#excited for bones not excited for the butchery part

[nocylipcowa]

found a beautiful bird's carcass on the road and obviously i had to pick it up

[zipegs]

garret jacob hobbs & abigail  // 640 words, t, frankenstein au //  ao3 written for day 7 of fad’s au challenge: sci-fi

He'd started with deer, at first.

After all, he already had a distinct familiarity with their anatomy. He knew every part of a doe, from its teeth to its tendons. It was easy to translate that knowledge to other uses.

Well, easier than starting from scratch. The process was still a long one, and it involved a great deal of trial and error—he needed time to figure out how to preserve the body, how long each part remained viable, what processes were necessary to heal injured tissue and make it capable of bearing life again.

His first few attempts were ugly, macabre things, even before he managed to revive them. Though he'd become something of an artist in both his butchery and his craftmanship—turning bone into knives, sinew into cording and thread—this endeavor was something else entirely, and it called for a whole new set of skills.

Fortunately, there were no concerned friends or relatives who'd come calling when a doe went out in the morning and didn't come home for dinner. He was able to run the gamut without anyone so much as batting an eye. And the first time he successfully brought a creature back to life... Well, there was just no describing the rush.

With the excitement of that victory bubbling in his veins, it was easy to take the next step.

Of course, he was careful not to be hasty. Everything had to be planned perfectly, every detail meticulously in line. This wouldn't be like felling a doe. This would be something else entirely.

But when it came down to it—when the moment arrived—it wasn't so different from hunting after all.

Killing his first deer had been an exhilarating triumph, and killing his first girl was one, too. She was so fragile in his arms, like a firefly held between cupped fists. He hadn't anticipated how powerful this part of it would make him feel. How much he'd enjoy it. There was a rightness in it too; he would kill these girls, would bleed them, and then he would bring them to life again—transformed.

All in all, he procured eight girls for his great labor, and each one of them was a prize. He'd chosen them perfectly, each one flawless and integral in her own way. And together... Together they were a miracle.

He stepped back and regarded the girl lying on his hunting cabin table. It had taken him years, but he'd done it. He had done it.

Tears sprang to his eyes, but even through watery vision, her beauty was beyond his greatest hopes and expectations. Delicate creamy white skin, a waterfall of brown hair. Pale blue eyes, only slightly milky.

Reverently, he reached out a trembling hand and stroked the side of her face. She looked just like her. Just like he'd always imagined she would.

He rested his palm on her chest, just over her heart. In some other world, she had lived to see this age. She was here beside him—helping him. Hunting with him.

His grief swelled, and two teardrops pattered down onto the girl's bare chest. With a sniffle, he stepped back and swiped at his eyes. She would be here again soon, he reminded himself. It was only a matter of time.

He stared up at the stormy night sky through the hole in the roof of his hunting cabin and crossed to the pulley that would raise her up through it to receive the breath of life. His hands were steady on the chains, and she ascended slowly but steadily, a soul reaching heaven at long last. Any moment now, that blaze of lightning would come, and she would be his again, whole and beautiful and unmarred.

Abigail, he prayed.

High above, a radiant crack of thunder split the clouds.

[tlatollotl]

If you were top dog in Mayan Latin America, you might be an honored guest at the king’s feast. But if not, you’d likely end up as the main course of someone else’s. That’s the conclusion of a new chemical analysis of animal bones found in a 3000-year-old Guatemalan city, which provides the earliest picture yet of how the ancient Mayans domesticated animals and treated those in their care.

“It’s a well-done study,” says Henry Schwarcz, an anthropologist and professor emeritus who researches paleodiets at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, though he notes more work will be needed to confirm the findings. And the study may solve another mystery, he says: how the Mayans produced enough protein to feed the thousands who thronged their cities.

Between 1000 B.C.E. and 950 C.E., as many as 10,000 people lived in the important Mayan city of Seibal, located in today’s Guatemalan lowlands. Such big urban centers require lots of food, and the Mayans hunted deer, peccaries, and tapirs. But archaeologists have uncovered precious little evidence that the civilization practiced widespread animal domestication, which might have been needed to sustain such a big population, says Ashley Sharpe, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City.

