July 18, 2024 4:41 PM

Butchered animal bones indicate earliest human presence in southern South America

Fossil bones found in Argentina of a large armadillo relative with cut marks suggestive of butchering indicate humans were present in southern South America some 21,000 years ago, according to researchers, earlier than previously thought. The bones were from a large armored plant-eating mammal named Neosclerocalyptus, part of a group called glyptodonts that inhabited the Americas for more than 30 million years before going extinct at the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. The researche...