Century-Old Little Girl Found In Coffin Under San Francisco Home Identified
In the 1800s the mysterious girl, whose body was found under a house in San Francisco, her body entombed in a small lead and bronze coffin and her well-preserved hands clutching a single red rose, has been identified.
Garden of Innocence’s nonprofit project says the child — who not only astonished the work Crew who stumbled over the Casket but also city officials who thought the bodies in the 19th century Richmond District cemetery had all been moved — is Edith Howard Cook.
Edith was a month and a half short of her third birthday when she died Oct. 13, 1876, according to researchers working with the Southern California’s Garden of Innocence.
The cause of her death? Probably severe undernourishment caused by an infection, the researchers said.
The team had been working to identify the girl since her body was discovered during a home remodelling project near Lone Mountain.
Construction worker Kevin Boylan told KTVU: ‘All the hair was still there. The nails were there. There were flowers – roses, still on the child’s body. It was a sight to see.’
“It was a light at the end of the tunnel finding out who she is,” said Erica Hernandez, a project spokeswoman
The researchers, who included staff at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, located records from the old cemetery that was run by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows until about 1902, when the graves were relocated to Colma.
Although the paperwork was “unorganized,” Hernandez said, the team was able to cross-reference plot records with old newspaper obituaries and get an idea of who the young child might be.
Once it concluded that Edith was probably the girl, the team tracked down living relatives for a DNA sample to verify their finding. That confirmation came when a sample from Edith’s hair matched that of Peter Cook, a descendant of her brother, who lives in Marin County.
Edith Howard Cook was the second child and first daughter of Horatio Nelson and Edith Scooffy Cook. Peter Cook is descended from Edith’s older brother, Milton H. Cook.
Edith’s family was believed to be of decent means, having buried the child in a relatively expensive metal casket 37 inches in length, with two viewing windows on the lid.
Her skin and hair, as well as her burial flowers, were well preserved. She was one of about 30,000 people with graves at the old Odd Fellows Cemetery.
Why her remains weren’t transported to Colma around 1920, when the city wanted to make room for the living, remains a mystery.
Skeletons Found Under a Florida Wine Shop May Be Some of America’s First Colonists
Historians recently announced in Florida that several small children’s bones buried beneath underneath the last place one might think to look: a wine shop.
However, there will be no police inquiry. The Florida wine shop happens to be located in St. Augustine, America’s oldest city. And those bones? They’re just about as old as the city is.
The archaeologists actually believe that these skeletal remains could have been among the first settlers in North America.
In the past few weeks, researchers have found seven people including three children, in the ancient graveyard.
According to the St. Augustine Register, one of them was a young white European woman.
Researchers are still examining the other remains, but a pottery fragment found nearby suggests that these people died sometime between 1572 and 1586.
“What you’re dealing with is people who made St. Augustine what it is,” Carl Halbirt, St. Augustine city archaeologist, tells FirstCoast News. “You’re in total awe. You want to treat everything with respect, and we are.”
Excavations inside the Fiesta Mall (City of St. Augustine)
Archaeologists were able to dig underneath the building thanks to the effects of last year’s Hurricane Matthew, the flooding from which convinced the building’s owner that it was time to replace the wooden floor.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the building’s floor was constructed in 1888, and the soil beneath the building has remained untouched since then, thus creating a virtual time capsule.
The building also happens to be built where the ancient Church of Nuestra Señora de la Remedios used to stand.
“The mission churches across Florida buried everybody in the church floor,” Ellsbeth Gordon, an architectural historian, told FirstCoast News. “It was consecrated ground, of course.”
According to Smithsonian, Sir Francis Drake burned the church down in 1586, a hurricane destroyed it again in 1599, and the British once again burned it down in 1702.
That last time may have been for good, but until then the church had been the main meeting point for a colony that had been established 55 years before the Pilgrims ever set foot on Plymouth Rock.
While the archaeologists are planning on moving the bones found outside the wine shop to a nearby cemetery, the skeletons found inside will stay right where they have lain for the past 400 years.
Hundreds of Well Preserved Prehistoric Animals have been Found in an Ancient Volcanic Ashbed in Nebraska
The watering holes attracted prehistoric animals among Nebraska’s tall grasslands. From horses to camels and rhinoceroses, with wild dogs looming nearby, animals roamed the savanna-like region.
Then, one day, it all changed. Hundreds of miles away, a volcano in southeast Idaho erupted. Within days, up to two feet of ash covered parts of present-day Nebraska.
