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New Journal Article Concludes Cerutti Mastodon Bones Broken Recently by Construction Equipment, Not Hunters 130,000 Years Ago

3/27/2019

42 Comments

 
Picture
​On Tuesday, Graham Hancock will launch his new book, America Before, in which the alternative history author will claim that human beings have been in the Americas for 130,000 years—a claim he says “rewrites prehistory.” He will base this claim on the so-called Cerutti Mastodon. In 2017, a report in Nature alleged that the bones, found near San Diego, showed evidence that they had been intentionally butchered with stone tools, implying that an unknown human species was responsible. However, after the claim received widespread media coverage and featured as evidence that “history” as we know it is wrong in both Legends of the Lost and America Before, a new paper published a few days ago in PaleoAmerica entitled “The Cerutti Mastodon Site Reconsidered with Reference to Freeway Construction Plans and Methods” concludes that the “evidence” for human butchering is in fact nothing more than damage done during road construction at the site.
​Patrick M. Ferrell, described as an independent scholar and self-identified as a land surveyor, read the Nature article with disbelief and then did what the authors of that piece—and, to be fair, most of their critics—failed to do. He obtained construction plans and a right-of-way map from San Diego Caltrans District 11 headquarters and correlated road construction with the reported location of the Cerutti Mastodon.
 
Ferrell reviewed freeway construction plans and the techniques used to construct the freeway, which was being built when the bones were uncovered. He discovered that 20 years before, grading had occurred at the site in preparation for road work, which churned up and altered some of the cobble stones at the site. While the construction work did not directly break the mammoth bones by crushing them from above, Ferrell contends that known construction methods would produce the damage seen:
This author contends that the raking of the steel teeth on the excavator bucket across the CM site dragged the cobbles identified as anvils and hammer stones onto the site from the north, and could also account for the fragmentation of some of those cobbles, and the molar which was broken into three parts found in grid units C1, D2, and E3.
​He adds that the same action likely caught the mastodon tusk in its wake, dragging it and causing it to fragment. The rest of the observed damage, he said, was due to the 5,000-pound weight of dirt dumped on top of the bones during construction work and the vibrations and pressures of large dump trucks traveling across and over the site. He notes that heavy vehicles routinely destroy asphalt roads with their weight and suggests that similar processes could damage fossils as well. He estimates that heavy trucks passed over the bones designated CM281 between 150 and 250 times during construction before the bones were discovered: 
Taken as a whole, this evidence seems to indicate that CM281 was recently forced into concentration 1 by the tires of the dump trucks crossing the CM site, which concentrated the weight of the trucks on the stone, thus breaking and scattering the bones there, and pulverizing their brittle pedogenic carbonate crusts.
​In support of this view, Ferrell offers that the bones are not crushed consistent with how modern or ancient people butchered bones for food and instead resemble accidental crushing by a heavy weight.
 
Ferrell’s conclusions are not definitive, and he himself states that they rely to an extent on circumstantial evidence. However, I agree with him that he has provided a more plausible explanation for the damaged mastodon bones that better fits the observed facts.
 
I am eager to see how this new material will impact the argument in America Before. I received a review copy of the book yesterday, and I will be reading the book carefully to write a review for Skeptic magazine, timed to the book’s April 23 release in the U.S. (The book launches on April 2 in the U.K.) Because the book is massive—more than 500 dense pages—I will be running a reduced blogging schedule for the next couple of weeks with shorter posts and some days I will be taking off in order to have time to read and review the book thoroughly. 
42 Comments
William Fitzgerald
3/27/2019 09:16:49 am

The Cerutti Mastodon site is about 200 south of the Calico Early Man Site. Of course neither seems likely as evidence of human activity as far back as purported. Still, it was always fun seeing the sign for the Early Man Site on the way to Vegas.

Reply
Hal
3/27/2019 09:19:55 am

Yes a land surveyor has far more experience in archaeology than any of the archaeologists who did the original research.

