NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA—According to a report in The Siberian Times,
a figurine that appears to be wearing a feathered headdress has been
discovered at an approximately 5,000-year-old site near the Ob River in
western Siberia. Archaeologist Natalia Basova said the unusual artifact
was found along with a bird carved from bone that was probably sewn onto
clothing or worn as a pendant, and several anthropomorphic figurines,
also equipped with holes, made of mammoth tusk, sandstone, birch burl,
and an organic material that has not yet been identified. A moose
figurine, made of shale, was also recovered. The site was disturbed by
an earthquake and tsunami wave some 4,000 years ago, and by a potato
farm in the modern era.
Prehistoric teeth fossils dating back 9.7 million years 'could rewrite human history'
'This is a tremendous stroke of luck, but also a great mystery'
A canine tooth dating back 9.7 million years found in an old riverbed near Mainz Mainz Natural History Museum
Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a 9.7 million-year-old set of fossilised teeth they say could trigger the “rewriting" of human history.
The dental remains were found by scientists sifting through gravel
and sand in a former bed of the Rhine river near the town of Eppelsheim.
They resemble those belonging to “Lucy”, a 3.2 million-year-old skeleton of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia.
However, they do not resemble those of any other species found in Europe or Asia, raising questions about the “out-of-Africa” theory of human origins.
Scientists were so confused by the find they held off from publishing their research for the past year, Die Welt reports.
Herbert Lutz, director at the Mainz Natural History Museum and head of the research team, told local media:
"They are clearly ape teeth. Their characteristics resemble African
finds that are four to five million years younger than the fossils
excavated in Eppelsheim.
“This is a tremendous stroke of luck, but also a great mystery."
At a press conference announcing the discovery, the mayor of Mainz
suggested the find could force scientists to reassess the history of
early humans.
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Ancient mystery of how the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza solved
"I don't want to over-dramatise it, but I would hypothesise that we
shall have to start rewriting the history of mankind after today," he
said.
Axel von Berg, a local archaeologist, said the new findings would “amaze experts”.
With the first paper on the research to be published next week, the
“real work” to unlock the mystery is only just beginning, Dr Lutz said.
Although there is abundant fossil evidence that great apes were
roaming Europe millions of years ago, there has been no confirmed cases
of hominins – species closely related to humans – on the continent
By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press Fort
Hood has a plethora of ancient artifacts that can help teach us more
about the past, and for the rest of this month, several of those
artifacts will be on display. The Fort Hood Cultural Management Office joined Texas A&M University - Central Texas (TAMUCT) to hold their 3rd Archaeology Fair on Thursday at the TAMUCT campus in Killeen. The event began at 10 a.m. and ran until 1 p.m. October
is Texas Archaeology Month, and in addition to Thursday’s fair, the
college will be holding an open house for the rest of October in
Building 1938 near the Sportsmen’s Center on Fort Hood Monday through
Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. where
they will have historical artifacts on display. Both
the fair and the display are intended to give the public a better
understanding about this area’s history. Event hosts hope that this
might kindle a desire to protect and preserve historical sites and
artifacts. Christine Jones, PhD, TAMUCT’s Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Criminal Justice, oversaw Thursday’s event. “We’re
educating the public about archaeology in Central Texas,” said Jones.
“Hopefully some of the kids visiting will think ‘Oh wow, this is part of
our education. It’s part of our history and pre-history.’” Thursday’s
Archaeology Fair included various hands-on activities and interactive
demonstrations that were both fun and informative. Both children and
adults could practice flint knapping to try to make an arrowhead, take
the opportunity to throw a spear using an atlatl, learn about Native
American history and the history of this area, dig for fossils, check
out historic and pre-historic items from Fort Hood, and more. “It
was really neat for the kids be able to see and to be able to come out
and get hands-on,” said Candace Frank, who brought her daughter and two
sons to the event. The
spear throwing was one of the most popular events at the Archaeology
Fair. Event-goers could throw spears using an atlatl which is an ancient
spear-throwing device that was used before bows and arrows. “A
lot of people have been commenting on how much easier it is than bow
and arrow,” said Jones. “It’s easier to just immediately pick it up and
do it. The kids have been doing really well.” In order to share her culture, Mildred Todd set up a table with several Navajo and Hopi items.
