Post by Ian Thomas on Jul 14, 2023 7:39:47 GMT 10
Looks like the overkill-theory that a human blitzkrieg killed American megafauna "all of a sudden and without any warning" in a mere century or two can finally be laid to bed-and-rest.
Pansani et al 2023. Evidence of artefacts made of giant sloth bones in central Brazil around the last glacial maximum. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0316
Fossil bones of ground sloths occur only in two layers .. both in clear association with archaeological material, including stone tools and other mineral and rock artefacts. The modified osteoderms discussed here were recovered in Unit III4, at depths of 306, 319 and 323 cm. OSL dating of quartz (*z* = 296 cm) dates this unit to 25.1 ± 2 thousand years ago, whereas U/Th dating of osteoderm (*z* = 310 cm) dates the same unit to 27.0 ± 2 thousand years ago …
Santa Elina challenges mainstream claims on peopling of the Americas, in favour of a model in which people first reached out to the American continent during, or even earlier than, the LGM. It agrees with evidence reported from other sites that suggests early human presence in North America ..
.. evidence presented here of anthropic modification of giant sloth osteoderms during the early LGM at Santa Elina supports the hypothesis that humans were in South America thousands of years before the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna in the continent.
Together with the presence of another giant sloth individual in a more recent level of the site (Unit II2), this evidence might suggest that the human presence in South America was not the main agent responsible for the megafauna extinction.
doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0316
Fossil bones of ground sloths occur only in two layers .. both in clear association with archaeological material, including stone tools and other mineral and rock artefacts. The modified osteoderms discussed here were recovered in Unit III4, at depths of 306, 319 and 323 cm. OSL dating of quartz (*z* = 296 cm) dates this unit to 25.1 ± 2 thousand years ago, whereas U/Th dating of osteoderm (*z* = 310 cm) dates the same unit to 27.0 ± 2 thousand years ago …
Santa Elina challenges mainstream claims on peopling of the Americas, in favour of a model in which people first reached out to the American continent during, or even earlier than, the LGM. It agrees with evidence reported from other sites that suggests early human presence in North America ..
.. evidence presented here of anthropic modification of giant sloth osteoderms during the early LGM at Santa Elina supports the hypothesis that humans were in South America thousands of years before the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna in the continent.
Together with the presence of another giant sloth individual in a more recent level of the site (Unit II2), this evidence might suggest that the human presence in South America was not the main agent responsible for the megafauna extinction.
It agrees with previous research claiming that it would have taken thousands of years for hunter–gatherer populations to expand and dominate this vast and diverse continent ..