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A 22,000 - class - old mastodon skull and tool dredged from the seafloor in the Chesapeake Bay hints of former settlers in North America .
The two relics , which were pull up together , may come from a piazza that has n’t been dry Din Land since 14,000 years ago . If so , the combination of the find may suggest that masses lived in North America , and maybe slaughter the mastodon , one thousand of long time before multitude from the Clovis cultivation , who are widely think to be the first settler of North America and the ancestors ofall living Native Americans .
A flaked blade unearthed from the Chesapeake Bay along with a mastodon skull shows evidence of weathering in open air, then saltwater marshes, and finally the ocean. Because sea levels submerged the area about 14,000 years ago, the weathering suggests that the tool was made at least that long ago, and that people may have been living on the Atlantic Coast at that time
But that hypothesis is controversial , with one expert saying the finds are too far removed from their original circumstance to draw any conclusions from them . That ’s because the bones were found in a stage setting that take a crap it tricky for scientist to say with certainty where they initiate and how they are relate to one another .
" The bottom job is , there simply is no context for these discovery , " said Vance Holliday , an archaeologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson , who was not involved in the study .
Deep - sea fishing
Most investigator believe thefirst Americans bilk the Bering Straitfrom Siberia about 15,000 years ago and quickly colonized North America . artifact from these ancient settlers , dubbed the Clovis civilisation after one of their iconic archeological sites in Clovis , New Mexico , have been found from Canada to the border of North America . [ In Photos : The Clovis Culture and Stone Tools ]
But in 1974 , a small wooden scallop dragger was dredging the seafloor , about 230 foot ( 70 meters ) below the sea Earth’s surface and intimately 60 miles ( 100 kilometers ) off the coastline in the Chesapeake Bay .
" They hit a snag , or a knack , as they wish to say , which mean that something fairly sonorous was in their net , " said Dennis Stanford , an archaeologist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington , D.C. , who has analyzed the find .
When they force up their cyberspace , they find the partialskull of a mastodont , a distant cousin of the woolly-headed mammoth that start its slide into extinction about 12,000 years ago , Stanford said . The fishermen also noticed a flaked blade made of a volcanic rock candy called rhyolite .
Rediscovered gem
The fisher could n’t lug the skull back to shore in their bantam wooden boat , so they saw off the tusk and tooth , tossed the rest overboard and eventually handed portions to the crew as token . Capt . Thurston Shawn make the stay on ivory portions , teeth and tongue to a relative , who donate the clay to Gwynn ’s Island Museum in Virginia . There they sat , unnoticed , for decades .
But while doing his doctorial dissertation , Darrin Lowery , a geologist at the University of Delaware , noticed the tooth and the tusk at the museum , and say , " Ooh , it ’s something Dennis would be real interested in , " Stanford tell Live Science . [ See range of the Mastodon Tusk and Tool from the situation ]
By measure out the fraction of radioactive atomic number 6 isotope ( elements of carbon with different numbers of neutrons ) , the team found that the mastodon tusk was more than 22,000 year quondam .
There was no mode to engagement the blade precisely , but the dextrous flint - knapping technique used to make it was similar to that found in Solutrean puppet , which were made in Europe between 22,000 and 17,000 year ago .
Melting glaciers raised sea storey and submerse that area of the continental shelf about 14,000 years ago , so the tongue must have been at least that honest-to-goodness , Stanford added .
In addition , both while showed characteristic weathering that indicated they were exposed to the melodic phrase for a while and then submerged in a saltwater marsh , before finally being eat up in saltwater .
That determination indicate that the two artefact were possibly from the same surroundings — such as the Marsh find between sand dune that are often set back from the seashore . That would have been a perfect lieu formastodonsto see food , Stanford said .
" They wish to chew on President Bush and more rough shrubbery , " Stanford sound out .
To Stanford , Lowery and their colleagues , the discoveries suggest that people lived along the East Coast more than 14,000 years ago — potentially thousands of eld before the Clovis culture emerged there . These first American coloniser may have even crossbreed the Atlantic Ocean from Europe , Stanford said . [ Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans ]
Pre - Clovis Americans ?
" I recall it ’s very convincing , " said Michael B. Collins , an anthropologist at Texas State University in San Marcos , Texas , who was not involved in the current employment .
The weathering on both items — first with open air , then seawater , then saltwater picture — would be almost impossible to get without them having been on state prior to rear ocean levels toward the close of thePleistocene Epoch , which last from 1.7 million to 11,700 class ago , Collins said .
But the soul who wield the rhyolite knife may not have hunted the mastodon , Collins articulate .
" Those thing could have issue forth to rest there together at dissimilar times , " with the tool possibly being 18,000 or 19,000 year old , Collins told Live Science .
The estimation that thefirst Americans were European"has been around for a longsighted time , and it ’s a tough subject to make , " Holliday said .
A 2007 field of study in the journal PLOS Genetics tie all be Native American populations toancestors that crossed the Bering Straitfrom Siberia . If Europeans did achieve the Americas 18,000 years ago , they left little genetic trace in sustenance populations .
" There ’s absolutely no DNA evidence , " Holliday say .
Archaeological evidence is also scarce . A few East Coast site , such as Cactus Hill in Virginia and Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania , may have been inhabit up to 16,000 to 18,000 years ago , but the dating and provenience of artifacts from the sites are disputable , Holliday said .
Either path , it ’s unacceptable to know how the mastodon tusk and knife are connected , Holliday said .
" You would have to demonstrate that the artifact was associate with the mastodon — in the same geologic layers , " Holliday said .
But many other sportfishing boats could have come and merge up the sediments at the ocean floor prior to the scallop trawler ’s dredging . And with thousands of year of sea current , the artifacts could have originate in dissimilar locations . For all anybody knows , an ancient fisherman could have throw off the knife from a canoe 8,000 years ago , Holliday said .
The new discovery was delineate in May in a chapter of the book " Prehistoric Archaeology on the Continental Shelf " ( Springer , 2014 ) , though it has not been published in a match - critique diary .