Some of the animals died immediately, consumed with ash and other debris. Most of the animals lived for several more days, their lungs ingesting ash as they searched the ground for food. Within a few weeks, northeast Nebraska was barren of animals, except for a few survivors.
An adult (3) rhino fossil lies next to a baby’s fossils. They are among hundreds of skeletons discovered at Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park in Royal, Nebraska.
More than 12 million years later, a fossil was found in Antelope County, near the small town of Royal. The skull of a baby rhino was discovered by a Nebraska palaeontologist and his wife while exploring the area. The fossil was exposed by erosion. Soon after, exploration started in the area.
As more discoveries were made, the site grew into a tourist attraction. Today, people visit Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park to check out hundreds of fossils from 12 species of animals, including five types of horses, three species of camels, as well as a sabre-toothed deer. The infamous sabre-toothed cat remains a dream discovery.
Visitors view fossils inside the Hubbard Rhino Barn, a 17,500-square foot facility that protects the fossils while allowing visitors to roam on a boardwalk. Kiosks provide information on fossils located in specific areas.
One level of the fossil beds discovered at Ashfall Fossil Beds park.
As you tour the barn, if a summer intern or palaeontologist is nearby, they are open to discussing their work, as well as answering questions. During our visit, we learned that an intern had discovered a fossilized dog paw print.
Outside the barn, visitors can read facts about the area, including that mammoths migrated to North America about 1.5 million years ago. A yellow flag in an area a short distance from the main walk to the barn indicates the discovery site of the rhino skull. Red flags showcase spots where additional fossils were discovered.
A yellow flag marks the site of the first skull discovery in 1971. The red flags indicate spots of additional fossil finds.
Visitor activities and views at Ashfall Fossil Beds
In addition to the Hubbard Barn, Ashfall Fossil Beds features a discovery area where children can cipher through the sand searching for their own fossil discoveries. A small barn is used for special exhibits, as well as classes.
Children play in a sandbox “searching” for fossils.
The visitors centre houses some animal remains, as well as palaeontologists working on recent finds. About 60 million years before the area was home to the savanna, Nebraska was part of a tropical sea.
Fossils found in the area include a plesiosaur, a mammal from the Jurassic Period. The fossils displayed were found on the Santee reservation, about an hour away.
Fossils from a plesiosaur were found near Santee, about an hour from the park.c
Sculptures representing animals from the region are located around the state historical park. Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park kicks off its summer hours Memorial Day weekend when it’s open daily through Labor Day. Otherwise, check the website here for hours.
A state park permit ($6 per vehicle for an in-state day permit or free with an annual pass) is required for visiting the park, in addition to the $7 entrance fee.
World’s longest fossilized human trackway discovered at White Sands
Footprints are a common theme at White Sands. Every day, people from all over the world visit and leave traces of their comings and goings. The white dunes of the Tularosa Basin are just a recent blip on the geological timeline.
During the ice age tens of thousands of years ago, a giant body of water called Lake Otero existed. The climate was wetter, and the vegetation was abundant. One could have seen grasslands stretching for miles that would have looked more like the prairies of Nebraska than New Mexico’s deserts.
This paradise of lush green life naturally captured the attention of the larger animals of the ice age. Plant eaters of all kinds came to Lake Otero to feast on the grasses and trees of the Tularosa Basin.
White Sands has the largest collection of fossilized human footprints.
Large plant-eaters attracted fearsome predators of the ice age, such as dire wolves and the American lion. Throughout the ice age, these animals left their footprints along the wetlands of Lake Otero.
Around 12,000 years ago, the earth’s climate began to show signs of change. Areas once green and lush started transforming into the desert landscape we see today. Rainfall in the Tularosa Basin became rare, and the great Lake Otero began to dry.
The once large body of freshwater became only pools of water scattered along the former lakebed. As the waters of Lake Otero dried, crystals began to form from the gypsum left behind by the evaporating lake water. The constant blowing of the wind broke down those large crystals into smaller crystals. This eventually formed the white sand dunes that gave this park its name.
Odd dark spots were discovered to be hidden footprints. Columbian Mammoth footprints are the most common.
Today we find fossil footprints of the animals that once lived here at White Sands more than 10,000 years ago. Scattered along the now dried lakebed are trackways and trample grounds of ancient camels and Columbian Mammoths. These fossilized footprints appear to gather around what may be ancient pools of water.
