Radiocarbon age constraints for late Pleistocene–early Holocene artifacts and portable art work from Jalisco, Mexico, carved from bones of the last elephants of North America

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Stinnesbeck
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology ; Palaeontology
• Term: from 2019 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 433311193

Final Report Abstract

The record of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene art is remarkably rare in the New World as compared to rich archives dating back to 30 ky BP and more, from Europe and the Middle East. Here we present pieces of unusually elaborate portable art work and humanmodified megafaunal bones from the Jalisco area of west-central Mexico, which are among the oldest known from the Americas. Most of these artifacts are carved from long bone fragments and tusks of proboscideans considered as typically Pleistocene in age. Nevertheless, 14C ages of these modified fossil remains range from 16 - 6.7 ky 14C BP and may thus suggest a long lasting co-existence of man and megafauna and long-lasting survival of proboscideans into the Middle Holocene.