martes, 20 de marzo de 2012

Archaeologist: Other Ice Age art likely at Vero Beach site

VERO BEACH — Noted British archaeologist and Ice Age art expert Paul Bahn came to Indian River County to examine the carved fossil bone found in Vero Beach in 2009 that is the only Pleistocene era artifact of its kind found in North America.

On Sunday afternoon, Bahn, who is also an author, translator and BBC commentator, spoke at the Emerson Center during a presentation hosted by the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee. While most of Bahn's presentation focused on Ice Age cave art in Europe, he outlined several findings that might offer lessons for future excavations or studies of the Vero Man site.

The committee is raising money to fund a re-excavation of the site, and an international team recently completed a site survey with ground-penetrating radar. Committee chairwoman Susan Grandpierre told the crowd of about 200 attendees that the survey's preliminary findings reveal undisturbed ground that might contain artifacts like the one found by James Kennedy, but the final survey results are not available.

Kennedy's find was a carving of a mammoth on what is thought to be a mammoth or sloth bone, and was authenticated by scientists at the University of Florida. It is thought to be 13,000 to 20,000 years old. Excavating the Vero Man site, which was discovered in 1913 and is one of only two locations in the United States where fossilized human remains have been discovered alongside a variety of Ice Age, or Pleistocene, mammal remains, is expected to cost about $1.3 million, according to Grandpierre.

Bahn traveled to Vero Beach to examine the carving, which is similar to other Pleistocene artifacts found in France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Bahn urged researchers to examine and catalog every item recovered from the Vero Man site, saying that often, items from similar sites were overlooked and placed in storage because people didn't know to look for things they didn't think existed.
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Tcpalm.com/

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