Sharpe and colleagues joined the excavation of the site in 2010. Thus far, they have unearthed bones from 10 species, including deer, dogs, cats, opossums, peccaries, turkeys, and tapirs. An animal’s diet changes the isotopes—or versions of chemical elements—found in their bones and tooth enamel, giving researchers a clue as to what they were eating. Relatively low levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes indicate a diet rich in forest plant material or prey that ate it. Higher levels of those isotopes suggest the animals ate mostly maize and therefore, were fed by humans.

Dozens of dogs and turkeys, as well as one large cat—possibly a jaguar—all had isotope levels indicating they were raised on maize-based diets. Radiocarbon dating reveals the dogs lived between 450 and 300 B.C.E., the earliest evidence yet for animal management and domestication by the Mayans, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The canines were nearly all small and Chihuahua-like. Butchery marks previously found on ancient dog bones at other Mayan sites suggest the dogs were raised for slaughter. Although these particular bones showed no signs of butchery, Sharpe says it might not have taken much cutting to process the meat from these small dogs.

Two dogs from the Guatemalan highlands were found near this pyramid, which stood in Seibal’s central plaza.

The turkeys lived much later, between 175 and 950 C.E., meshing with other studies that have suggested the Mayans may have domesticated the gamebirds around that time, when dog remains were practically nonexistent at Seibal. So maize-raised dogs may have been a significant protein source for the Mayans before they domesticated turkeys, Sharpe says. Other studies have also concluded the Mayans probably ate dogs, but this is some of the strongest evidence so far that they may have been bred and fed for that purpose, she says.

But some dogs led more extraordinary lives. A pair that lived between 400 and 300 B.C.E. had strontium isotope levels that suggested they hailed not from Seibal, but from Guatemala’s volcanic highlands roughly 100 kilometers away. The dogs’ distant origin, plus their burial place near a large pyramid in Seibal’s central plaza, suggests they might have been part of Mayan ceremonies.

The maize-reared felines, which lived between 450 and 350 B.C.E., may have had a similar fate, Sharpe says. Mayan artifacts frequently depict kings posing with large cats. “It was probably a kind of show off item,” she says. “Like showing everyone, ‘Look, I’ve got a jaguar.’”

Lori Wright, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University in College Station who studies the Maya, says she is excited but not necessarily surprised to see the Mayans were domesticating animals so early. But she’s not fully convinced the Mayans were regularly raising dogs for slaughter. Without seeing butchery marks on bones with these maize-eating isotope signatures, it’s impossible to say for sure they were food, she says.

Schwarcz agrees, adding “They’ve got all the facts right,” but other explanations need to be ruled out. For instance, “Dogs are very well known to eat human feces,” he says, “which possibly could have contributed to the dogs eating maize signal they found.”

Sharpe admits that’s a possibility, but she thinks the dogs’ isotopic signature doesn’t quite match the signal you’d expect from dogs consuming maize-heavy feces. “Unfortunately, most of them were probably food dogs.”

[loadacademy575]

Beyond A Steel Sky Soundtrack

Way FourArtistBernard KirschenbaumYear1976Typestainless steelDimensions250 cm × 220 cm × 240 cm (100 in × 86 in × 96 in)LocationLynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, WisconsinCoordinates: 43°10′34.6″N87°56′10.4″W / 43.176278°N 87.936222°W

Beyond the Supernatural, a 1980s role-playing game; Stormfront Studios, a U.S. Video game developer originally named Beyond Software 1988–1991; Literature. Beyond, a 2015 non-fiction book by Chris Impey; Beyond (comics) (set-index article), things in comics called Beyond, including: Beyond (Virgin Comics), a 2008 series from Virgin Comics. His last major song was a reach back in time when things weren’t so complicated. Grover Washington Jr.’s sax and a steel pan play you to a beach, blanket for two, a musical safe haven where he.

Way Four is a public art work by artist Bernard Kirschenbaum at the Lynden Sculpture Garden near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The stainless steel sculpture is an open circle that creates an orbit for two triangles; it is installed on the lawn.(1)

The Metropolis scenery is heavily inspired by the architecture of Hugh Ferriss, while the film's music is taken from the 1948 Superman serial composed by Mischa Bakaleinikoff. For the animation work, the storyboards were done digitally, but the character animation itself was hand-drawn on paper before each frame was scanned and digitally. Apple’s new Apple Arcade subscription-based gaming service is basically Apple’s way of helping customers sort through the chaff in the App Store, as the highly curated service features premium.