For 80 years, only a small collection of fossil footprints were known. However, a group of scientists noticed dark spots dotting the expanse of the lakebed that appeared to be footprints. Their curiosities lead them to dig up these odd dark spots.
This led to the discovery of both Harlan’s Ground Sloth and Paleo-Human footprints. During the 2010s, footprints of a dire wolf were discovered. These footprints were located next to ancient seeds. Scientists dated these seeds to more than 18,000 years ago.
The people, who once lived in the Tularosa Basin, left very little proof they lived here. Throughout the basin, pieces of stone flakes from toolmaking, arrowheads, and spear points have been found. However, these appear to be related to peoples who lived after the ice age.
This is in contrast to the surrounding areas that are filled with items left behind from ancient peoples. The lakebed of Lake Otero seems to be almost devoid of a single artifact that dates to before the Spanish exploration in the 1500s, let alone the ice age.
In a scene from the ice age, a woman holding a child on the shores of the ancient Lake Otero leave the footprints in the mud.
At White Sands, we find many remarkable tracks scattered across the lakebed. This includes a long track of human footprints that extends for long distances. While these footprints are ancient, scientists are still uncovering new evidence of past life.
In 2018, researchers discovered what they believe to be the footprints of a female. They tell a story that may seem familiar today her footprints show her walking for almost a mile, with a toddler’s footprints occasionally showing up beside hers.
The footprints broadened and slipped in the mud with additional weight. This suggests that she carried the child, shifting them from side to side and setting them down as they walked. Footprints across White Sands have been found coexisting and interacting with extinct ice age animals.
One set of footprints shows what appears to be humans stalking a giant sloth. This is shown by human footprints being found inside the footprints of the sloth as they were tracked. Currently, there is no evidence of a fruitful hunt, but this is not surprising. Most ice age hunts were not successful, with only one out of three hunts ending with a kill.
The ice age ended because of changes in the earth’s climate. Environments once rich in lush green life began to disappear. The reason for the disappearance of the great beasts of the ice age is still debated among scientists. More than likely, it was the combination of both the changes in climate and the overhunting by skilled people.
The fossilized footprints of White Sands are probably the most important resources in the Americas to the understanding of the interaction of humans and extinct animals from the ice age.
These fossilized footprints, among other natural and cultural features found in the dunefield, further propelled the movement to re-designate White Sands National Monument into White Sands National Park. As a massive landscape filled with history that stretches beyond points on our planet’s geologic timeline, White Sands continually proves itself to be more than just a sandbox.
An adult and toddlers footprints on the surface of a playa at White Sands National Park. These tracks extend for almost a mile.
What Lies Beneath? Finding North America’s lost medieval city
At the time of its existence, this city was larger than Paris or London and housed about 30,000 citizens. This is around the size of Juneau Alaska today (if you include the surrounding boroughs). If this estimate is correct, It was the largest city in the United States until the 1780s, when the population of Philadelphia finally surpassed it. So where was this lost historic capital?
The city was known as Cahokia. It reached its peak population in 1050 and was then abandoned in 1400. We don’t even know the name of the people who lived there. The city was named after the tribe of Cahokia who lived there, but the tribe of Cahokia claimed no connection with the city; it was the European explorers who named it.
A group known as Mississippians are the original inhabitants. They were great builders and craftspeople, and they had a significant influence on the surrounding areas—just check out the extent of the territory they have been reported to have impacted.
Artist’s recreation of downtown Cahokia, with Monk’s Mound at its centre.
Studies suggest that Cahokia was in fact the first melting pot in North America, drawing in people from surrounding areas (as much as one-third of their population consisting of immigrants from other tribes and groups). These people could have migrated away after the decline of the city, meaning that the Cahokia tribe might not be the descendants of the city builders.
So again, where was this metropolis hiding? How do we know it even existed at all? I bet you wouldn’t guess it was buried under the suburbs of St. Louis, would you? If this city was right under our noses all this time, why are we only really exploring it now?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Exploration of the area occurred sporadically, and earthen mounds don’t make for particularly exciting discoveries like gold or jewels. So, this lost city went the way of most—instead of preserving the shifting space, for monuments or museums, it was used for growing room as the population in the area expanded.
The growth of human civilization can be a bit unforgiving at times to ancient historical sites. Famous historical cities of the world are built on the ruins of their own past. Cahokia is no different.
Up goes a drive-in movie theatre here, a subdivision there, and a variety of other infrastructure required of our time. The area today is like any other in modern America, crisscrossed by roads and highways like veins in an ever-changing landscape, but underneath all of that, it is filled with a rich history.