Her table displayed books, pictures, toys, games, and more. Todd said
that the children were especially excited by the games. She allowed
event-goers to touch and interact with the items on display. Todd
said that it was important to her to share her heritage. She said that
children tend to assume that the Native Americans live and act like they
are depicted in movies. Todd said she wanted to show people that, in
reality, they are just like everyone else. Many parents brought their young children to the family-friendly event. “They’re
enjoying it. It’s great to be able to have the local stuff that was
found and to be able to talk about all these local artifacts,” said
Eileen Fredette, who brought her sons to the event. “That also exposes
them to how people had to live.” Anyone
who missed the event—or those that want to check out the artifacts
again—are welcome to check out the college’s open house which will be
available for the rest of the month.
Sunday, Sept. 17 marks the twentieth
year of Austinites celebrating Austin Museum Day with free admission to
dozens of area museums. In addition, there are special activities and
prizes at many of the venues. Here are our five top picks for Austin
Museum Day. See a list of the rest of the participating museums here.
1. The Blanton Museum of Art on The University of
Texas campus is holding multiple activities for Austin Museum Day.
Besides free admission and free parking at Brazos Garage, visitors can
enjoy a community art project, traditional Indian dance and
storytelling, organic paletas and special sales items in the museum
store. 1-5 p.m. The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at
Austin, 200 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Austin. 512-471-5482. www.blantonmuseum.org
2. Founded by Caleb Zammit, a lifelong toy collector and special needs teacher, the Austin Toy Museum
is a nonprofit that showcases about 20,000 different toys. A number of
classic arcade games and video games consoles are available for play.
Noon-7 p.m. The Austin Toy Museum, 1108 E Cesar Chavez St., Austin.
512-220-9582. www.austintoymuseum.org
3. At the Bullock Texas State History Museum, native
Texans and transplants alike can learn all about the heritage of the
Lone Star State through the museum’s collection, such as 14,000-year-old
American Indian artifacts and objects belonging to Spanish and French
settlers. The museum also shows how development in Texas affected global
politics and major events in American history, such as the American
Revolution, the Louisiana Purchase and the fight for Mexican
independence from Spain. For Austin Museum Day, activities inspired by a
special exhibit, Pong to Pokémon: The Evolution of Electronic Gaming,
will be available. Noon-5 p.m. Bullock Texas State History Museum, 1800
Congress Ave., Austin. www.thestoryoftexas.com
4. The Elisabet Ney Museum, run by Austin’s parks
and recreation department, is housed in the former studio of Ney
herself, called Formosa. The nineteenth-century artist, a woman ahead of
her time, painted portraits and sculpted busts of European
intellectuals and kings as well as Texas heroes, many of which are still
on display in the Texas Capitol. Also housed at the museum are
photographs and memorabilia of Ney herself. Noon-5 p.m. The Elisabet Ney
Museum, 304 E. 44th St., Austin. 512-974-1625. www.austintexas.gov/Elizabetney
5. In 1982, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson helped organize what is now known as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
to protect and preserve North America’s native plants and natural
landscapes. The center features public gardens, woodlands, sweeping
meadows and is the site of internationally influential research. For
Austin Museum Day, visitors can enjoy story time in the outdoor
classroom, seed-planting demonstrations, scavenger hunts in the gardens,
and see insects on display as well as take tours throughout the day, 9
a.m.-5 p.m. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, 4801 La Crosse Ave.,
Austin. 512-232-0200. www.wildflower.org
FARGO—Two
campsites used by prehistoric Indians for butchering animals lie in the
path of the diversion channel designed to provide flood protection for
Fargo-Moorhead.
The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers is well aware of the sites and is hiring a firm to conduct
extensive archeological studies of the locations in consultation with
area American Indian tribes.
One of the sites, with a surface area
of about 15 acres, is along the Sheyenne River near Argusville in
northern Cass County. The other, with a surface area of about 20 acres,
is along the Maple River in southern Cass County.
John Strand, a
Fargo city commissioner, briefed the city's Native American Commission
on the two sites. Corps representatives have been invited to present
their findings to the Native American Commission in October.
The two sites don't appear to pose a threat to the $2.2 billion diversion project, Strand said.
"I
think the intent is to open the communication clearly, up front," he
added. Although the tribes are concerned, "I didn't get the impression
it was anything like Standing Rock," a reference to massive protests
against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in central North Dakota.
