mammoths

More than a century ago, archaeologists were convinced that the so-called Piltdown Man It was the “missing link” in human evolution. It took more than 40 years to prove that it was a fraud built with a human skull and the jaw of an orangutan. Since then, archeology has learned an uncomfortable lesson: even theories that seem indisputable can crumble when new evidence appears. The great certainty that falters. For decades, archeology books have presented the Clovis culture like the great mammoth hunters of North America. The image was simple: groups of hunters armed with spear propellers, known as atlatlcapable of taking down huge animals from a relatively safe distance. However, two studies published recently They question this reconstruction and force us to reconsider one of the most iconic scenes in American prehistory. The weapon that never appeared. He first study puts the focus on the atlatl, that kind of extension of the arm that multiplies the speed and range of a spear. For years it was assumed that the Clovis used it to hunt mammoths, although there was a surprising detail: A single atlatl has never been found at a Clovis site. Using statistical models, researchers they conclude now that this technology probably did not appear in America until about 4,000 years later before this culture disappeared, a gap too great to continue supporting the traditional theory. Without direction. The consequence of this archaeological gap is so striking that the author of the study, the archaeologist Metin Eren, summarizes it with a sincerity unusual in a scientific article: “We have no idea what the hell they used.” Because if the Clovis did not use atlatls, only hypotheses remain. Perhaps they hunted with javelins or thrust spears, which would have forced them to get much closer to animals weighing several tons and take an enormous risk. Paradoxically, the more research is done on one of the best-known cultures in America, there are fewer certainties about the weapon with which he survived. Or they were not so “hunters”. He ssecond study takes that review even further. After analyzing the fifteen sites where Clovis points have appeared along with remains of mammoths, mastodons or gomphotheres, the researchers they conclude that none demonstrates unequivocally that these animals were killed by human beings. The same marks on the bones and the same broken tips can occur both after a hunt and when using the carcass of an animal that had already died, a problem known in archeology as equifinality. Hunters… or scavengers. Of course, the authors do not maintain that the Clovis never hunted mammoths. What they affirm is that current evidence does not allow us to rule out that, on many occasions, they acted rather as opportunistic scavengers. In fact, remember that a Clovis point has never been found embedded in a mammoth bone, evidence that does exist in much older Eurasian sites. They even reinterpret a famous isotopic study on a Clovis child, proposing that the elevated nitrogen levels could be explained due to the consumption of larvae coming from corpses and not necessarily from a diet based almost exclusively on mammoth meat. Archeology exchanges certainties for questions. Both jobs They reflect a change of trend in research on prehistory. For decades, it was enough for an explanation to be reasonable to become the dominant narrative. Today researchers demand much stronger evidence and are revising some of the ideas that seemed best established, from the weapons used by the first Americans to the role they played in the disappearance of the megafauna of the end of the Ice Age. Sometimes the greatest scientific advance is not in finding a new answer, but in recognizing that the old one was never there. really proven. Image | BioS. In Xataka | The company that is resurrecting the mammoth is creating the Noah’s Ark of the 21st century. And he is doing it in Dubai, of course In Xataka | The crater known as “the door to hell” hid a surprise: a 50,000-year-old mammoth calf