A team of paleontologists found evidence in Argentina. There are remains of a glyptodont with signs of having been butchered some 21,000 years ago. What is the significance of this fact? It happens to be the oldest record of the presence of human beings and their interaction with megafauna in South America. The trace of the oldest humans in South America, according to a study by the journal ‘PLOS ONE’.
The results of the radiocarbon studies dated the bones to between 21,090 and 20,811 years before the present. The nature of the cuts on the bones was analyzed. “They carry the chronological framework of both human presence and interactions between humans and megafauna. It is almost 6,000 years earlier than what has been recorded in other sites in South America, which date from between 8,000 and 15,000 years before the present,” the scientists said in their study. Therefore, they would be the oldest humans in South America.
Carved fossil
The fossilized remains are from the glyptodont, a species of armored mammal. Thirty-two cut marks were identified on its back. They are associated with the butchering of animals with stone tools, although no evidence of human presence was found at the site.
The fossil was found in 2015 on the Reconquista River outside Buenos Aires. Glyptodonts lived in various parts of the Americas and became extinct about 10,000 years ago. The bones found correspond to parts of the pelvic girdle, vertebrae and caudal tube of the glyptodont. At the time of its burial it was lying on its right side, according to the study. The animal measured almost two meters long and weighed about 300 kilos, the researchers said.
Quick burial
Among other indicators, the little or no disarticulation of some skeletal parts was highlighted, as well as the very good preservation of the cortical surfaces. This suggests little post-depositional distortion of the fossil, an undisturbed deposit context, and a rapid burial scenario, they added.