What was in the city?
While we have known about the ancient city for hundreds of years, our knowledge has largely been restricted to the awareness of mounds seen above the surface. Those mounds are pretty impressive though. Consider that all the mounds in Cahokia were built by hand. People dug up clay and transported it by hand, likely in woven baskets.
Aerial view of Monk’s Mound via WesternDigs
Evidence of the human sacrifices uncovered at Mound 72.
One of the most notable mounds is the one called Monks Mound. Monks Mound rises 100 feet high (about 30 meters) and has three distinct levels. Archaeological evidence shows that there was a building at the peak of the mound which could have risen another 50 feet (15 meters).
This mound is estimated to have taken as much as 250 years to build, but new evidence suggests it might have been completed in a mind-blowing 20 years. The entire structure was made up of an estimated 22 million cubic feet/623 thousand cubic meters of the earth (that’s a lot of baskets).
To put the size of the mound into perspective, the base of the mound is comparable to the Great Pyramid at Giza, and it is the largest prehistoric earthen construction in America north of Mexico.
Archaeological studies suggest that the city is so much more than just mounds. There are extensive ceremonial areas, including at least one Woodhenge – a structure similar to Stonehenge in the UK, that was used to monitor the movement of the sun and stars to predict events such as harvests.
There are also extensive living areas, the grand plaza gathering area, a copper workshop, burial sites, and evidence of an extensive wooden palisade (estimated at 15 feet tall, or 4.6 meters). Over 1,000 years ago, this was a pretty happening place.
Unfortunately, as the construction techniques in Cahokia involved using wood and earth, there are no stone ruins like we might see in Egypt or Rome. This means that the city was more easily reclaimed by nature—but that doesn’t make it any less impressive than its ancient counterparts.
Lessons from the past
If you’re thinking Cahokia sounds pretty amazing, you’re right. So, the obvious question is, why was it abandoned?
This is one of the most interesting questions about abandoned cities. In modern times the idea of abandoning a fully-formed city seems ludicrous (especially considering real estate prices in Toronto and Vancouver).
New studies of the flood patterns of the Mississippi River might be shedding some light on the situation. The rise of Cahokia falls in line with periods of relatively low flooding. This would have made farming and city expansion relatively easy. Then, towards the end of the city’s life, the floods returned, with one flood around the year 1200 being as much as 33 feet (10 meters) high. That’s the kind of stuff we make disaster movies about, so it is pretty easy to understand how that could contribute to the decline of the city.
Flood researchers are also careful to say that there was likely a multitude of causes contributing to the decline of the city, such as war or disease. It boggles the mind in many ways. Think of our modern cities. What would it take for us to abandon New Orleans, New York, or another metropolis?
The whole area was designated as a state historical site about 40 years ago and made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. It is always comforting to see history receive the recognition it so richly deserves, but this ancient metropolis also has a lesson for all of us in modern times: the greatest cities of mankind are often very dependent on specific environmental circumstances, and if those circumstances change they can have a very dramatic impact on the people who live in and around them.
The Rome of America: What Lies Under Teotihuacan? – The Real City of the Gods
It was a Massive, one of the first great cities of the Western Hemisphere. And its origins are a mystery. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.
The Pyramid of the Sun (top) is the largest structure in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, and one of the largest buildings of its kind on the Western Hemisphere.
A famed archaeological site located fewer than 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Mexico City, Teotihuacan reached its zenith between 100 B.C. and A.D. 650. It covered 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) and supported a population of a hundred thousand, according to George Cowgill, an archaeologist at Arizona State University and a National Geographic Society grantee.
“It was the largest city anywhere in the Western Hemisphere before the 1400s,” Cowgill says. “It had thousands of residential compounds and scores of pyramid-temples … comparable to the largest pyramids of Egypt.”
Oddly, Teotihuacan, which contains a massive central road (the Street of the Dead) and buildings including the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, has no military structures—though experts say the military and cultural wake of Teotihuacan was heavily felt throughout the region.
Who Built It?
Cowgill says the site’s visible surface remains have all been mapped in detail. But only some portions have been excavated.
Scholars once pointed to the Toltec culture. Others note that the Toltec peaked far later than Teotihuacan’s zenith, undermining that theory. Some scholars say the Totonac culture was responsible.
No matter its principal builders, evidence shows that Teotihuacan hosted a patchwork of cultures including the Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec. One theory says an erupting volcano forced a wave of immigrants into the Teotihuacan valley and that those refugees either built or bolstered the city.
