Giant Ice-Age 'Longhorn Bison' Unearthed in San Diego

Highway workers have unearthed the fossilized bones of an unusual giant bison in a suburb of San Diego, the first such discovery in Southern California.

The fossil may date back as much as 200,000 years -- not long after bison first appeared in what's now the United States.

Paleontologists at the San Diego Museum of Natural History say the newfound specimen is likely the species Bison latifrons -- the longhorn, or giant, bison -- one of the truly "mega" megafauna that grazed the American West during the last major Ice Age.

Skull and horn cores of Bison latifrons on display at American Museum of Natural History

Giant bison resembled the species you see today, with a couple of notable exceptions -- they were about 25 percent bigger overall, standing about 2.5 meters at the shoulder, and they sported horns as much as three times longer, measuring some 1.7 meters from tip to tip (5.6 feet) on average.

They also differed in their habits from modern bison, making their homes in forests and woodland clearings, rather than grasslands, and living in small groups instead of the massive, plains-blackening herds in which Bison bison roamed the West as recently as 150 years ago.

Contractors found the new fossil in April near the town of Bonsall, about 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of downtown San Diego, while excavating a highway interchange between two major interstates. The remains were identified by museum paleontologist Brad Riney, who was monitoring the project, and were moved to the San Diego Natural History Museum, where they were unveiled today and will be prepared for display.

The fossil bison skull in plaster cast (left) with photo of prepared skull to show orientation (Credit: Donna Raub)

As the first giant bison found in Southern California, the newfound bones can add significantly to our understanding of B. latifrons' range, particularly since it may date to just a few ten-thousand years after the species was first thought to have migrated from the ice-covered north.

But it's by no means the first fossil bison found in Southern California. Ancient remains of the modern bison's direct ancestor, Bison antiquus, have been found nearby at Diamond Valley Lake and, even more famously, at Los Angeles' La Brea Tar Pits, where it's the most common large herbivore represented.

Giant bison, like the one unveiled today, disappeared about 30,000 years ago, but Bison antiquus lived on, in time giving rise to the bison that now survive, if barely, on preserves and private ranches throughout the West.

You can explore the fossil as Dr. Riney walks you through the excavation in this video provided by the San Diego Natural History Museum:



Sources:

• South Dakota Tech Museum of Geology: Bison evolution
• North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources: Occurrence of the Giant Ice Age Bison, Bison latifrons, in North Dakota
• "Late Pleistocene distribution of Bison (Mammalia; Artiodactyla) in the Mojave Desert of Southern California and Nevada," Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology of Western and Southern North America (2008)

Paintings of Native Americans Discovered in Vatican Fresco

Here's a look at the ancient West from a different perspective: A routine cleaning of a fresco in the Vatican Library has revealed what officials say is the first painted depiction of Native Americans, and likely the only reference to Indians in all of the Vatican's epic artwork.

The resplendent fresco, which depicts the resurrection of Jesus from a stone tomb, shows a small group of men in the distant background, unclothed and with feathers in their hair.

Detail of Pinturiccio's "Resurrection"

It was painted in an arch-shaped alcove by Bernardino di Betto, better known as Pinturiccio or "little painter," in 1494 -- just a year after Christopher Columbus made first contact with Tainos, Caribs, among other American cultures.

Whether the figures in the painting are indeed references to the people Columbus had just met -- and if so, why they were incorporated to the painting -- remains unclear. But Vatican Museums Director Antonio Paolucci told the Italian newspaper Gazzetta del Sud he thinks it's more than plausible. "It would be far-fetched ... to believe that the papal court was oblivious to what Colombo saw when he got to the other end of the world,” Paolucci said, according to Indian Country Today.

“If the impressions of those nude, good, happy men who gave parrots as gifts and painted their bodies red and black are the dancing figures of Pinturicchio’s Resurrection, this would be the first representation of Native Americans.”

