The remains of a mastodon discovered during a routine excavation in California shows possible human activity in North America 130,000 years ago — or about 115,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Paleontologists with the San Diego Natural History Museum discovered the remains of the elephant-like animal more than 20 years ago. But it wasn’t until now that scientists were able to accurately date the findings, and possibly rewrite the history of the New World as we know it.
“This is a whole new ball game,” Steve Holen, co-director of the Center for American Paleolithic Research and the paper’s lead author, told CNN. The discovery changes the understanding of when humans reached North America.
The study, to be published this week in the science journal Nature, said the numerous limb bones fragments of a young male mastodon found at the site show spiral fractures, indicating they were broken while fresh.
The scientists say they found what appear to be hammerstones and stone anvils at the site, showing that ancient humans had the manual skill and knowledge to use stone tools to extract the animal’s marrow and possibly to use its bones to make tools.
An ‘incredible odyssey’
The discovery took place in 1992 by museum paleontologists, who were doing routine work at a freeway expansion in San Diego County. The site was named Cerutti Mastodon site, in honor of Richard Cerutti, who made the discovery and led the excavation.
Museum paleontologist Tom Deméré, who was involved in the excavation and has also been part of this study, said the project took five months and covered almost 600 square feet. He described the decades-long project as an “incredible odyssey.”
“We early on realized that this is a special site,” said Deméré, adding later the group was “salvaging fossils as they were being found.”
Source: Humans were in America 100,000 years earlier than we thought – CNN.com
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