Reply
Kent
3/27/2019 03:06:36 pm

AFter the construction equipment dug up the bones, if I read the article correctly.

Reply
Doc Rock
3/27/2019 04:25:38 pm

The person who discovered the site is a paleontologist as is the person who initially advocated for human involvement with the bones. Given the time frame and subject matter, people from any number of fields can get in on this dance.

Reply
Brad Riney
7/26/2020 12:45:18 pm

Paleontology and Archaeology in principle are one and the same.

Historian
7/26/2020 02:11:13 pm

@Brad Riney. Archaeology utilizes many disciplines, including paleontology, but paleontology and archaeology are not one and the same. I know of no archaeologist studying Cambrian trilobites, or Cretaceous dinosaurs. Archaeology is restricted to the study of humans, historic archaeology, prehistoric archaeology, and early hominids not of our species. Few archaeologists ever deal with fossilized remains at all, the domain of paleontology, with the exception of faunal remains of the Pleistocene, or Hominid remains. But the majority of human remains archaeologists come across are not old enough to be fossilized.

An Anonymous Nerd
3/27/2019 09:04:35 pm

The piece was published in PaleoAmerica.

This is the journal of the Center for the Study of the First Americans, which is part of the Anthropology Department of Texas A&M University.

http://csfa.tamu.edu/

So the dude who thought to look up the construction schedules wasn't an Anthropologist but the folks who decided he should be listened to were. I'd say that's pretty good.

To say nothing of the more-obvious fact that one explanation would, if true, have a lot more going for it than it actually does!

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
Doc Rock
3/31/2019 11:59:04 am

The journal is interdisciplinary in scope and covers topics ranging from archaeology to genetics to paleoenvironment. Articles submitted to the journal would, ideally, be assigned to reviewers who match the topic: could be archaeologists, evolutionary biologists, paleontologists, paleoclimatologists, etc . Would be interesting to see what fields were represented in the review process for this paper.

Machala
3/27/2019 10:25:13 am

Graham Hancock has never been known to let the truth get in the way of a good story.
As long as there's suckers to swallow his fantasies, he'll keep spewing them out.

Reply
prospero45
3/27/2019 10:46:16 am

Just because Hancock has been wrong about every claim he has ever made regarding ancient history doesn't mean he is wrong again. Yeah right.

Reply
Mike
3/27/2019 06:18:28 pm

Ignoring heavy equipment moving over the site is stupid. I have worked on hundreds of sites many of them at construction sites. When I first saw this when it happened I right away thought the bones had been crushed by the equipment. Instead of that some idiot know is stating that human occupation in the region is over a hundred thousand years earlier than any other rationally minded archaeologist would think. What does Andy think? Sites like that with only hammer stones would be a rarity. The person who deemed this site as being caused by humans has caused a great deal of misunderstanding and fuel to the fantasies of people like Graham Hancock. I hope Hancock is not basing his entire theory about the Americas on this.

Reply
Andy White
3/28/2019 10:57:44 am

I'm not sure if "Andy" is me, but I (and most other archaeologists) expressed extreme skepticism -- not because it couldn't be true but because there are logical problems with the story and alternative explanations (like construction damage) had not been adequately ruled out. Here were my thoughts in this blog post (2nd item):

https://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/the-dating-game-middle-pleistocene-human-evolution-surprise-edition

Reply
Bradford Riney
4/3/2019 03:27:19 pm

Poor Mike. Heavy equipment never disturbed the the site with the exception of the extreme NE corner where the excavator bucket damaged the tusks. Read my reply on 4/1/19.