Federal
law requires the corps to identify cultural sites and, when possible,
to build around them. When that isn't possible, the corps is required to
mitigate the loss through extensive study and documentation, including
photographs.
"In the case of these two sites, they are in the path
of destruction," said Susan Malin-Boyce, an archeologist for the corps
in St. Paul.
About 330 sites have been identified by the North
Dakota State Historic Preservation Office within the diversion project
area. The route of the 36-mile diversion channel has been surveyed, but
not all of the upstream staging area has been reviewed, she said.
Walking surveys along the diversion route include those by representatives of area tribes, Malin-Boyce said.
"They walked the relevant sections of the diversion channel looking for cultural properties," she said.
Consultations
with both Ojibwe and Dakota-Lakota tribes from the region started in
2009, and the walking investigations were performed in 2011 by American
Indians, who searched for potential burials and other sacred sites.
Archeologists
have surveyed more than 26,000 acres of project land, looking for
artifacts and remnants of historical buildings visible on the surface. A
second phase of surveys in 2013, focusing on areas where artifacts were
found, identified the two campsites, apparently used by hunting
parties.
The site along the Sheyenne River, near Argusville,
which has been known since 1939, has yielded thousands of bone fragments
as well as arrowheads and other points made from Knife River flint,
quarried from western North Dakota and traded over a vast area.
Also, three feet below the surface, it contains an area with evidence that a large mammal carcass was burned, she said.
The
actual archeological sites are probably much smaller than 15 or 20
acres. Bone fragments and stone artifacts have been spread out over time
by frost upheavals, animals burrowing and farming, Malin-Boyce said.
Both
sites are about 2,000 years old, placing them within the Middle
Woodland era, a period when seminomadic ancient Indians occupied much of
the eastern United States, including the Red River Valley. The Woodland
Indians can't be traced to individual contemporary tribes, but likely
have descendants among many tribes today, Malin-Boyce said.
The
two campsite locations, both along rivers, apparently offered advantages
in hunting, primarily buffalo and deer, she said. It's likely the sites
were occupied seasonally for weeks or perhaps even months at a time.
Teams
of specialists will begin investigating and documenting the sites soon,
with field work to be completed by Veterans Day, Malin-Boyce said. The
teams will include archeologists as well as paleo ethnobotanists,
ceramicists and professional photographers, she said.
Following the field work, laboratory analysis likely will take a year.
On the surface, the two campsites, long obscured by time and the elements, are unremarkable.
"They just look like fields," Malin-Boyce said. "They don't look like anything."
More than 50 million artifacts from Texas’ past kept at UT lab
Texas Archeological Research Laboratory is a museum that is not a museum at all.
Gift basket with white and blue beadwork and quail topknot feathers
stored at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory. Late 19th
century. Contributed by Mark Menjivar for ‘The Collections: The
University of Texas at Austin’
Highlights
The trove from the laboratory reminds us that one of Austin’s best museums is not a museum at all.
Access to more than 50 million artifacts at the research laboratory is tightly restricted.
The drawer opens wide to reveal its prize: scores of woven sandals, each hundreds of years old.
The
astonishingly well-preserved shoes, tucked away in a North Austin
archive, were discovered inside the Ceremonial Cave at Fort Bliss in
West Texas. Scholars suggest that they were left behind in the dry rock
shelter as gifts from the faithful. There, desert conditions have
ensured that this Native American apparel survives to tell a concrete
story about a little-known Texas past.
The leathery trove also reminds us that one of Austin’s best museums is not a museum at all.
Although the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory
contains more than 50 million precious objects, access is tightly
restricted. Very few people even know where on the grounds of the J.J.
Pickle Research Campus this University of Texas facility is located.
Yet the public can view some of its wonders, which go back 13,000 years, on its educational websites, such as the grown-up TARL Blog and the family-friendly Texas Beyond History, or visit them in person at public venues, including the Bullock Texas State History Museum and the LBJ Presidential Library, where selections of artifacts are now on view.
One
also can enjoy a selection of sumptuous images from the lab’s archive
in the recently published book “The Collections: The University of Texas
at Austin,” edited by Andrée Bober, or browse the free digital edition
at thecollections.utexas.edu.
Additionally, the lab, which is part of UT’s College of
Liberal Arts, co-hosts an onsite fair with the Texas Historical
Commission during October, which is Texas Archeology Month.