To that we'd just add that there are, in fact, thousands of paintings of Native Americans to be found in pictographs throughout the Americas.

There's no accounting for taste.

Pinturiccio's "Resurrection"

 

 

Tiny Fossil Discovered in Wyoming Reveals Great-Granddaddy of Hummingbirds

A petite and exquisitely preserved 50-million-year old fossil reveals the remains of a lustrous black bird that was the precursor to today's hummingbirds, researchers say.

The fossil bird, originally excavated from Wyoming's Green River Formation, is a new species to science, dubbed Eocypselus rowei. And though just 12 centimeters long, it was so well preserved that the impressions of its wing feathers could be studied in fine detail.

E. rowei (Credit: Lance Grande, Field Museum of Natural History)

This gave researchers at Chicago's Field Museum, where the fossil was found languishing in a collection, a lot to work with.

While many bird fossils feature only bones, E. rowei's nicely defined feathers allowed scientists to study its true size and proportions, providing a better sense of where the new bird might fit in the ornithological family tree.

After comparing the remains with many living and extinct species, they theorized that E. rowei was most likely the predecessor to the order of birds that today includes hummingbirds and swifts.

Although swifts and hummers may not seem like they have much in common, they do share traits that betray a shared evolutionary heritage. They're both small and migratory and eat insects, and perhaps most notably, they have legs so small as to be functionally useless, at least on the ground. Indeed, the order these birds comprise, called Apodiformes, means "having no feet." 

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Still, to most backyard observers, there are obvious differences between the two, especially in flight: Swifts are fast, daring flyers with long, tapered wings, while hummingbirds are known for hovering and darting, using disproportionately short wings.

What was striking to the scientists about E. rowei is that it seemed to have traits of both. It shared their tiny size and appetite for insects, but its wings were too small for the swift's rapid flight, but also too long to hover like a hummer.

Common swift (Credit: Paweł Kuźniar)

"This fossil bird represents the closest we've gotten to the point where swifts and hummingbirds went their separate ways," said lead researcher Daniel Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, in a statement.

To round out our picture of E. rowei, the team was even able to study its feathers with an electron microscope, and discovered fossilized, carbon-rich pigment structures -- suggesting that, in life, it sported the iridescent black sheen found on swifts and other birds today.

The team published its findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Paleo-Indian Poop Yields Clues to the Real Ancient American Diet

Native Americans suffer the highest rates of diabetes in the United States -- 16 percent, more than twice the average among Anglos. 

For decades, scientists have thought this modern health crisis may have evolutionary origins, stemming from ancient feast-and-famine cycles that encouraged the selection of so-called "thrifty genes" and people to pile on fat faster in times of plenty, so as to prepare for leaner times to come.

But a recent study of paleo-Indian feces suggests that the health problems modern Natives face may have less to do with scarcity and more to do with the kinds of foods ancient Americans ate.

Karl Reinhard, an archaeologist at the University of Nebraska, led research into human coprolites -- naturally preserved feces -- found at Antelope Cave, Arizona, a sandstone dwelling near the Arizona-Nevada-Utah border. Mammal bones show the cave to have been a popular spot for hunting and butchering jackrabbits, particularly among the so-called Virgin Anasazi, who inhabited the region 1,000 to 1,300 years ago.

Jackrabbit forepaw found in Antelope Cave, Arizona (Credit: Jacob Fisher, California State University Sacramento)

The study found that the paleo-Indian diet was surprisingly high in fiber and low in fat. The historic Southwestern diet is thought to have relied heavily on corn, beans, and squash, but the scat showed -- in addition to corn and hare meat -- heavy traces of sunflower seeds, prickly pear, grasses, and amaranth, also known as pigweed.

In addition to being "very, very high in fiber," the researchers say in a release, these foods are notable for having extremely low glycemic indices, meaning they're slow to raise blood sugar. The index for prickly pear, in particular, they say, "is the lowest recorded for southwestern plant food, and one of the lowest values for any recorded human food."