See also(edit)

References(edit)

^Buck, Diane (1995). Outdoor Sculpture in Milwaukee: A Cultural and Historical Guidebook. Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin. pp. 182–183. ISBN0-87020-276-6.

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Way_Four&oldid=935129731'

Five years after she debuted with An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir is finally bringing her beloved story to a close. A Sky Beyond the Storm finishes the story Tahir began in her 2015 bestseller, but the journey has been much longer for author herself. 'I began writing Ember 13 years ago,' she tells Bustle. 'I have spent more than a decade of my life writing, breathing, laughing, mourning and celebrating with my characters. They are a part of me, as familiar to me as my hands or my face. So when I wrote the final words on the final page of the final book, I felt as though I was saying farewell to my best friends, to a piece of me.'

An Ember in the Ashes launched at a time when multi-doorstopper YA fantasy series — think Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen and Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses — were at their height. But as an #OwnVoices novel, written by a Pakistani American woman and starring multiple characters of color, Ember was unlike most of its peers. It was the first in a long line of YA fantasy novels from South Asian and Muslim authors, hitting store shelves ahead of Roshani Chokshi's The Star-Touched Queen, Swati Teerdhala's The Tiger at Midnight, and Hafsah Faizal's We Hunt the Flame.

But according to Tahir, there's still much work to be done to diversify YA publishing. 'Over and over, authors from marginalized groups are told, 'We already have a book like this,' or 'We already have an author like you.' But books by marginalized authors shouldn’t be a quota you fill,' she says. 'How many vampire books written by white authors? Dozens. I’ve nothing against that, but authors from marginalized groups deserve the same respect. Just because authors have similar experiences or ethnic backgrounds doesn’t mean their stories will be identical. We contain multitudes and our work is meaningful and distinctive.'

While Tahir doesn't have any immediate plans to return the Ember series after A Sky Beyond the Storm, she'll continue writing and pushing representation in publishing forward. 'All I can say for sure is that I want to do something different with my writing,' she says of her next project. 'Maybe explore some darker terrain.'

But before you start longing for Tahir's next work, read on for an excerpt from the hotly anticipated A Sky Beyond the Storm.

Excerpt from A Sky Beyond the Storm, exclusive to Bustle

I: The Nightbringer

I awoke in the glow of a young world, when man knew of hunting but not tilling, of stone but not steel. It smelled of rain and earth and life. It smelled of hope.

Arise, beloved.

The voice that spoke was laden with millennia beyond my ken. The voice of a father, a mother. A creator and a destroyer. The voice of Mauth, who is Death himself.

Arise, child of flame. Arise, for thy home awaits thee.

Would that I had not learned to cherish it, my home. Would that I had unearthed no magic, loved no wife, sparked no children, gentled no ghosts. Would that Mauth had never named me.

“Meherya.”

My name drags me out of the past to a rain-swept hilltop in the Mariner countryside. My old home is the Waiting Place — known to humans as the Forest of Dusk. I will make my new home upon the bones of my foes.

“Meherya.” Umber’s sun-bright eyes are the vermillion of ancient anger. “We await your orders.” She grips a glaive in her left hand, its blade white with heat.

“Have the ghuls reported in yet?”

Umber’s lip curls. “They scoured Delphinium. Antium. Even the Waiting Place,” she says. “They could not find the girl. Neither she nor the Blood Shrike has been seen for weeks.”

“Have the ghuls seek out Darin of Serra in Marinn,” I say. “He forges weapons in the port city of Adisa. Eventually, they will reunite.”

Umber inclines her head and we regard the village below us, a hodgepodge of stone homes that can withstand fire, adorned with wooden shingles that cannot. Though it is mostly identical to other hamlets we’ve destroyed, it has one distinction. It is the last settlement in our campaign. Our parting volley in Marinn before I send the Martials south to join the rest of Keris Veturia’s army.

“The humans are ready to attack, Meherya.” Umber’s glow reddens, her disgust of our Martial allies palpable.

“Give the order,” I tell her. Behind me, one by one, my kin transform from shadow to flame, lighting the cold sky.

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A warning bell tolls in the village. The watchman has seen us, and bellows in panic. The front gates — hastily erected after attacks on neighboring communities — swing closed as lamps flare and shouts tinge the night air with terror.

