Moab Man

The term Moab Man, often referred to as Malachite Man by creationists, relates to two human skeletons found near Moab, Utah in 1971. (Sometimes Moab Man refers to a 1971 finding and Malachite Man to a 1990 finding.) Lin Ottinger, a rock collector, first found the remains. After archaeologists had completed an excavation of the skeletons, Ottinger sold one of them to Carl Baugh, who put it on display at a creationist museum in Glen Rose, Texas. A second excavation of about eight more skeletons took place in 1990. Because of the Cretaceous sandstone at the site, young Earth creationists touted the skeletons as "proof" that men and dinosaurs co-existed. However, the skeletons were not fossilized, making them a recent burial. Carbon dating puts the first set of skeletons at around 140-280 years old and the latter set at between 1,360 and 1,540 years. The skeletons occurred in loose sand not associated with any rock formation, according to the archaeologists who performed the excavation. This means they resulted either from an intentional (i.e., grave) or from an unintentional burial. The best evidence points to Puebloan miners who were either buried at the site or trapped in a mine collapse of some sort.

Some Old-Earth Creationists have criticized the use of Moab Man to support creationist arguments.