Reply
Bradford Riney
4/14/2019 02:56:24 pm

Greetings from the idiots who have been monitoring hundreds of construction sites, filling the SDNHM exhibit halls and research collections as well as discovering the CMS since 1981. It's obvious what equipment does to bones both modern and ancient. No one ignored the heavy equipment. Ferrell's paper is amazingly inaccurate but its what people want to hear. We have hundreds of photos and detailed field notes of what occurred during and after mass grading. See my response on this subject 4/1/19, Better yet, come to the SDNHM and check out the evidence yourself.

Reply
Paul H.
3/28/2019 10:19:05 pm

A reported case of similar "green bone" spiral
mammoth bone breakage by heavy machinery is:

Haynes, G., 2017. Taphonomy of the Inglewood mammoth
(Mammuthus columbi)(Maryland, USA): Green-bone fracturing
of fossil bones. Quaternary International, 445, pp.171-183.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298209908_Taphonomy_of_the_Inglewood_mammoth_Mammuthus_columbi_Maryland_USA_Green-bone_fracturing_of_fossil_bones
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gary_Haynes

Reply
joe zias
3/31/2019 09:37:17 am

An honest mistake by the excavators or...? We see this issue quite often whereby post.mortem changes are confused with pre-mortem. It usually occurs when individuals with limited experience miss what usually is clear to experienced excavators. I once attended a lecture by an honest but somewhat naive individual in which he presented rock carvings on bedrock, which in effect were the result of modern day tractors criss crossing the land, leaving markings on the bedrock. In biblical archaeology, its actually somewhat the norm once the media gets involved.

Reply
Brad Riney
4/3/2019 03:43:44 pm

The Ogam rock of Pacific Beach CA! I visited the site many years ago at low tide and immediately concluded that heavy equipment removing seaweed from the beach caused the markings. I gave it a new name " Dozam".

Reply
Sticker
3/31/2019 10:04:25 am

Man, I love you guys -- Jason and Andy --- and this kind of piece makes my day. I've been preoccupied with life and haven't checked here in a while, but I am so glad to see you are all still at it.

Reply
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4/1/2019 01:56:53 am

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Reply
Bradford Riney
4/1/2019 01:11:52 pm

I was a member of the SDNHM excavation crew and saw firsthand that the site was pristine with the exception of the NE edge where the tusks were located. They were raked by the bucket teeth and as a result were damaged. The portions of both tusks that were struck by the bucket were completely destroyed, resulting in thousands of tiny white pieces which actually led to the site's discovery. As far as the tusks being moved from their original positions, the remaining unaffected portions of both tusks were not. The idea that the bucket flipped the vertically oriented tusk to the vertical is ludicrous. I personally excavated the vertically oriented tusk which was solidly preserved in its original position 70 centimeters or so into the fine grained sandstone below the E bed siltstone, encased in a cemented sandstone concretion. Most of the bones and stones were encased in pedogenic carbonate indicating breakage occurred thousands of years before present and were not at all damaged by construction equipment.The sediment above the site was also pristine. NO machines were actually near the site with the only exception being the excavator parked on top of the berm, 8 feet in elevation above the site and to the south, not directly over the site. The sound berm is comprised of undisturbed Pleistocene consolidated fluvial sediments and is simply an "erosional remnant" carved from the original hill by heavy equipment, it is NOT a pile of dirt placed by man over the site to create a sound berm. The Cerutti Mastodon Site itself was excavated by hand over the next 5 months by removing pristine Pleistocene sediments undisturbed by modern machinery. The excavator was used to remove overburden when needed above the site in a controlled manner to approximately 2 to 3 feet above the bone horizon where upon delicate hand digging would resume. So There!