“TARL
is an invaluable resource that preserves the history — and prehistory —
of the people of Texas,” says Drew Sitters, archaeologist with AmaTerra
Environmental Inc., an Austin-based consultant. “With its wealth of
data, TARL facilitates research studies to help answer the many
questions about our past.” How it began
The Pickle campus, which sits on 475 restricted acres of prairie
just south of the Domain development, was a magnesium processing
facility in the years leading up to and during World War II. Magnesium
is used in munitions, including luminous flares, tracer rounds and
incendiary devices, and as an alloy in certain bomb casings.
In
1946, UT engineers petitioned to lease it as an applied research center,
and then U.S. Rep. Lyndon Baines Johnson helped the university purchase
the land three years later. Among other things, it has served as a key
incubator for Austin’s tech industry, one reason so many companies are
located in this area north of U.S. 183, originally miles from any
residential neighborhoods.
“There was a quarry right here on the
grounds of the research campus,” says Jonathan Jarvis, associate
director of the lab. “I suspect that Quarry Lake on Braker Lane just
west of MoPac may have also been part of the operation, but I don’t have
any evidence for that readily at hand. Presumably the building that
currently houses TARL was used for extracting the magnesium after the
initial mechanical processing of the source rock was done elsewhere on
the campus.”
The lab’s collection didn’t move to this campus until
the 1960s, but systematic archaeological research in Texas goes back to
the 1910s, then entered a golden age in the 1930s when federal New Deal
projects put crowds of men and women to work on Texas archaeology.
“It
began with J.E. Pearce, a professor of anthropology here at UT,” Jarvis
explains. “Professor Pearce, who was himself a former principal of
Austin High School, sent a questionnaire about artifact finds to school
principals throughout the state, which was the first attempt to gather
what is — for lack of a better term — a database of Texas archaeology.”
Pearce’s
ultimate goal was to establish a museum of Texas anthropology for the
university. For some time, many artifacts were stored at UT’s Little
Campus; others at the Texas Memorial Museum.
The lab has undergone
permutations through the years, but since its founding in the 1960s, it
become the central repository for Texas archaeology at the university,
from Pearce’s day to the present.
“I would contend that there has
been more than one golden age of archaeology in Texas,” Jarvis says.
“During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration
conducted tremendous archaeological excavations across the state under
the supervision of UT archaeologists. The program put a lot of
unemployed local men to work, advanced our understanding of Texas
archaeology and resulted in a truly amazing collection of artifacts.”
Archaeology
for what now is called “cultural resource management” purposes — in
compliance with laws and regulations applying mainly to
government-controlled lands like roadways and military bases — began in
earnest in the 1970s, which drastically increased the number of
archaeological investigations and began a shift away from archaeology
being a strictly academic exercise.
“In the present day,
cutting-edge technologies allow for new discoveries and provide fresh
insights on the existing body of knowledge,” Jarvis says. “So, another
golden age, so to speak.” What is here
After threading through offices resembling the set of a World War
II-era movie about remotely stationed scientists, the lucky visitor,
accompanied by multiple guides, first encounters maps. Tens of thousands
of maps shelved in horizontal files.
“TARL maintains the
archaeological site records for the state of Texas,” Javis says. “There
are roughly 80,000 documented archaeological sites in Texas, each of
which is plotted on a 7.5-minute United States Geological Survey
topographic map, meaning they each cover an area 7.5 minutes of latitude
by 7.5 minutes of longitude. There are about 4,440 of those maps
covering Texas; it’s a big place.”
Geography is important for
archaeological research in general, Jarvis says, and specific site
locations are of critical importance. Vandalism and the looting of
artifacts are unfortunately common occurrences, so specific site
location information is restricted by state and federal laws.
“Many
of the sites in Texas are on private land, so trespassing and privacy
concerns are another consideration,” Jarvis says. “In any case, we can
only disclose site location information to qualified researchers with a
legitimate need to know.”
Besides identifying, cataloging and
making available to scholars all the artifacts — as small as minuscule
pot shards — a crucial lab function is preservation. A good portion of
artifacts are kept in chilly lockers not unlike those in a food
warehouse.
“The materials range from exceptionally durable stone
to the most delicate of perishable organic material and everything in
between,” Jarvis says. “Providing the appropriate environmental
conditions for a collection of that volume and diversity is indeed a
challenge.”
