Posted on 06/21/2011 11:16:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Florida have announced the discovery of a bone fragment, approximately 13,000 years old, in Florida with an incised image of a mammoth or mastodon. This engraving is the oldest and only known example of Ice Age art to depict a proboscidean (the order of animals with trunks) in the Americas. The team's research is published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The bone was discovered in Vero Beach, Fla. by James Kennedy, an avocational fossil hunter, who collected the bone and later while cleaning the bone, discovered the engraving. Recognizing its potential importance, Kennedy contacted scientists at the University of Florida and the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute and National Museum of Natural History.
"This is an incredibly exciting discovery," said Dennis Stanford, anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and co-author of this research. "There are hundreds of depictions of proboscideans on cave walls and carved into bones in Europe, but none from America—until now."
The engraving is 3 inches long from the top of the head to the tip of the tail, and 1.75 inches tall from the top of the head to the bottom of the right foreleg. The fossil bone is a fragment from a long bone of a large mammal—most likely either a mammoth or mastodon, or less likely a giant sloth. A precise identification was not possible because of the bone's fragmented condition and lack of diagnostic features.
"The results of this investigation are an excellent example of the value of interdisciplinary research and cooperation among scientists," said Barbara Purdy, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Florida and lead author of the team's research. "There was considerable skepticism expressed about the authenticity of the incising on the bone until it was examined exhaustively by archaeologists, paleontologists, forensic anthropologists, materials science engineers and artists."
One of the main goals for the research team was to investigate the timing of the engraving—was it ancient or was it recently engraved to mimic an example of prehistoric art? It was originally found near a location, known as the Old Vero Site, where human bones were found side-by-side with the bones of extinct Ice Age animals in an excavation from 1913 to 1916. The team examined the elemental composition of the engraved bone and others from the Old Vero Site. They also used optical and electron microscopy, which showed no discontinuity in coloration between the carved grooves and the surrounding material. This indicated that both surfaces aged simultaneously and that the edges of the carving were worn and showed no signs of being carved recently or that the grooves were made with metal tools.
Believed to be genuine, this rare specimen provides evidence that people living in the Americas during the last Ice Age created artistic images of the animals they hunted. The engraving is at least 13,000 years old as this is the date for the last appearance of these animals in eastern North America, and more recent Pre-Columbian people would not have seen a mammoth or mastodon to draw.
The team's research also further validates the findings of geologist Elias Howard Sellards at the Old Vero Site in the early 20th Century. His claims that people were in North America and hunted animals at Vero Beach during the last Ice Age have been disputed over the past 95 years.
A cast of the carved fossil bone is now part of an exhibit of Florida Mammoth and Mastodons at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
Does it make a lot of sense that only one object was carved into the bone??
And, given the date, it looks to have been done just before the beginning of the Younger Dryas. Probably wouldn’t have had time to get wear marks.
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approximately 13,000 years oldHey, it's been a little while...
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
You’re pretty hard on de Bivar tonight.
Many Spanish grandees had interests in the Spanish Netherlands as you recall ~ and some relocated there. In Fact, Philip II actually lived in Brussels and only when he got older and felt the cold did he move to Spain.
You are giving me far too much credit here. de Bivar = the Beaver.
"Ward, you were awfully hard on de Bivar last night."
Oh, that Beaver. Yes, entirely too shallow for me.
Early Impressionism?
oh that is stunning!
“Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.”
Given where it was found and the good condition, it makes sense that this was buried shortly before the great boloid event outlined by Firestone, et al.
“There are hundreds of depictions of proboscideans on cave walls and carved into bones in Europe, but none from America—until now.” However, this statement is wrong and indicative of insufficient interdisciplinary communication among researchers. Gloria Farley’s book In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America shows the petroglyphs of an elephant and hippopotamus in a site called The Anubis Caves. Given various aspects of cave markings—pictures and writing found there, it is suggested that the site in or near Oklahoma could be 3,000 to 3,500 year old. The writings seem to be north African and Celtic. This age if correct could correspond to the time of the mysterious Sea People of the Mediterranean. Her book also refers to several other finds of elephant petroglyphs. The one in the Anubis caves does not have the upsloped profile of the Columbian mammoth.
Yes, it that was the only thing the artist was interested in at the time. Or he/she could have been eaten by a saber toothed tiger because they were so intensely into their art and did not notice it creeping up...............
They started smoking weeds and everything went to pot.
You are giving me far too much credit here. de Bivar = the Beaver.
“Ward, you were awfully hard on de Bivar last night.”
That is almost enough for me to change my ID to Campiador or Rodrigo.
Nah, just stay away from Ward.
One does suppose they regularly scavenged competing predators.
It was right there at Arrow Rock
That spot is at the intersection of a line drawn from the foot of Memorial bridge in DC (furthest North a Spanish galleon could sail in Chesapeake Bay's Potomac Arm), and all sorts of other points of interest on what is now US 50 ~ AND a line drawn from Arrow Rock due North through several sites of interest to some of my earliest ancestors (including the little crick that feeds Lake Itasca, Seymour Iowa and, lo and behold, Alexandria Minnesota home of the Kensington Rune Stone!
I take both lines to be Spanish survey lines for the purpose of delineating French and English boundaries (per the Treaty of London 1604 as dictated by Philip III), and baselines for the purpose of proving surveys West of the Mississippi, and from the Ohio South to the Gulf.
Several other lines surveyed by the Spanish in North America are quite long ~ these are just longer ~ and appear to have been done by different teams.
Anyway, that's where Dan Boone and his wife ended up. They left behind many other relatives along the US 50 line as it made its way through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois (including relatives they didn't even talk to anymore).
It's like Ol'Dan had a Spanish Map.
So, yeah, Compriador is OK ~ it'd still triggered the de Biber or Van Beeber name.
Now, if that's not enough, then Stune Me With A Beeber!
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