{"id":60262,"date":"2020-09-04T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T08:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mammoth-central-found-at-mexico-airport-construction-site\/"},"modified":"2020-09-04T11:23:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T08:23:00","slug":"mammoth-central-found-at-mexico-airport-construction-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mammoth-central-found-at-mexico-airport-construction-site\/","title":{"rendered":"#’Mammoth central’ found at Mexico airport construction site"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#’Mammoth central’ found at Mexico airport construction site<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"'Mammoth<\/img>
\n Paleontologists work to preserve the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered at the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport in the Santa Lucia military base, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. The paleontologists are busy digging up and preserving the skeletons of mammoths, camels, horses, and bison as machinery and workers are busy with the construction of the Felipe Angeles International Airport by order of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. (AP Photo\/Marco Ugarte)
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The number of mammoth skeletons recovered at an airport construction site north of Mexico City has risen to at least 200, with a large number still to be excavated, experts said Thursday.<\/p>\n

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Archaeologists hope the site that has become “mammoth central”\u2014the shores of an ancient lakebed that both attracted and trapp<\/a>ed mammoths in its marshy soil\u2014may help solve the riddle of their extinction.<\/p>\n

Experts said that finds are still being made at the site, including signs that humans may have made tools from the bones of the lumbering animals that died somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
\nThere are so many mammoths at the site of the new Santa Lucia airport that observers have to accompany each bulldozer that digs into the soil to make sure work is halted when mammoth bones are uncovered.
\n“We have about 200 mammoths, about 25 camels, five horses,” said archaeologist Rub\u00e9n Manzanilla L\u00f3pez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, referring to animals that went extinct in the Americas. The site is only about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from artificial pits, essentially shallow mammoth traps, that were dug by early inhabitants to trap and kill dozens of mammoths.
\nManzanilla L\u00f3pez said evidence is beginning to emerge that suggests even if the mammoths at the airport possibly died natural deaths after becoming stuck in the mud of the ancient lake bed, their remains may have been carved up by humans, somewhat like those found at the mammoth-trap site in the hamlet of San Antonio Xahuento, in the nearby township of Tultepec.<\/p>\n

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\"'Mammoth<\/img>
\n A paleontologist works to preserve the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered at the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport in the Santa Lucia military base, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. The paleontologists are busy digging up and preserving the skeletons of mammoths, camels, horses, and bison as machinery and workers are busy with the construction of the Felipe Angeles International Airport by order of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. (AP Photo\/Marco Ugarte)
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While tests are still being carried out on the mammoth bones to try to find possible butchering marks, archaeologists have found dozens of mammoth-bone tools\u2014usually shafts used to hold tools or cutting implements\u2014like the ones in Tultepec.
\n“Here we have found evidence that we have the same kind of tools, but until we can do the laboratory studies to see marks of these tools or possible tools, we can’t say we have evidence that is well-founded,” Manzanilla L\u00f3pez said.
\nPaleontologist Joaquin Arroyo Cabrales said the airport site “will be a very important site to test hypotheses” about the mass extinction of mammoths.<\/p>\n

“What caused these animals extinction, everywhere there is a debate, whether its was climate change or the presence of humans,” Arroyo Cabrales said. “I think in the end the decision will be that there was a synergy effect between climate change and human presence.”<\/p>\n

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\"'Mammoth<\/img>
\n Paleontologists work to preserve the skeleton of a mammoth that was discovered at the construction site of Mexico City’s new airport in the Santa Lucia military base, Mexico, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. The paleontologists are busy digging up and preserving the skeletons of mammoths, camels, horses, and bison as machinery and workers are busy with the construction of the Felipe Angeles International Airport by order of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. (AP Photo\/Marco Ugarte)
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Ashley Leger, a paleontologist at the California-based Cogstone Resource Management company who was not involved in the dig, noted that such natural death groupings “are rare. A very specific set of conditions that allow for a collection of remains in an area but also be preserved as fossils must be met. There needs to be a means for them to be buried rapidly and experience low oxygen levels.”
\nThe site near Mexico City now appears to have outstrip<\/a>ped the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs South Dakota\u2014which has about 61 sets of remains\u2014as the world’s largest find of mammoth bones. Large concentrations have also been found in Siberia and at Los Angeles’ La Brea tar pits.
\nFor now, the mammoths seem to be everywhere at the site and the finds may slow down, but not stop, work on the new airport.
\nMexican Army Capt. Jesus Cantoral, who oversees efforts to preserve remains at the army-led constructio site, said “a large number of excavation sites” are still pending detailed study, and that observers have to accompany backhoes and buldozers every time they break ground at a new spot.<\/p>\n