Reply
joe
4/1/2019 02:50:14 pm

There should be no relationship between the number of pages, 500 as to whether one is correct in presenting the evidence. I see this from time to time whereby academics will publish an enormous amount of information which gives the impression that what could be done in but a few pages, is correct. I saw this a few years back with a book length article on human remains from a site near the Dead Sea. The authors presented measurements and data which was misleading, esp. presenting cranial measurements of young children which change month to month. Looks impressive to those without any anthropological training. When I gave a paper on this in the annual SBL meetings it looked like the Jerry Springer show. As I had the opportunity to view the material which was in someone's basement for ca 50 yrs it was a no-brainer. Critics accused me of not studying the material in a serious manner, unaware that we can age and sex most skeletons, if they are in good condition in one or two minutes. Eventually they realized that I was correct and the 2,000 year old skeletons of women and children were max 200 years old, Bedouin. One way around this is to ask those presenting papers to limit their time to ca 10 minutes with the next 10 minutes for questions from the audience. Five hundred pages, esp is simply too much. One gets lost in the trees unable to see the forest. On the other hand Barr took the 400 page Muller report and dumbed it dn to 4 pages, but this is the world of DT. We ain't that dumb.

Reply
Joe Scales
4/1/2019 09:29:26 pm

You're dumb enough.

Reply
Historian
4/3/2019 09:20:40 pm

When Haynes first proposed this "equipment caused the breakage" scenario in 2017, Holen, et al stated: "This notion can be discounted primarily because most of the relevant CM fragments were found coated in thick crusts of pedogenic carbonate clearly showing that breakage occurred thousands of years ago."

What changed to nullify that response?

Reply
Brad Riney
4/14/2019 12:55:56 pm

Nothing, Holen's response is correct.

Reply
Historian
4/3/2019 09:32:29 pm

A couple of things come to mind. There should certainly be a difference in appearance, in patina, assuming the bone is mineralized to some degree, between a bone broken 130,000 years ago, and bones broken 25 years ago. If broken when it was already fossilized, 25 years ago, there should be a very noticeable difference in patina between the broken surfaces and non broken surfaces. Also, would the fracturing itself appear different if the bone was broken when the bone was still green or fresh, and when it was fossilized? I should think it would, since it would be the difference between fracturing bone, and fracturing stone(mineralized bone). I would also like to know who are the authorities, in terms of experience and eye honed for subtleties, where the causes behind fracturing bone is concerned.

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Bradford Riney
4/14/2019 01:37:08 pm

Very Good! The bones are very mineralized and the fresh breaks are light in color vs a dark color for the old breaks. The type of breakeage is far different for the old vs the new breaks, dark smooth curving spiral for the ancient, vs a nearly white dry jagged breakeage for the new. Jim Meade and Larry Agenbroad were the notable archaeologists who helped excavate the site in addition to the SDNHM paleontologists. There is a very good SDNHM Press Kit video of Dr. Larry Agenbroad on site explaining and pointing out the anomalous nature of the elements of Unit E-3, the most prolithic unit for bone and stone. Most important in the video is the undisturbed nature of the excavation as far as heavy equipment is concerned.

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Devon
4/23/2019 02:50:16 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxmw9eizOAo