“Seal the exits,” I tell Umber. “Leave the children to carry the tale. Maro.” I turn to a wisp of a jinn, his narrow shoulders belying the power within. “Are you strong enough for what you must do?”

Maro nods. He and the others pour past me, five rivers of fire, like those that spew from young mountains in the south. The jinn blast through the gates, leaving them smoking.

A half legion of Martials follow, and when the village is well aflame and my kin withdraw, the soldiers begin their butchery. The screams of the living fade quickly. Those of the dead echo for longer.

After the village is naught but ashes, Umber finds me. Like the other jinn, she now glows with only the barest flicker.

“The winds are fair,” I tell her. “You will reach home swiftly.”

“We wish to remain with you, Meherya,” she says. “We are strong.”

For a millennium, I believed that vengeance and wrath were my lot. Never would I witness the beauty of my kind moving through the world. Never would I feel the warmth of their flame.

But time and tenacity allowed me to reconstitute the Star — the weapon the Augurs used to imprison my people. The same weapon I used to set them free. Now the strongest of my kin gather near. And though it has been months since I destroyed the trees imprisoning them, my skin still trills at their presence.

“Go,” I order them gently. “For I will need you in the coming days.”

Beyond A Steel Sky Soundtrack Cast

After they leave, I walk the cobbled streets of the village, sniffing for signs of life. Umber lost her children, her parents, and her lover in our long-ago war with the humans. Her rage has made her thorough.

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A gust of wind carries me to the south wall of the village. The air tells of the violence wrought here. But there is another scent too.

A hiss escapes me. The smell is human, but layered with a fey sheen. The girl’s face rises in my mind. Laia of Serra. Her essence feels like this.

But why would she lurk in a Mariner village?

I consider donning my human skin, but decide against it. It is an arduous task, not undertaken without good reason. Instead I draw my cloak close against the rain and trace the scent to a hut tucked beside a tottering wall.

The ghuls trailing my ankles yip in excitement. They feed off pain, and the village is rife with it. I nudge them away and enter the hut alone.

The inside is lit by a tribal lamp and a merry fire, over which a pan of charred skillet bread smokes. Pink winter roses sit atop the dresser and a cup of well water sweats on the table.

Whoever was here left only moments ago.

Or rather, she wants it to look that way.

I steel myself, for a jinn’s love is no fickle thing. Laia of Serra has hooks in my heart yet. The pile of blankets at the foot of the bed disintegrates to ashes at my touch. Hidden beneath and shaking with terror is a child who is very obviously not Laia of Serra.

And yet he feels like her.

Not in his mien, for where Laia of Serra has sorrow coiled about her heart, this boy is gripped by fear. Where Laia’s soul is hardened by suffering, this boy is soft, his joy untrammeled until now. He’s a Mariner child, no more than twelve.

But it is what’s deep within that harkens to Laia. An unknowable dark­ness in his mind. His black eyes meet mine, and he holds up his hands.

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“B-begone!” Perhaps he meant for it to be a shout. But his voice rasps, nails digging into wood. When I go to snap his neck, he holds his hands out again, and an unseen force nudges me back a few inches.

His power is wild and unsettlingly familiar. I wonder if it is jinn magic, but while jinn-human pairings occurred, no children can come of them.

“Begone, foul creature!” Emboldened by my retreat, the boy throws something at me. It has all the sting of rose petals. Salt.

My curiosity fades. Whatever lives within the child feels fey, so I reach for the scythe slung across my back. Before he understands what is happening, I draw the weapon across his throat and turn away, my mind already moving on.

The boy speaks, stopping me dead. His voice booms with the finality of a jinn spewing prophecy. But the words are garbled, a story told through water and rock.

“The seed that slumbered wakes, the fruit of its flowering consecrated within the body of man. And thus is thy doom begotten, Beloved, and with it the breaking — the — breaking —”

A jinn would have completed the prophecy, but the boy is only human, his body a frail vessel. Blood pours from the wound in his neck and he collapses, dead.

“What in the skies are you?” I speak to the darkness within the child, but it has fled, and taken the answer to my question with it.

[thehungrykat1]

World Class Steaks and Cocktails at Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912

With the growing number of new restaurants opening at the crowded Bonifacio Global City commercial areas, it is getting difficult to find your own special spot to enjoy a relaxing and intimate dinner date. But I just discovered a new steakhouse hidden inside one of the more quiet areas of BGC where you can bring your special someone and avoid the maddening crowds that seem to follow your every move. You don’t even have to look for another place for a little nightcap, because it also features an elegant cocktail bar that serves signature drinks you won’t find anywhere else in the city.

Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912 lies inside a cozy nook at The Plaza of Arya Residences, a condominium complex located at the quieter McKinley Parkway of Bonifacio Global City.  Foundry is considered as “the second cut" to the popular Smith Butcher and Grill Room in Makati City, which are both owned and operated by chef and restaurateur Tom Hines who specializes in serving world-class international steaks from four different continents. Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912 opened last November, bringing the nose-to-tail butchery and cooking that Smith Butcher is known for to BGC and it delivering high-quality meats and steaks from all over the world.

The best thing about Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912 is that it is located in a more secluded area inside Arya Residences. This is the perfect place for those romantic and intimate dates where you don’t have to worry about bumping into other friends or officemates who might spoil the moment. The restaurant is relatively small, with a classy private dining ambiance catering to the more sophisticated and upscale market.

Foundry is actually two restaurants in one. Aside from the 25-seat Grill Room which is an all day dining cafe serving the largest of selection of cuts of the finest steak from USA, Japan, France, Australia and Ireland, it also features Bar Candy upstairs, a trendy bar and lounge offering unique cocktails and beverages curated by their expert in-house mixologist.

I had a chance to dine at Foundry a few weeks ago and I really love their interiors and lighting. It sets the tone for a cozy and romantic dinner date or even just a great evening out eating and drinking with friends.

In charge of the kitchen at Foundry is Chef Ranuka Hettiarachchi who hails from Sri Lanka. In between courses, we were also served exquisite cocktails concocted by Milena Matjošaitytė, who is originally from Lithuania and worked in some of London’s top bars before moving to Manila.

We started our dinner on a high note with one of her signature cocktails, the Isla which has a Grey Goose vodka base combined with tropical syrup, lemon and pineapple then garnished with a flower. If the opening act is an indication of what’s to follow, then I knew we were in for an exciting evening.

Chef Ranuka gave us his version of an Amuse Bouche with roasted eggplant puree, spiced caramelized green apple, blue cheese, and crispy bacon. The crunchy bites were sharp and full of flavors, awakening our taste buds for the following courses.

He also served us their Ahi Tuna Poke. It comes with fresh Yellow fin tuna, wasabi, calamansi, sesame and topped with caviar. The raw tuna was a delightful treat, accentuated by the sour and salty notes from the other ingredients. This also came with a glass of white wine, a perfect accompaniment for this seafood.

When I heard from Chef Ranuka that the Turkish Flat Bread was actually a vegetarian pizza, I had my apprehensions. But it only took one bite before I was made a believer. The flat bread has toppings of wild mushroom, spinach and marinated feta and it all works together to create a beautiful and appetizing pizza. 

Another signature creation from the bar is the Te-Quil-A Dragon. This powerful cocktail has 1800 Blanco tequila, dragon fruit, tamarind, egg white, and smoked sea salt. It has a distinct taste that will surely be a favorite for both expert and casual drinkers alike.

The appetizers and cocktails were all very good and filling, so it was time to bring out the main course, the steaks! Chef Ranuka brought out an off-the-menu platter combining all of their best cuts of beef, and it was truly gorgeous.

The Head to Tail Beef Platter consists of a selection of prime beef cuts starting with Ox tongue, Ox cheek, Irish sirloin, Matsusaka beef, and all the way to the Ox tail. It comes with grilled garden vegetables and a drizzle of rock salt. There are various sauces to choose from including black truffle, green peppercorn, pinot noir, blue cheese, wild mushroom and béarnaise sauces. This platter is probably good enough for up to four persons but when you are with The Hungry Kat it only takes two to finish this.

The thick cuts of Ox Tongue are the first ones to savor. I usually encounter this prepared as lengua estofado but this is the best way to be able to taste the distinct flavor and texture of ox tongue. The Beef Cheeks are also extremely tender, needing only a fork to cut into its meaty goodness.

But the best part of the beef platter is definitely the Matsusaka Beef from Japan. This “black wagyu” has unbelievable marbling which you can clearly see. It is so tender and juicy that it seems there is more fat than beef on the steak. Eating the Matsusaka beef is just heavenly. On the other hand, those who want their steaks more meaty and manly will find the Irish Sirloin just as good. The steak is dry aged for 45 days and this leaner cut will surely satisfy the biggest of carnivores.