Many of the artifacts are stone tools and the like, which can tolerate normal fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
“So,
no, we don’t necessarily need to store the entire volume of material in
climate-controlled museum cabinets,” Jarvis says. “The cost of doing so
would be exorbitant, approaching astronomic.” The American Indian legacy
It is hard to exaggerate the excitement and pleasure felt by a
visiting history buff allowed to hold a gallon-size plastic bag full of
colorful shards extracted from the site of Fort St. Louis, the ill-fated
camp of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s lost party of
Frenchmen in the 1680s.
The Texas Archeological Research
Laboratory covers the full range of human habitation and activity in
Texas, from the Paleo-Indian period — about 13,000 years ago, depending
on whom you ask — to the early 20th century. Nearly all the collections
are from Texas, along with a small amount of material from elsewhere
around the world.
Virtually all the Texas material is American Indian, which comes with legal and theoretical challenges.
“If
I had to guess, I would put it in the ballpark of 90 percent to 95
percent,” Jarvis says. “The Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act is the most directly applicable law in terms of
collection management. Much has been written about the conflict between
scientific analysis and the wishes of descendant communities. While we
are a scientific research lab first and foremost, our approach is to
treat objects that are sacred to Native Americans with the respect and
dignity they deserve, and we try to engage tribes as partners where
possible.”
Paleo-Indians, the earliest inhabitants of North
America, present another nettlesome issue. Their close genetic
relationship to today’s American Indians was established through
improved DNA testing during a nine-year court case related to the
Kennewick Man, whose remains were found near the Columbia River in
Washington state. Yet some still theorize, with less convincing
scientific evidence, that Paleo-Indians were instead migrants from
Europe or elsewhere.
“Exactly when they arrived has not yet been
entirely resolved, but there is solid evidence for their presence in
Central Texas at least 11,000 years ago or so, based on radiocarbon
dating from carefully excavated sites such as Wilson-Leonard,” Jarvis
says. “The Wilson-Leonard burial site along Brushy Creek in Williamson
County is perhaps best known for an ancient burial popularly called the
Leander Lady or Leanne.”
Leanne?
“She was buried along with a sandstone tool and beneath a limestone slab,” reported Dahlia Dandashi in the American-Statesman.
“It is presumed that she was around the age of 30 at her death and
measured about (5 feet 3 inches) in height. … Her burial is one of the
earliest and most intact uncovered sites in North America.”
Paleo-Indians
were long thought of as big-game hunters who followed Pleistocene
megafauna, such as woolly mammoths, across the ice age landscape, Jarvis
explains. Research conducted by the lab’s archaeologists and others
paints a more complex picture of their subsistence strategy and culture.
What
should ordinary people do when they encounter what they think might be a
remnant of an earlier time, even if not from 11,000 years ago?
“There
are local archaeological societies in just about every region and major
metropolitan area in Texas,” Jarvis says, “and those groups are a good
place to start for anyone interested in Texas archaeology. Similarly,
the Texas Archeological Society is a venerable statewide organization that promotes responsible investigation. And the Texas Historical Commission
has a network of volunteer archaeological stewards who are available to
assist with documenting and interpreting possible sites.”
Ice Age Predators Found Alongside Oldest Human in Americas
The well-preserved remains offer a glimpse into the rapidly
shifting world that surrounded Naia, a girl who died around 13,000 years
ago.
bigger than a modern grizzly. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Creative
The skull and bones of an ancient puma lie on the floor of the flooded cave. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic CreativeDivers explore Hoyo Negro. The cave previously yielded the oldest and most complete skeleton of a human in the AmericaPhotograph by Paul Nicklen, NatioBy MichaPUBLISHED CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADASome
13,000 years ago in what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a deep pit inside
a cave became the final resting place for a menagerie of exotic
animalNow, their exquisitely preserved bones, trapped for centuries under
water, are offering some of the first solid clues to large Ice Age
beasts were mixing and migrating between North and South America after
the Isthmus of Panama connected the two contine“We’re going to go from a place with no records to having the best
records for a lot of megafauna from Mexico, Central America, and
northern South America,” says East Tennessee State University’s Blaine Schubert, who presented the findings this week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual meeting in CalgaryThe animal bones are also painting a more detailed picture of the strange world inhabited by Naia, an Ice Age girl found in the cave who is the oldest, most complete human skeleton yet discovered in the Americas. (See how humans first entered the Americas.