Reply
Bradford Riney
4/28/2019 11:06:02 pm

It seems everyone is stuck on the idea that the heavy equipment initially smashed the bones, dragging the lithic material around, flipping the tusk vertically without destroying it and then jamming the tusk vertically to over 70 CM into the underlying Pleistocene strata again without destroying it. The force to do this would have completely destroyed the tusk. When fossil ivory meets steel, ivory is the loser, ending up as thousands of tiny white pieces. Fossil bone usually fares better, but still badly damaged. The nearly 3 meters of undisturbed strata above the CM Site doesn't seem to matter either. Magical 5 ton dump trucks unseen by us during the 5 months of careful excavation were the reason for the spirally fractured bones and stones that we found solidly in situ, coated with unbroken pedogenic carbonate crusts. Yes!, Big 5 Ton Dump Trucks as per the construction plans were responsible! In his Next Paper, Ferrell could state that the carbonate concretions and crusts must have formed extremely fast AFTER the magical 5 Ton Dump Trucks smashed everything and BEFORE we excavated the CM Site thus making the CM Site look ancient to fool the palaeontologists, just as creationists try to do with the geological record. Erella Hovers of the Hebrew University indepently states that a modern mechanical cause is not valid as the breakeage is indeed very ancient. Ferrell's paper is an extremely feeble forensic analysis conducted some 25 years after the fact. Dr. Tom Demere at the San Diego Museum of Natural History would have graciously accommodated Ferrell to study the extensive written notes, videos, stills pictures as well as the additional material not on display. Whether the CM Site is archaeological or paleontological is irrelevant in this case as Ferrell's ideas on this are demonstrably wrong. Dr.Tom Demere contacted Ferrell about the inaccuracy of his article. Ferrell later apologized for his lack of research on the subject. This is an easy "crash goes the chariots" situation once you look at the facts that we have. The CM Site does not resemble Calico or any of the other Pleistocene psuedo archaeological sites. The CM Site also is far different taphonomically than the dozens of natural occurring large fossil mammal sites that we have mapped and collected on numerous small to huge grading sites since 1981. We here are well aware what heavy machinery does to bone and to the sediment surrounding these bones. In the nearly 40 years monitoring major grading sites, I have never seen a fossil bone spirally fracture. I invite Jason Colavito to the SDNHM to study the materials especially the notes pictures and videos of the CM Site.

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Bradford Riney
5/26/2019 11:25:59 am

Welcome to the "My Professor said it, I Believe It And That Settles It School of American Archaeology". Very sad day for science. Study the actual material before commenting? Heaven forbid, it's too old and it's the only one ever found. A filthy paleontologist found it anyway. Looking back at the firestorm's first day, the extreme negativity was immediate, and from my paleontological armchair appeared to be very reactionary. How could it be otherwise it being only 24 hours after the Nature letter became public. Few people appeared to have read the Nature letter judging by their reactions and of course very few of said critics came to see the material preserved at the SDNHM. Ferrell's rediculous article proves that point 2 years later. The Ferrell Forensic CM Site Analysis from his Armchair 25 years after the Fact of which I hate to use the overused term "Fake News," is unfortunately is true here. The other sad fact is that so many professional archaeologists by not questioning the Ferrell article did the lemming thing by leaping off the proverbial cliff thinking his article finally puts the CM Site to bed. This article apparently was the anethesia needed to put the mind at ease. Old PM Ferrell is wrong on every "Fact" he presented. Whether the CM Site is paleontological or archaeological is absolutely irrelevant in this case. The Ferrell article is easily thrown off the cliff with the lemmings as well, completely discounted by the 1992,1993 videos, still pictures and field notes taken on site during the grading and excavation. He could have asked to see all of this before publishing his article. He didn't but you can.

Reply
Historian
5/26/2019 04:31:33 pm

On this particular blog, you can expect anything that goes against the grain of orthodoxy to not receive a warm welcome. Where the Cerutti study is concerned, I believe Colavito was less concerned with it, and more concerned with hammering Graham Hancock, a favored whipping boy here. Anyway, if you're familiar with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, you will know this is often the way things go. Think outside the box, or otherwise rock the boat of received wisdom, and almost anything goes where the reaction from the purveyors of the accepted paradigm is concerned. It's to be expected. And it's unfortunate. I attended the NEARA meeting in RI awhile back and enjoyed the presentation.

Reply
Bradford Riney
5/26/2019 07:39:43 pm

I'm just learning the hard way about "scientific" paradigmers. They're very much like the faith based fundamentalist religious folks with the exception they the scientific paradigmers should know better because their ideas are hopefully based on the natural world. How naive am I. On a positive note, I've talked with quite a few young up and coming archaeologists who are very excited with our discovery here in San Diego. It's mostly the geriatric ones that are not. Oh, I forgot to mention that we do have a complete set of the SR-54 construction plans marked up with the geology and fossil localities by date found, all of this contrary to Colavito's mistaken idea that we somehow failed to pay attention to that "tiny" detail. What bothers me the most is that Colavito gives the Ferrell article a very positive review, implying that we don't have a clue as to what we are doing. Is that an apple cart I just fell off? Frustrating to say the least. I appreciate the reply as I was worried that I was in an echo chamber talking to myself slowly going insane.