The main excavations, performed by Professors Saburo Sugiyama of Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and Rubén Cabrera, a Mexican archaeologist, have been at the Pyramid of the Moon. It was there, beneath layers of dirt and stone, that researchers realized the awe-inspiring craftsmanship of Teotihuacan’s architects was matched by a cultural penchant for brutality and human and animal sacrifice.
Inside the temple, researchers found buried animals and bodies, with heads that had been lobbed off, all thought to be offerings to gods or sanctification for successive layers of the pyramid as it was built.
Since 2003, archaeologist Sergio Gomez has been working to access new parts of the complex and has only recently reached the end of a tunnel that could hold a king’s tomb.
It’s unclear why Teotihuacan collapsed; one theory is that poorer classes carried out an internal uprising against the elite.
For Cowgill, who says more studies are needed to understand the lives of the poorer classes that inhabited Teotihuacan, the mystery lies not as much in who built the city or in why it fell.
“Rather than asking why Teotihuacan collapsed, it is more interesting to ask why it lasted so long,” he says. “What were the social, political, and religious practices that provided such stability?”
Megalithic stone blocks scattered in the vicinity of the pyramid of the Feathered Serpents at Teotihuacan.
Megalithic stone head from the earlier layer of construction.
Megalithic stone blocks scattered in the vicinity of the pyramid of the Feathered Serpents at Teotihuacan.
Megalithic stone blocks scattered in the vicinity of the pyramid of the Feathered Serpents at Teotihuacan.
An Underground City Full Of Giant Skeletons Discovered In The Grand Canyon
In the early 20th century, chance led us to the gate of the underground town of the most prominent giants of that period. This was an unprecedented find in the Grand Canyon, which soon repeated in the press.
The Grand Canyon was the birthplace of a culture in which, according to an article published in the Gazeta de Arizona on April 5, 1909, people of cyclopean proportions existed. A civilization that only left us some structures as a testimony of its existence.
The article mentions the discovery of a huge subterranean citadel by an explorer named GE Kinkaid, who accidentally found it while rafting on the Colorado River. It is worth mentioning that Kinkaid was a recognized archaeologist and had the financial support of the Smithsonian Institution.
According to their descriptions, the entrance to this mysterious city was at the end of a tunnel that extended for something more than 1,600 meters underground.
Kinkaid was impressed that the cavern was almost inaccessible. The entrance was about 450 meters under the wall of the steep canyon. The place was in a zone protected by the government and the access was penalized under fine.
“Above a shelf that could not be seen from the river was the entrance to the cave. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the entrance, I got interested, I got my gun and I went in. “Kinkaid said.
The architecture found suggested that the builders of that subterranean city possessed advanced engineering skills.
The central axis of the underground city made it a gigantic camera from which radiated passages similar to the radii of a wheel. The walls of the main chamber were adorned with copper weapons and tablets covered with symbols and hieroglyphic characters very similar to those we know in Egypt.
Another interesting finding was the discovery of mummified bodies inside the citadel. None of the mummies found were less than 2.74 meters and all were wrapped in dark linen. Kinkaid said he had taken photographs of one of them with a flashlight, however, none of those photos were found.
Further explorations revealed interesting data on the beliefs of these alleged giants of the city.
More than 30 meters from the entrance is a room with a cross-shaped plant several tens of meters long and where an idol was found that could have been the main god of his religious system.
He was sitting cross-legged and with a lotus or lily flower in each hand. His face had oriental features as well as the carving of the cave. This idol had a certain resemblance to Buddha, although the scientists of the time did not finish assuring that it represented that religious cult.
The article also talks about the discovery of ceramics and other artifacts with trademarks having been manufactured in other parts of the world. Perhaps a rare mixture of cultures that scarcely occurs in archaeological finds, so this discovery would be of unprecedented importance.
The last camera they found on the exploration was what Kinkaid and his partner, Professor SA Jordan, a ceremonial crypt, believed to be at the end of the great hall where they found the mummies.
Unfortunately, the article does not give many more details about this discovery. Nor are there any official versions or references to this enigmatic subterranean city. The Smithsonian Institute denies having knowledge of the existence of this underground city.
Researchers Discover 14,800 Years Old Petroglyphs, the Oldest one in U.S.A
A recent high-tech study performed by a bouldering researcher of the University of Colorado showed the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America, which were carved into a series of boulders in West Nevada at least 10,500 years ago and perhaps even as far back as 14,800 years ago.