Giant Underwater Cave Was Hiding Oldest Human Skeleton in the Americas
In a deep underwater cave,
three divers make a stunning discovery: the oldest complete human
skeleton ever found in the Americas. See the ancient remains, venture
through the remarkable deep-water chamber, and see how a skeleton
belonging to a teenage girl from 13,000 years ago led scientists to a
major revelation about the earliest Americans.
Like the saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, and other wild creatures
trapped in the cave, Naia most likely wandered in looking for fresh
water and took a fatal fall into the 90-foot-deep pit. Later, rising
seas brought on by melting glaciers raised the Yucatán Peninsula’s water
table by hundreds of feet, flooding the caves and entombing the
skeletons.
Cave divers first came across Hoyo Negro—Spanish for “black hole”—in
2007, and were stunned to find a massive water-filled chamber rife with
articulated animal remains and the skeleton of Naia. Expeditions through
the years have mapped at least 28 animal skeletons within the pit, only
a handful of which have been fully excavated.
Carnivore Complexity
Now some of those bones have been recovered, and the latest fossil
examinations are giving paleontologists crucial new insight into the
Great American Interchange, a dizzying migration of ancient animals
between North and South America.
After the Isthmus of Panama tectonically rose from the sea some 3 to 5
million years ago, the ecosystems that existed on the two
continents—left to stew in their own evolutionary juices for tens of
millions of years—were at last able to mix and mingle.
This complex exchange of life settled into the Americas’ modern
ecosystems: South America gave North America armadillos, and North
America gave South America llamas. But paleontologists still know very
little about this massive interchange, since fossils are notoriously
hard to come by in the tropical forests that cover the region.
By contrast, Hoyo Negro is a fossil bonanza. The underwater cave
preserved entire animals, because the carcasses had nowhere to go, and
the low-oxygen waters ensured that the remains laid undisturbed for more
than ten thousand years.
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Paleontologists and cave divers have found the remains of
saber-toothed cats, peccaries, mountain lions, tapirs, and elephant-like
animals called gomphotheres within Hoyo Negro’s depths. Some parts of
the underwater cave even preserved the footprints of ancient bears,
crusted over in a film of calcite.
At the paleontology meeting, Schubert revealed that bears also
entered these caves—and, in the case of Hoyo Negro, sometimes never
exited. Divers have found three exquisitely preserved skulls of the
extinct bear species Arctotherium wingei. A cousin of the Andean spectacled bear, the ancient species was slightly smaller than today’s grizzly bear. (Read more about its sister species—the biggest bear that ever lived.)
The skulls are so well-preserved, Schubert says, that visitors to his
lab often mistake them for high-quality reconstructions. Divers also
found the skull of a stocky, coyote-like canid previously only known
from South America.
Together, the remains represent the first hard evidence of carnivores
leaving North America for South America, diversifying into new South
American species, and then returning northward—adding greater complexity
to the Great American Interchange.
It’s likely that Hoyo Negro will turn up yet more surprises: Schubert
recently received a National Geographic grant for further fieldwork at
the site. The team hopes to collect more bones—and venture deeper into
the darkness.
“When you start out with a little bit of data, it’s easy to spin a
simple scenario,” says Greg McDonald, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management
paleontologist and a member of the Hoyo Negro team. “We are now
recognizing that it is much more complicated, and this is the real fun
of paleontology.”
A diver picks up an ancient bear skull found on the floor of Hoyo Negro. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Creative
Three
bear skulls found in the cave belong to an extinct species of
short-faced bear that would have been bigger than a modern grizzly. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Creative
The skull and bones of an ancient puma lie on the floor of the flooded cave. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic CreativeDivers explore Hoyo Negro. The cave previously yielded the oldest and most complete skeleton of a human in the AmericaPhotograph by Paul Nicklen, NatioBy MichaPUBLISHED CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADASome
13,000 years ago in what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a deep pit inside
a cave became the final resting place for a menagerie of exotic
animalNow, their exquisitely preserved bones, trapped for centuries under
water, are offering some of the first solid clues to large Ice Age
beasts were mixing and migrating between North and South America after
the Isthmus of Panama connected the two contine“We’re going to go from a place with no records to having the best
records for a lot of megafauna from Mexico, Central America, and
northern South America,” says East Tennessee State University’s Blaine Schubert, who presented the findings this week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual meeting in CalgaryThe animal bones are also painting a more detailed picture of the strange world inhabited by Naia, an Ice Age girl found in the cave who is the oldest, most complete human skeleton yet discovered in the Americas. (See how humans first entered the Americas.