Historian
5/27/2019 08:17:48 am

Yes, the young are usually more open to new ideas. I think it's just human nature, and not confined to science and scientific research, and developing scientific models. Kuhn basically was saying that new ideas win out(assuming there is a valid, evidence-based reason to win out), when the last defenders of the dominant paradigm pass away. There is a oft spoken, succinct way, of describing this:

Science advances one funeral at a time.

Bradford Riney
5/27/2019 02:06:07 pm

How true. I like that. Like death and taxes. Yet another eternal law of the universe. What I find disturbing and ironic is that the learned Jason Colavito, debunker of psuedo science, placed so much faith in Ferrell's psuedo scientific article based on a lot of "must be's and probably's" to discredit Graham Hancock's psuedo scientific book as well as us. Maybe all of these psuedo's will cancel each other out, leaving the world to rational thought.

Reply
Tierney
6/23/2019 08:49:18 pm

Skeptic magazine is so selectively skeptic it’s funny. From my understanding, Ferrell didn’t even examine the bones.

It was also funny watching Shermer get his azz handed to him by Hancock on JRE. You guys really need to step up the pace.

Reply
Adam
9/29/2019 10:24:35 am

i love watching these archeology debates unfold because the establishment inevitably ends up having to eat crow and acknowledge that they were wrong about all the crap they so smugly pawned off as absolute fact.

It’s funny how an archeologist will propose a hypothesis based on findings that challenge conventional understanding and all of the gatekeepers immediately pounce and go out of their way to discredit and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrative-when that should be the whole point of continued archeological research! They label good researchers who report findings that challenge the limits of our understanding of the human story as “rogue archeologists” or “pseudo scientists” and literally destroy their careers- but then when those rogue findings end up being proven correct a few years later, all the talking heads who were so arrogant and cocksure in their rejection of those findings don’t pay any price at all.

Why is it that the archeologists who insisted on Clovis first for all those years aren’t subjected to the same shaming and public scrutiny as the researchers whose findings cast doubt on the accepted narrative and chose to keep looking in an effort to expand our understanding of human history? Why are they not forced to recant their false narratives, issue retractions on their bogus conclusions, and refund all the college students who were forced to buy their books and study under them and were grossly misinformed?

Archeology might utilize scientific method when collecting data but it is far from a true science. Any field of study that is willing to publish and accept conclusions based on what the authors didn’t find can hardly consider itself a “science”.

Clovis first is the perfect example. There is nothing more pseudo scientific than claiming: “we have never found any human artifacts or evidence of human occupation earlier than Clovis, therefore Clovis culture was the first to people the americas.”

It’s no different than saying “god doesn’t exist because I’ve never witnessed a miracle”. Good Science should have no room for conclusions that are based on the absence of evidence.

The early Clovis findings should have been accepted for what they were- proof that humans were in North America at that time- it should never have been used as pretense to bookend the human experience in the americas and stifle further investigation into the possibility of earlier human habitation.

Instead of becoming these flash points for personal attack and smear campaigns, findings like the cerutti mastodon, Mount verde, and Meadowcroft should have been viewed as an open invitation to keep looking in for evidence that could broaden and deepen our understanding of human history. Instead, we get rampant denial and gross oversimplifications of based on a lack of evidence and reductive reasoning that only served to perpetuate the never-proven and ultimately false narrative of Clovis first.

It’s one thing to say “based on the archeological record discovered to date, the peopling of the Americas must have occurred at least as far back as Clovis culture.” That would have been a totally acceptable conclusion that was wholly supported by the findings... it’s something else entirely to make the leap to claiming they were the first people to enter the americas- which was pure speculation with no data to support such a claim.