Nothing is put to waste as even the Ox Tail is presented beautifully on this Head to Tail Beef Platter. Meat which are closer to the bones are always more flavorful so you can just imagine how good these ox tails are.

The steak platter came with a couple of their premium side orders to make the night even more enjoyable. They served this Creamy Mashed Potatoes which is honestly one of the best mashed potatoes I have ever eaten. The creamy texture is so fine and smooth. This is one mashed potato that does not need any gravy at all.

We also had Steak Rice to go with the absolutely delicious steaks. Our steak dinner was just fantastic but the night was still young so after our meals, we all went upstairs to the other establishment inside Foundry, Bar Candy.

The Bar Candy lounge is a great place to unwind after a satisfying meal downstairs or after a busy night out. My friend Justinne a.k.a Babe For Food was ready to share some juicy stories with me over glasses of their classic and contemporary cocktails.

Ms. Milena went behind the bar and showed us some of her signature cocktails that can only be found here at Bar Candy. 

The Smoking Jacket is a heavy cocktail that comes with Bulleit Bourbon, Lagavulin 16, Campari, sweet vermouth, cucumber and rosemary. It has a strong bitter taste that expert drinkers would appreciate.

Something that is more to my taste is the Aye Aye. This has Sailor Jerry spiced rum, strawberry-cinnamon shrub, pineapple, lime and ginger syrup. The refreshing combination of ingredients makes this a unique experience.

They also have other lighter cocktails like The Bison with its Zubrowka Vodka, Elderflower liqueur, apple, cardamom shrub, lemon and soda top. We also had dessert with our cocktails and the Tea-infused Lemon Sponge with raspberry and vanilla cream was a great finale to our lovely evening. Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912 is a well-kept secret that more patrons and guests will find out in the coming months. Now is the best time to visit with your date so you can experience the luxury and privacy of a truly great steakhouse and cocktail bar.

Foundry by Smith Butcher 1912

The Plaza, Arya Residences, Mckinley Parkway, Bonifacio Global City Taguig

(0977) 841-5378

www.smithbutcherandgrillroom.com

www.facebook.com/smith.foundry

[tlatollotl]

Be wary of these claims for now. There is going to be a lot of arguing over their conclusions.

In 1992, construction workers were digging up a freeway in San Diego, California when they came across a trove of ancient bones. Among them were the remains of dire wolves, camels, horses and gophers—but the most intriguing were those belonging to an adult male mastodon. After years of testing, an interdisciplinary team of researchers announced this week that these mastodon bones date back to 130,000 years ago.

The researchers then went on to make a more stunning assertion: the bones, they claim, bear the marks of human activity.

The team’s findings, published today in the journal Nature, could upend our current understanding of when humans arrived in North America—already a flashpoint among archaeologists. Recent theories posit that people first migrated to the continent about 15,000 years ago along a coastal route, as Jason Daley writes in Smithsonian. But in January, a new analysis of horse remains from the Bluefish Caves by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars suggested that humans may have lived on the continent as early as 24,000 years ago.

The new study, however, suggests that some type of hominin species—early human relatives from the genus Homo—was bashing up mastodon bones in North America about 115,000 years earlier than the commonly accepted date. That’s a staggeringly early date, and one that is likely to raise eyebrows. There is no other archaeological evidence attesting to such an early human presence in North America.

“I realize that 130,000 years is a really old date,” Thomas Deméré, principal paleontologist at the San Diego Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the study, conceded during a press conference. “Of course, extraordinary claims like this require extraordinary evidence.” Deméré and his co-authors believe that their discoveries at the Cerutti Mastodon site—as the area of excavation is known—provide just that.

San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontologist Don Swanson pointing at rock fragment near a large horizontal mastodon tusk fragment. (San Diego Natural History Museum)

Palaeontologists working at the site found an assortment of mastodon remains, including two tusks, three molars, 16 ribs, and more than 300 bone fragments. These fragments bore impact marks suggesting that they had been smacked with a hard object: Some of the shattered bones contained spiral fractures, indicating that they were broken while still “fresh,” the authors write.