Giant Underwater Cave Was Hiding Oldest Human Skeleton in the Americas
In a deep underwater cave,
three divers make a stunning discovery: the oldest complete human
skeleton ever found in the Americas. See the ancient remains, venture
through the remarkable deep-water chamber, and see how a skeleton
belonging to a teenage girl from 13,000 years ago led scientists to a
major revelation about the earliest Americans.
Like the saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, and other wild creatures
trapped in the cave, Naia most likely wandered in looking for fresh
water and took a fatal fall into the 90-foot-deep pit. Later, rising
seas brought on by melting glaciers raised the Yucatán Peninsula’s water
table by hundreds of feet, flooding the caves and entombing the
skeletons.
Cave divers first came across Hoyo Negro—Spanish for “black hole”—in
2007, and were stunned to find a massive water-filled chamber rife with
articulated animal remains and the skeleton of Naia. Expeditions through
the years have mapped at least 28 animal skeletons within the pit, only
a handful of which have been fully excavated.
Carnivore Complexity
Now some of those bones have been recovered, and the latest fossil
examinations are giving paleontologists crucial new insight into the
Great American Interchange, a dizzying migration of ancient animals
between North and South America.
After the Isthmus of Panama tectonically rose from the sea some 3 to 5
million years ago, the ecosystems that existed on the two
continents—left to stew in their own evolutionary juices for tens of
millions of years—were at last able to mix and mingle.
This complex exchange of life settled into the Americas’ modern
ecosystems: South America gave North America armadillos, and North
America gave South America llamas. But paleontologists still know very
little about this massive interchange, since fossils are notoriously
hard to come by in the tropical forests that cover the region.
By contrast, Hoyo Negro is a fossil bonanza. The underwater cave
preserved entire animals, because the carcasses had nowhere to go, and
the low-oxygen waters ensured that the remains laid undisturbed for more
than ten thousand years.
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Paleontologists and cave divers have found the remains of
saber-toothed cats, peccaries, mountain lions, tapirs, and elephant-like
animals called gomphotheres within Hoyo Negro’s depths. Some parts of
the underwater cave even preserved the footprints of ancient bears,
crusted over in a film of calcite.
At the paleontology meeting, Schubert revealed that bears also
entered these caves—and, in the case of Hoyo Negro, sometimes never
exited. Divers have found three exquisitely preserved skulls of the
extinct bear species Arctotherium wingei. A cousin of the Andean spectacled bear, the ancient species was slightly smaller than today’s grizzly bear. (Read more about its sister species—the biggest bear that ever lived.)
The skulls are so well-preserved, Schubert says, that visitors to his
lab often mistake them for high-quality reconstructions. Divers also
found the skull of a stocky, coyote-like canid previously only known
from South America.
Together, the remains represent the first hard evidence of carnivores
leaving North America for South America, diversifying into new South
American species, and then returning northward—adding greater complexity
to the Great American Interchange.
It’s likely that Hoyo Negro will turn up yet more surprises: Schubert
recently received a National Geographic grant for further fieldwork at
the site. The team hopes to collect more bones—and venture deeper into
the darkness.
“When you start out with a little bit of data, it’s easy to spin a
simple scenario,” says Greg McDonald, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management
paleontologist and a member of the Hoyo Negro team. “We are now
recognizing that it is much more complicated, and this is the real fun
of paleontology.”
NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA—According to a report in The Siberian Times,
a figurine that appears to be wearing a feathered headdress has been
discovered at an approximately 5,000-year-old site near the Ob River in
western Siberia. Archaeologist Natalia Basova said the unusual artifact
was found along with a bird carved from bone that was probably sewn onto
clothing or worn as a pendant, and several anthropomorphic figurines,
also equipped with holes, made of mammoth tusk, sandstone, birch burl,
and an organic material that has not yet been identified. A moose
figurine, made of shale, was also recovered. The site was disturbed by
an earthquake and tsunami wave some 4,000 years ago, and by a potato
farm in the modern era.