Researchers found that petroglyphs discovered in western Nevada are at least 10,500 years old, making them the oldest rock art ever dated in North America.
Petroglyphs found on the petroglyphic site of the lake at Winnemucca 35 kilometers northeast from Reno consist of large, deeply sculpted grooves and dots that form intricate patterns on several large limestone boulders that have been known about for decades, said CU-Boulder researcher Larry Benson, who led the new effort.
Although there are no people, animals, or handprint symbols depicted, the petroglyph designs include a series of vertical, chain-like symbols and a number of smaller pits deeply incised with a type of hard rock scraper.
Benson and his colleagues used several methods to date the petroglyphs, including determining when the water level the Winnemucca Lake subbasin — which back then was a single body of water connecting the now-dry Winnemucca Lake and the existing Pyramid Lake — reached the specific elevation of 3,960 feet.
The elevation was key to the study because it marked the maximum height the ancient lake system could have reached before it began spilling excess water over Emerson Pass to the north.
When the lake level was at this height, the petroglyph-peppered boulders were submerged and therefore not accessible for carving, said Benson, an adjunct curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.
A paper on the subject was published this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Co-authors on the study included Eugene Hattori of the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nev., John Southon of the University of California, Irvine, and Benjamin Aleck of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitor’s Center in Nixon, Nev. The National Research Program of the U.S. Geological Survey funded the study.
According to Benson, a white layer of carbonate made of limestone precipitated from the ancient, overflowing Winnemucca Lake had coated some of the petroglyph carvings near the base of the boulders. Previous work by Benson showed the carbonate coating elsewhere in the basin at that elevation had a radiocarbon date of roughly 11,000 years ago.
Benson sampled the carbonate into which the petroglyphs were incised and the carbonate that coated the petroglyphs at the base of the limestone boulder. The radiocarbon dates on the samples indicated the carbonate layer underlying the petroglyphs dated to roughly 14,800 ago.
Two images trace the shapes of some of the petroglyphs more clearly and show their relative size
Those dates, as well as additional geochemical data on a sediment core from the adjacent Pyramid Lake subbasin, indicated the limestone boulders containing the petroglyphs were exposed to air between 14,800 and 13,200 years ago and again between about 11,300 and 10,500 years ago.
“Prior to our study, archaeologists had suggested these petroglyphs were extremely old,” said Benson, also an emeritus USGS scientist. “Whether they turn out to be as old as 14,800 years ago or as recent as 10,500 years ago, they are still the oldest petroglyphs that have been dated in North America.”
While Native American artifacts found in the Lahontan Basin — which encompasses the Winnemucca Lake subbasin — date to the time period of 11,300 to 10,500 years ago, it does not rule out the possibility that the petroglyphs were carved as early as 14,800 years ago, Benson said.
The oldest dates calculated for the Winnemucca Lake petroglyph site correspond with the time frame linked to several pieces of fossilized human excrement found in a cave in Oregon said Benson, who also is affiliated with CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
The caves, known as the Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon, held not only fossilized human coprolites that dated to roughly 14,400 years ago but also bones of horses and camels that went extinct in North America prior to 13,000 years ago.
The younger time interval calculated for the Winnemucca petroglyphs corresponds to dates obtained from a second significant archaeological finding in the region — Spirit Cave Man, who was discovered more than 70 years ago some 60 miles east of Reno and whose hair, bones, and clothing were dated to about 10,600 years ago. The remains of the man, who was found partially mummified in a shallow grave in Spirit Cave, Nev., were discovered with a fur robe, a woven marsh plant shroud, and moccasins.
Petroglyphs near Long Lake in central Oregon — which were previously thought to be the oldest examples of rock art in North America — share similar features with some of the rock art the Winnemucca site, said Benson. At least one of the petroglyph panels from Long Lake was buried by ash from an eruption of the nearby Mount Mazama volcano roughly 6,700 years ago, proof that it was carved sometime before the eruption.
Close-ups of the Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs
“We have no idea what they mean,” Benson said of the Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs. “But I think they are absolutely beautiful symbols. Some look like multiple connected sets of diamonds, and some look like trees or veins in a leaf. There are few petroglyphs in the American Southwest that are as deeply carved as these, and few that have the same sense of size.”
Benson obtained permission to non-invasively examine the petroglyphs from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which owns the land. Study co-author John Southton, a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, radiocarbon dated the material for the study.
