15 million years old and suggest that the animals once happily lived in the area now claimed by the popular California city.
Camel fossils have also been found in what is almost the total opposite terrain from San Diego. In 2006, archaeologists found a camel skeleton on Canada's Ellesmere Island, located in the northernmost part of Canada and neighboring Greenland. As part of the arctic archipelago ring, the geography of Ellesmere Island can be described as snowy and mountainous with a jagged coastline. Many refer to the terrain on the island as the "horizontal Himalayas," according to The New World Encyclopedia. That said, the fossils showed that the camel was a whopping nine feet tall, so it remains unknown exactly how this species had adapted to survive in the vastly different land type.
Sadly, exact details surrounding the specific biology of the North American camel remain somewhat a mystery, as the animals died out around 11,000 years ago. This corresponds to when humans first made their way to the Americas, suggesting that perhaps they were hunted into extinction, not unlike the fate that almost befell the American bison in the late 19th century. Experts have estimated that around one-eighth of some early Native American diets consisted of camel meat, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
That said, some scientists have suggested that the mammals died out less because of human overkill, but because of geological changes that occurred when the planet adjusted from a glacial climate to an interglacial one, per The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Whatever the reason, the camel was not able to survive.
However, that doesn't mean that remnants of the camel and its history haven't made their mark on the Americas. According to National Geographic, llamas, alpacas, guanacos, and vicuñas of South America were all descended from the camel. Moreover, camels were to have a small resurgence in North America later in history — but for a different reason entirely.
Camel teeth in Oregon? I didn’t know AOC relatives came from that area?
He thinks that maybe next year he'll be guessing people's weight, or barking for the Yak woman.
Stolen land! Give it back!
Those aren’t camel bones.
They are kangaroo bones.
Ancient Americans had domesticated kangaroos.
They used them to hunt grouse.
They need reparations from who took their land!!
Not too many humans left in Oregon...mostly democrats.
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.Just wondering, did they do any rioting or looting? If not, they were more civilized than Oregon’s liberals.
Did their new find look anything like Kennewick man?
The crap on the streets was the dead giveaway...
#1 One day archaeologists will dig there and discover an outline of what appears to be a sandbags.
They will A) think it a religious site and B) think it was built to defend the inhabitants against their enemies.
I took archaeology as an elective for my Associates Degree in Oregon. The Professor was a very entertaining guy and was very blunt in talking about the reality of archaeology in Oregon. He stated point blank that, “there is no way of knowing when humans first inhabited North America, because all of their first settlements are under the ocean. During the ice ages they followed the coastline. That’s all well under the ocean now. During that class I think I remember the oldest artifact in Oregon was a woven grass sandal from 14,000 years ago near Fort Rock. The class was from nearly 30 years ago so excuse my memory if I got that wrong.