It’s impossible to quantify the damage the Clovis first zealots have done to our understanding of human history. All the research that might have otherwise been done that no one would touch for fear of being run out of town or otherwise burned at the alter of Clovis first... one has to wonder how many discoveries might have been made if archeologists were open to the possibility there might be more to discover if they just kept digging deeper...

You’d think archeologists would have caught on to this by now considering how many times they’ve been disproven and forced to go back and rework their earlier narratives.

It is encouraging to see mainstream archeology finally reckoning with the preponderance of evidence that points to a more complicated and nuanced understanding of human occupation of the americas, albeit begrudgingly. I think the time has come for archeologists to acknowledge the simple truth that we really don’t know how far back human occupation of the Americas began.

Personally, I think it is no more ridiculous for people like graham hancock to assert thar there were advanced civilizations in the Americas prior to the younger dryas cataclysm than it was for researchers to claim Clovis first based on a lack of evidence to support earlier occupation of the Americas- at least hancocks ideas invite further research and investigation into the matter-which is a far more scientific position t

Reply
Adam
9/29/2019 10:29:42 am

Personally, I think it is no more ridiculous for people like graham hancock to assert thar there were advanced civilizations in the Americas prior to the younger dryas cataclysm than it was for researchers to claim Clovis first based on a lack of evidence to support earlier occupation of the Americas- at least hancocks ideas invite further research and investigation into the matter-which is a far more scientific position to take than one that slams the door closed on further efforts to broaden our understanding.

I would encourage anyone interested in this topic to consider the following:

1. Anatomically “modern” humans have existed for at least 130,000 years.
2. There were several “intelligent” hominid species living in Asia and Siberia at that time including Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, denisovans, and possibly relic populations of erectus. And no doubt a few others yet to be discovered.
3. Conditions on earth 140,000-130,000 were similar to those found 14,000-13,000 years ago when an opening in the ice would have allowed movement from berengia into lower portions of North America that were free of ice.
4. There is ample evidence that several species of Eurasian megafauna were migrating into the americas around 130,000 years ago and that north American species were moving across Berengia into Eurasia.
5. The trajectory of our understanding of the peopling of the americas is one of constant revision to the timeline to account for evidence of earlier and earlier Human occupation. The one constant in archeology is that the story of human history is always broadening and becoming more nuanced and complex than previously believed.

If we asked detectives to review the evidence as if they were investigating a crime, they undoubtedly say that the means, motive, and opportunity were there for humans to move into the americas 130,000 years ago.

Confronted with this evidence why aren’t archeologists asking the most obvious question - why wouldn’t humans have moved into the Americas 130,000 years ago? The passage was open, prey animals were utilizing it, and there were intelligent hominids living in the same areas of Eurasia from which later migrations into the americas originated.

The paper that supposedly refuted the voracity of the cerutti mastodon findings is not good science- the author did not even bother to look at the archeological evidence that was collected- it’s based on road plans and third party publications on construction practices for Christ sake! And yet, the second someone came up with a possible explanation that fit the status quo narrative, it’s accepted as doctrine by the same people who should be challenging it!

If they’re so sure that a dump truck created the damage to the bones, why not get one and drive it over some fossilized elephant bones buried in similar soil types at the same depth as the mastodon? The cerutti researchers weren’t afraid to test their hypothesis using experimental methods, so it would seem to me it’s the least the skeptics could do before making their assertions and dismissing all the years of good research that was done before the original findings were published.

We need to get past the idea that human history is a purely linear progression, the pinnacle of which is modern civilization, and get back to digging without fear of reprisal and humiliation if we happen to find something that expands our understanding of what is almost certainly a more nuanced and complicated story than the one we’ve been force fed for the past 50 years.

The moment there is no longer room for ideas that challenge conventional understanding, archeology ceases to be a scientific endeavor and, instead, becomes theology.

