Posted on 09/24/2006 7:40:16 PM PDT by blam
Ancient Bones Belonged to a Man -- Probably
By Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writer
September 11, 2006
By the time you reach 13,000 or so, you'd figure that the people closest to you would know some fundamental personal details like your sex.
But consider the plight of the oldest person yet found in North America.
All that remains of him or is it her? are a couple of thigh bones, which were discovered on Santa Rosa Island in 1959. At the time, scientists thought they belonged to a man of a certain age perhaps 10,000.
The bones of the person they named Arlington Springs Man were stored away at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, only to be reexamined with new techniques four decades later.
Seen in a new light, the age of the bones soared by 3,000 years. And oh, yes Arlington Springs Man, it seemed, really was Arlington Springs Woman.
The new name stuck until last week when Arlington Springs Woman again became Arlington Springs Man.
"Yes, we've had a gender change here," John Johnson, the museum's director of anthropology ruefully acknowledged, anticipating a barrage of bad one-liners on late-night TV.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"scientists thought they belonged to a man of a certain age perhaps 10,000."
LOL!
Posted back in 2002.
'Arlington Springs Woman,' 13,000 Years Old Human Skeleton, California Island
LOL!
To quote a pretty well-known movie, "Laugh it up, fuzzball!"
Do you have a better opinion? Or are you just blowin' smoke?
Dude looks like a lady to me.
Post it the first time you're a wit.
The second time, a half-wit. Arithmetric progression from there, eh?
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When did my husband become an anthropology director. I'm going to have to talk him about that.
I love it when a "theory" is debunked.
Its not a theory. It is a data point, or a fact.
These kinds of determinations are difficult to make, and they are dealing with only a small amount of evidence, and its about 13,400 years old!
Cut 'em some slack.
LOL...... ok
Thing is, they make such "positive" statements when they find a few bones. It actually makes me mad that they think their "theory" of what the bones represent is correct.
I used to get an archeology magazine, forget what it was called. One time they had a picture of tiles they uncovered. I saw a completely different picture than they did. Thing is, what I saw was right and they were wrong.
I love archeology. I love the finds of the ancient cultures. I love the discovery of bones 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 etc years old.
Almost forgot. While were collecting rocks to make a rock wall and garden I ran across a rock in the shape of a "turd", a very large "turd", my theory is it was from a Mastodon but I could be mistaken, it could be from a dinosaur of some sort but I like the Mastodon theory personally.
A lot of that is the press. I've been doing archaeology for 35 years, and what the press can do with a simple, clear statement is unreal.
One thing I started doing for TV interviews is figure out what I wanted to say, and then to answer most any question with what I wanted to say no matter what the question was. That sometimes worked.
Working with old bones, when they are fragmentary, is difficult. Nobody I know will make too definitive a statement without having some good reason. But when the media gets in to it, all bets are off.
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