Amidst the fine-grain sands at the site, researchers also discovered five hulking stones. According to the study, the stones were used as makeshift hammers and anvils, or “cobbles.” They showed signs of impact—fragments found in the area could in fact be repositioned back into the cobbles—and two distinct clusters of broken bones surrounded the stones, suggesting that the bones had been smashed in that location.

“These patterns taken together have led us to the conclusion that humans were processing mastodon bones using hammer stones and anvils,” Deméré said at the press conference. He was joined by three of his co-authors: Steven Holen, co-director of the Center for American Paleolithic Research; James Paces, a research geologist at the United States Geological Survey; and Richard Fullagar, a professor of archaeology at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

There is no evidence of butchery at the site, so the team suspects that its occupants were breaking the bones to make tools and extract marrow.

To bolster their theory, researchers analyzed mastodon bones found in later North American sites, which date from 14,000 to 33,000 years ago. These bones displayed the same fracture patterns that were observed among the remains of the Cerutti Mastodon. Researchers also tried to replicate the activity that may have occurred at the site by smacking at the bones of a recently deceased elephant, the mastodon’s closest living relative.

Their efforts “produced exactly the same kinds of fracture patterns that we see on the Cerutti mastodon limb bones,” said Holen.

“[W]e can eliminate all of the natural processes that break bones like this,” Holen added. “These bones were not broken by carnivore-chewing, they were not broken by other animals trampling on the bone.”

Mastodon skeleton schematic showing which bones and teeth of the animal were found at the site. (Dan Fisher and Adam Rountrey, University of Michigan)

While some members of the team were wreaking havoc on elephant remains, efforts were underway to date the Cerutti mastodon bones.

Attempts at radiocarbon dating proved unsuccessful because the bones did not contain a sufficient amount of carbon-containing collagen. So researchers turned to uranium–thorium dating, a technique that is often used to check radiocarbon-derived dates. Uranium–thorium dating, which can be used on carbonate sediments, bones and teeth, makes it possible to date objects far older than 50,000 years, the upper limit of radiocarbon dating. Using this method, scientists were able to assign an approximate age of 130,000 years to the Cerutti bones.

While the study’s authors believe that their evidence is ironclad, other experts aren’t so sure. Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program, says it is “nearly impossible” to rule out the possibility that the bones were broken by natural processes, like sediment impaction.  

“I would have liked to see really easily identifiable stone tools,” she says “[The study theorizes that early humans were] bashing open bones with natural rocks. Both of those things are kind of hard to distinguish in the archaeological record book: natural rocks that were used and also the bones that were bashed open.”

Still, Pobiner says she is excited about the researchers’ findings. “They have broken mammoth bones, they have broken stones, they have patterning, and damage and wear on both the bones and the stones, which look human-modified,” she explains. “I think that the combination of evidence is on the way to being convincing.”

The authors of the study have anticipated that their conclusions will be met with some wariness. “I know people will be skeptical of this, because it is so surprising,” Holen said during the press conference. “I was skeptical when I first looked at the material myself. But it's definitely an archaeological site.”

Researchers also acknowledged that for now, the study raises more questions than it answers. For instance: Who were the early humans described by the study, and how did they arrive in North America? “The simple answer is we don't know,” said Fullagar.

But he went on to venture a few guesses. The occupants of the Cerutti Mastodon site could have been Neanderthals, their Denisoven cousins, or even anatomically modern humans. They might have been some type of hybrid population. “[R]ecent genetic studies indicate that rather than dealing with a single, isolated species of migrating hominids or humans, we're actually dealing with an intermixing, a kind of meta population of humans,” Fullagar noted.

These humans, whoever they were, may have migrated across the Bering land bridge or sailed along the coast to North America, researchers said. There is evidence to suggest that early humans in other parts of the world were able to make water crossings. Archaeologists have found hand axes dating to at least 130,000 years ago on the island of Crete, which has been surrounded by water for about five million years, according to Heather Pringle at National Geographic.  

Moving forward, the team plans to seek out new archaeological sites and take a fresh look at artifact collections that may contain undetected signs of human activity. “[W]e fully intend to keep this type of research going in the future, to look in collections all over Southern California, and to continue to do fieldwork looking for more sites of this age,” Holen said.

If humans did roam through North America 130,000 years ago, their numbers were likely sparse. This means that the chances of finding human remains are slim—but not out of the question, says Pobiner of Smithsonian. “If people were in North America 130,000 years ago,” she said. “I don't see why we wouldn't find them.”