Fossil art

In my Subtropical Ecology course, we devote some time to a discussion of the Pleistocene fossil fauna of peninsular fauna, including a fascinating group of mammals rivaling that of modern-day Africa.  These megafauna included a number of probscideans such as mammoths and mastodons.  A newly published paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science describes a fantastic new piece of evidence tying this fossil fauna to the earliest human inhabitants to the region.

13,000 year-old engraving on Florida
fossil (Credit: Chip Clark/Smithsonian)

Amateur fossil collector James Kennedy, in inspecting a fossilized long bone from an unidentified mammals, noticed the engraving pictured here.  It shows an elephant-like animal, whether mammoth or mastodon cannot be clearly determined.  Experts at the University of Florida have determined that the engraving is authentic.  This means that the artwork was likely produced at least 13,000 years ago, when the last of the ancient proboscideans disappeared from the region.

The fossil was uncovered at a site known as the Old Vero Site, where the fossils of Pleistocene mammals are found side-by-side with human fossils of the same age.  While such proboscidean art is common in Europe, this find represents the first instance of from the Americas.