Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera Lestodon, Eremotherium and Megatherium, being around the size of elephants. Ground sloths represent a paraphyletic group, as living tree sloths are thought to have evolved from ground sloth ancestors.
White Sands National Park is a national park of the United States located in New Mexico and completely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. The park covers 145,762 acres in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a 275 sq mi (710 km2) field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. This gypsum dunefield is the largest of its kind on Earth, with a depth of about 30 feet (9.1 m), dunes as tall as 60 feet (18 m), and about 4.5 billion short tons of gypsum sand.
Laetoli is a pre-historic site located in Enduleni ward of Ngorongoro District in Arusha Region, Tanzania. The site is dated to the Plio-Pleistocene and famous for its Hominina footprints, preserved in volcanic ash. The site of the Laetoli footprints is located 45 km south of Olduvai gorge. The location and tracks were discovered by archaeologist Mary Leakey and her team in 1976, and were excavated by 1978. Based on analysis of the footfall impressions "The Laetoli Footprints" provided convincing evidence for the theory of bipedalism in Pliocene Hominina and received significant recognition by scientists and the public. Since 1998, paleontological expeditions have continued under the leadership of Amandus Kwekason of the National Museum of Tanzania and Terry Harrison of New York University, leading to the recovery of more than a dozen new Hominina finds, as well as a comprehensive reconstruction of the paleoecology. The site is a registered National Historic Sites of Tanzania.
Monte Verde is a Paleolithic archaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. The site is primarily known for Monte Verde II, dating to approximately 14,550–14,500 calibrated years Before Present (BP). The Monte Verde II site has been considered key evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by at least 1,000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 cal BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but the evidence then became more accepted in archaeological circles. The site also contains an older, much more controversial layer suggested to date to 18,500 cal BP, that lacks the general acceptance of Monte Verde II.
The Tularosa Basin is a graben basin in the Basin and Range Province and within the Chihuahuan Desert, east of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico and West Texas, in the Southwestern United States.
A fossil track or ichnite is a fossilized footprint. This is a type of trace fossil. A fossil trackway is a sequence of fossil tracks left by a single organism. Over the years, many ichnites have been found, around the world, giving important clues about the behaviour of the animals that made them. For instance, multiple ichnites of a single species, close together, suggest 'herd' or 'pack' behaviour of that species.
Footprints are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking or running. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hooves or paws rather than feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by shoes. They may either be indentations in the ground or something placed onto the surface that was stuck to the bottom of the foot. A "trackway" is a set of footprints in soft earth left by a life-form; animal tracks are the footprints, hoofprints, or pawprints of an animal.
The Ancient footprints of Acahualinca exist in Managua, Nicaragua near the southern shore of Lake Managua. The region was once called "El Cauce". The tracks are fossil Late Holocene human footprints left behind in volcanic ash and mud, which solidified about 2,120±120 years ago, shortly after the group of up to 15 people passed by.
The Xalnene Tuff footprints are a geological academic controversy, concerning a 2005 discovery of 269 markings in a geological layer in the Valsequillo Basin, south of the city of Puebla, Mexico, which were originally interpreted to be human and animal footprints. The layer was variously dated to 40,000 years Before Present (BP) or 1.3 million years BP, both dates significantly before the currently accepted date for the settlement of the Americas. A 2010 study argues that the marks were made by recent mining activities.
The Buttermilk Creek complex is the remains of a paleolithic settlement along the shores of Buttermilk Creek in present-day Salado, Texas. The assemblage dates to ~13.2 to 15.5 thousand years old. If confirmed, the site represents evidence of human settlement in the Americas that pre-dates the Clovis culture.
The Snowmastodon site, also known as the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, is the location of an important Ice Age fossil excavation near Snowmass Village, Colorado. Fossils were first discovered on October 14, 2010, during the construction of a 5 hectares reservoir to supply Snowmass Village with water. Over the subsequent weeks, after an agreement had been reached to allow paleontological excavation, crews from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the U.S. Geological Survey worked along with the construction crews as more fossil material was uncovered. The site closed for five months over the winter, reopening May 15, 2011. Between May 15 and July 4, 2011, crews from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science conducted a large scale fossil excavation alongside construction crews building a dam for the reservoir. In total over 36,000 vertebrate fossils, more than 100 species of fossil invertebrates and over 100 species of fossil plants were found in sediments deposited by an alpine lake during the last interglacial period.
The Kow Swamp archaeological site comprises a series of late Pleistocene burials within the lunette of the eastern rim of a former lake known as Kow Swamp. The site is 10 kilometres (6 mi) south-east of Cohuna in the central Murray River valley, in northern Victoria, at 35.953553°S 144.318123°E. The site is significant for archaeological excavations by Alan Thorne between 1968 and 1972 which recovered the partial skeletal remains of more than 22 individuals.
Valerius Geist was a German-Canadian biologist and a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. He was a specialist on the biology, behavior, and social dynamics of North American large mammals, and well respected on his views of Neanderthal people and behavior.
The peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum. These populations expanded south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America by 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by proposed linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA.
A paleoshoreline is a shoreline that existed in the geologic past. Paleoshorelines are driven by changes in sea level over geological time. "Sea level" refers to the average level of a marine water body over a relatively long period of time (years). Fluctuations in sea level is largely due to the melting and freezing of ice sheets. The position of paleoshorelines differed greatly from modern shorelines and can be used to reconstruct past sea levels, environments and ecological communities. Paleoshorelines exist due to unique preservation processes and give insight into the formation and understanding of prominent marine structures. Lakes may also have paleoshorelines. The reconstruction of paleoshorelines also aid in the understanding of species migration, modern ecological assemblages, and paleoclimates.
This page lists major events of 2021 in archaeology.
The Hartley Mammoth Site is a pre-Clovis archaeological and paleontological site in New Mexico. Preserving the butchered remains of two Columbian mammoths, small mammals and fish, the site is notable due to its age, which is significantly older than the currently accepted dates for the settlement of the Americas.
Isotope analysis has many applications in archaeology, from dating sites and artefacts, determination of past diets and migration patterns and for environmental reconstruction.
The theory known as "Clovis First" was the predominant hypothesis among archaeologists in the second half of the 20th century to explain the peopling of the Americas. According to Clovis First, the people associated with the Clovis culture were the first inhabitants of the Americas. This hypothesis came to be challenged by ongoing studies that suggest pre-Clovis human occupation of the Americas. In 2011, following the excavation of an occupation site at Buttermilk Creek, Texas, a group of scientists identified the existence "of an occupation older than Clovis." At the site in Buttermilk, archaeologists discovered evidence of hunter-gatherer group living and the making of projectile spear points, blades, choppers, and other stone tools. The tools found were made from a local chert and could be dated back to as early as 15,000 years ago.
Nauwalabila I, is a sandstone rock shelter located in Deaf Adder Gorge in the Northern Territory of Australia. Along with Madjedbebe, this site is one of the oldest in terms of human settlement in Australia, with its estimated age being greater than 50,000 years. Nowadays, this site can be found in Kakadu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is partially owned by the collective Aboriginal population of Arnhem Land.
