The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has found no reason to dispute the authenticity of an unprecedented archaeological discovery that might help confirm a human presence in Florida up to 13,000 years ago.
In early 2009, fossil collector James Kennedy cleaned off an old bone he found two years earlier and noticed some lines on it — lines that turned out to be a clear etching of a walking mammoth with tusks.
The bone came from an area north of Vero Beach, but the exact location hasn't been disclosed.
University of Florida researchers scrutinized the four-inch etching on the 15-inch prehistoric bone with an electron microscope and their tests showed it to be genuine.
This year, Kennedy took the bone to the National Museum of Natural History for further study. Smithsonian Institution archaeologists made a copy and used advanced techniques to look at the etching.
"We have found no traces that would indicate that a [modern] metal tool was used to carve the bone," said Dennis Stanford, who specializes in early North American archaeology at the Smithsonian.
"While we see no evidence that it is a forgery," the institution doesn't authenticate objects unless they are donated to the museum, Stanford wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday.
Kennedy is keeping the bone in hopes of selling it.
It is presumed to be the oldest known art object of its type found in the New World, said Richard Hulbert, a paleontologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
The person who created the etching, presumably with a shark tooth or flint implement, had to have seen a live animal to have drawn it in such detail, he said.
Author: Elliott Jones | Source: Sun Sentinel [October 20, 2010]