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KOMPAS.com- The researchers managed to find fossil bone mammoth from New Mexico. Fossil discovery this shows the slaughter of mammoths committed by humans in the past.
Reported from Gizmodo, Wednesday (3/8/2022), fossilized human footprints in New Mexico push back the knowledge of experts that there was already a human presence in North America for 10,000 years.
The newly discovered mammoth site is about 15,000 years older than the footprints.
Mammoth or mammoth is a genus of ancient elephants that have become extinct.
Recent research results regarding findings fosil mammoth This human slaughter is thought to provide evidence that people have lived in the area since 37,000 years ago.
The reason, according to carbon dating analysis of bone collagen, the fossil specimen of the mammoth slaughtered by humans was between 36,250 and 38,900 years ago.
Read also: Rare Discovery, Mammoth Fossil Found with Muscles Still Attached
On fossils tulang mammoth At that time, the paleontology team found a fracture caused by a blunt object in the specimen.
Not far from the fossilized bone, there are also objects such as knives and evidence of fire at the site. This led the research team to believe that humans were involved in the mammoth’s death.
According to the researchers, the condition or the presence of mammoth fossils, which are accompanied by various evidences, were not manipulated.
“This is not a charismatic site with a beautiful skeleton laid out on its side,” said Timothy Rowe, a paleontologist at The University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the paper.
“Everything is exposed. But that’s the story,” he added.
Before finally concluding that the possibility of the site fossil discovery the bones as evidence of the slaughter of mammoths by humansAt first Rowe thought the pile of bones looked like a slaughterhouse.
Read also: Through This Fossil, Experts Understand How Early Humans Slaughtered Mammoths
Because, at the site, the research team found there were about three mammoth ribs from the site, which showed blunt force trauma, stab wounds, and cut evidence.
Later, there were more fossils from the site that researchers brought in for CT scans.
CT scans of mammoth fossils revealed 32 bone fragments with marked fractures that the team said could not be explained by geological processes.
Then, about half of the bone fragments had sharp edges suitable to conclude that the bone had been cut.
Not only that, the CT scan results also showed that some of the mammoth’s ribs and spine had punctures, not visible to the naked eye because of how the bone-colored sediment had filled them.
Read also: Mammoth Bone Finds Help Reveal When Humans First Inhabited America
The team believes that this puncture may have accelerated the draining of fat from the bone.
Rowe said several things were also suspected of being the ways humans skinned the large animal, even a very efficient way to skin cats.
“The pattern of slaughter is quite typical,” he said.
In addition to mammoth bones, the site also contains evidence of small burnt animals such as birds, rats, lizards, and fish, although the nearest river is 200 feet from the site.
For information, the results of this research on mammoth bone fossils in New Mexico have been published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Read also: 30,000-year-old baby mammoth found, almost intact
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