Reply
Bradford Riney
10/5/2019 03:15:21 pm

The Cerutti Mastodon Site or CMS, has been adopted by Graham Hancock for better or worse. The better. Media attention given by way of Joe Rogan's interview with Graham Handcock. 1.5 million views and counting. People unaware of the CMS and the controversy surrounding it are now aware. Graham gave a fairly accurate narrative of the recent history of the site, far better than many of the critics. The worse: Guilt by association using the CMS to support his in my opinion some out there ideas. The archaeologists are easy to deal with once they assemble a team of experts to falsify our claims. So far no takers. The welcome mat is at the front door. Only then will their objections hold water or not.

Reply
Bradford O Riney
2/12/2020 12:31:33 pm

I'm welcoming myself back into the Colavito echo chamber. Thank goodness someone is kicking psuedo science in the backside. I applaud him for that. I saw a tweet of his bashing the Cerutti Site calling it baaaad science. I say his ideas on the Cerutti Mastodon Site are based on bad non vetted journalism from people who have not ever seen the CM material nor care to see it.

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Historian
12/5/2020 01:30:41 pm

Here’s a new study involving the Cerutti Mastadon site:

https://sci-hub.do/downloads/2020-11-29/de/bordes2020.pdf

Reply
Historian
12/5/2020 01:33:44 pm

For those not wishing to read the entirety of the most recent Cerutti Mastadon study, here is a summary of the finding:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/stones-mastodon-bones-debate-america-first-settlers

Reply
Chester Collins
1/22/2023 07:48:25 am

It's obvious that all those who are calling foul on this 130k idea are doing the same old thing that all skeptics do...ignoring details. The original archeologist who was on site wrote up a paper that none of you seem to have read and it CONTAINS GOOD SOLID SCIENCE..SUCH AS? Such as the fact that if you actually observed the bones yourselves and knew what you were looking at, instead of just piling onto the skeptic bandwagon because your preconceived notions are having a wobble, you woukd see that recent bone and Fossil bone do not splinter or split the same way. I hear a lot of people trying to do the typical song and dance of disputing new discoveries because they are uncomfortable with the dates involved, but you are no better than Hancock and pals, indeed maybe even worse, if you claim to be a purveyor of good rational thinking but are just rehashing and regurgitating each other's hackneyed opinions. It's easy to sit in your chairs, do a little internet searching, and then jump in the argument, but that amounts to nothing. Look at the bones..get an education and tine in the field analyzing thousands of bone fragment, both recent and very old, observe the differences in their structure and make up, especially after fossilization, and know sonething about HOW the crack, and what kinds of structural cracks these actually make. There is a difference that you woukd actually have the experience to judge, if you were actually more than an armchair skeptic. Mr. C..IM LOOKING AT YOU NOW..ypu sir, are a journalist who makes his bread by writing opinions, even you aren't a scientist. Let the archeologists do their work a d stop trying to crush every new discovery because you are top much of a fragile princess to accept the implications of it. The old dogma is dying, jump that boat while you still can.

Reply
Historian
1/24/2023 07:46:22 am

I pointed out the business of breaking fossilized bone vs. fresh bone when this column was written. Whether supporters of the Cerutti site agree or not, more sites in this age, containing indisputable artifactual evidence, is going to have to happen. Nothing gained expressing too much anger/frustration, as there will never be shortcuts. It is what it is. I certainly would not single out journalists, when it is clearly archaeologists who want more, before they simply say “well, looks like we have to start from scratch with the peopling of the Americas puzzle”. It was never going to be that easy. Look at how long before Monte Verde was accepted. The fresh bone/fossil bone might look like a smoking gun to some, but it won’t likely overcome the lack of cultural material at the site. It’s a hidebound science, and it wants more before a single site changes everything. Some will say “not fair”, but it’s demanding, the best response will be more sites in that age range, with much clearer evidence of humans.

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    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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