Del Mar skull
| Goddidit! |
| Key claims |
| Science |
| Random articles |
The Del Mar skull is a human skull found in 1929 at a sea cliff near San Dieguito River in Southern California, USA. It is often cited by American Indian creationists.
[edit] History
The skull was found in 1929 on a sea cliff by archaeologist Malcolm T. Rogers. It was not examined until 1974 when Jeffrey R. Bada a chemist of Scripps Institution of Oceanography used a new dating system to date the skull by using an amino acid technique and pronounced the Del Mar skull to be 48,000 years old.[1][2] The skull made a brief appearance on a fourth season episode of the television program In Search Of entitled "Earth Visitors". Quoting the results of the Bada dating test, the program offered the skull as evidence that the Americas had been explored by ancient civilizations well before the arrival of Native Americans.
Bada's dating methods for the skull were controversial and have been rejected by many scientists. A subsequent study carried out by James L. Bischoff and Robert J. Rosenbauer in 1981 of the United States Geological Survey reported that based on radiometric dating, that the Del Mar skull was 11,000 years old. According to more recent studies cited by Stuart J. Fiedel in Prehistory of the Americas (1992) the Del Mar skull was dated in 1984 by using a newly developed C14 acceletator mass spectrometry process which revealed that the Del Mar skull is only 4,900 years old. This date is no longer controversial.[3][4]
[edit] Creationism
American Indian creationists have argued that the Del Mar skull is Paleo-Indian in origin and is evidence that their ancestors had originated in America, not migrated from Asia and is evidence for their creation myth.[5] An anthropologist Jeffrey Goodman had also supported this conclusion in his book American Genesis (1981) arguing that the skull has proven that man had originated in the Americas due to its ancient date putting it back as late as 70,000 years.[6][7] The majority of scientists have however rejected the claims of Goodman.
The Del Mar skull has also been advocated by fringe-scientists such as the anthropologist George F. Carter who claimed it was evidence for very early man in the Americas. Some creationists still cite the skull though as stated above the date accepted by the scientific consensus is that the skull is 4,900 years[8] yet despite this some American Indian creationists still ignore and reject this date and cite the older dates.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ J. L. Bada, R. A. Schroeder, and G. F. Carter, New Evidence for the Antiquity of Man in North America Deduced from Aspartic Acid Racemization, Science, Vol. 184, p. 791-793 (1974).
- ↑ Jeffrey L. Bada and Patricia Masters Helfman World Archaeology Vol. 7, No. 2, Dating: New Methods and New Results (Oct., 1975), pp. 160-173
- ↑ Brian Regal Human evolution: a guide to the debates 2004, p. 157
- ↑ Joseph L. Chartkoff, Kerry Kona Chartkoff The archaeology of California 1984, p. 35
- ↑ New West, Volume 6, 1981, p. 63
- ↑ Jeffrey Goodman American genesis: the American Indian and the origins of modern man Summit Books, 1981, p. 84
- ↑ Jeffrey Goodman and the Del Mar skull
- ↑ Stuart J. Fiedel Prehistory of the Americas 1992, p. 44