[Not rock pile related]. This is pretty good:
NATtalk: An Evening with the Cerutti Mastodon Scientists - YouTube
Two things stand out for me. The first is that this is a 130,000 year old archeological site in San Diego.
The second is an unusual find, what they called an "anomaly", consisting of a single mastodon tusk placed vertically in the ground. There was no obvious physical force that would do that, so the presumption was that the tusk was deliberately buried in that orientation.
Can I stop for a second and imagine the meaning to such a gesture? It feels like spearing the earth with a tusk could be an expression of gratitude - an offering or a trade.
So imagine these early humans - who at 130K BP might have not even been entirely human - being spiritual and behaving ethically in relation to food and the earth.
3 comments :
The Cerutti site was discussed by Steve Holen and his wife at a NEA?RA meeting three or four years ago.
The Valsequillo site in Mexico is also fascinating, and so controversial with regard to dates that most paleontologists stay away from discussing it. Imagine a site 200,000 years old, and dated by the most sophisticated techniques!
And then there is Pandejo Cave in New Mexico, which Scotty MacNeish dated to something like
39 - 40,000 BP. Again, too old to be accepted by paleontologists.
When I remember where I read an opposing view about the "fractured by heavy machinery" bones that someone thinks is similar to "fractured by humans or marrow," I'll try to remember to post a comment here with that source.
"Fractured by humans FOR Marrow"
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