All of this suggests that prehistoric nutrition was so intensely lean that it, rather than boom-and-bust cycles of rain and drought, may have been the evolutionary pressure that favored those "thrifty genes" in ancient Americans.

None of this provides us with new tools to fight obesity and diabetes among Native Americans, of course. But it does underscore how radically the American diet has changed, and that abundance isn't the same as health.

The research appears in the journal Current Anthropology.

Ancient Americans Pounded Vomit-Causing 'Black Drink' 6 Times Stronger Than Coffee

In the largest metropolis of what would become the United States, residents consumed a "black drink" that was six times stronger than coffee and caused vomiting -- which was the desired effect.

A team of researchers from Illinois, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania has found traces of the rich beverage in pottery beakers excavated from the site of Cahokia, a once-thriving settlement near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

The caffeinated drink was brewed from the leaves of the Yaupon holly, a species of holly tree that grew hundreds of miles away, the researchers say. The discovery sheds light not only on how far the trading networks of ancient Cahokia reached, but also what great lengths its leaders would take to get their hands on their bevvy's key ingredient.

Pottery vessel from Cahokia (L. Brian Stauffer)

To give you a sense of the brew's effects, it's worth pointing out that the Yaupon holly's scientific name is ipex vomitoria, or "barfing holly." Drinking the distillation of its leaves causes intense sweating and vomiting, which anthropologists believe was used in purification rituals, like before battle. They speculate that the tea might've been drunk quickly to intensify this effect.

Ilex vomitoria (Credit: Luteus)

But the practice was not unique to Cahokia by any means. Europeans recorded use of the "black drink" all over what's now the Southeastern U.S. in the colonial days, and the ritual use of spiked drinks has been documented as far back as the Maya, who used everything from emetic brews to chocolate enemas to induce hallucinations.

The discovery adds just a shade more data to the story of Cahokia, which -- like so many other settlements farther west -- was abandoned as mysteriously and suddenly as it was erected. During its peak years, from about 1100 to 1300 C.E., Cahokia was the largest settlement in North America outside of Mexico, home to some 50,000 people.

Painting by Lloyd K. Townsend. Courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Illinois

"This is a level of population density, a level of political organization that has not been seen before in North America," said Thomas Emerson, a lead researcher involved in the discovery and director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, in a statement.

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Forrest Fenn Treasure-Hunter Booked After Mistaking Roadside Memorial for "Clue"

As I recently cautioned, there are some important things you should consider before lighting out in hopes of finding the treasure supposedly stashed by Santa Fe relic trader Forrest Fenn. Not everyone is ready to take these facts to heart, but this guy can tell you from experience that they're for real.

A man in Terrero, New Mexico was recently charged for digging up a roadside memorial that he mistook for a clue in Fenn's publicity-stunt scavenger hunt.

The memorial -- known locally as a descanso or resting place -- is the kind typically placed at the site of fatal car crashes to commemorate the victims.

The marker also happened to be near the entrance of hunting land owned by the state Game Commission.

The treasure hunter was found digging some 45 centimeters (18 inches) below the small metal cross when a game warden stopped and booked him.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican: 

[T]he man, who wasn’t identified, will be charged under a state law making it a misdemeanor to “excavate, injure, destroy or remove any cultural resource or artifact” on State Game Commission land.

The warden added that even if the inconsiderate digger "had found Fenn’s treasure, he could not have kept it because state law prevents taking artifacts from state land. He said the same rules would probably apply to most federal land."

Forrest Fenn's Hidden Treasure Poem

In case you're wondering, here's the "poem" that pot-hunter Forrest Fenn claims contains clues to a treasure he supposedly buried. Somewhere.

Searching for Forrest Fenn's Hidden Treasure? 5 Things to Consider.

You've heard no doubt about it. It gives new meaning to the word "misadventure."

Forrest Fenn, millionaire antiquarian -- and person of interest in a federal grave-robbing and artifact-poaching probe -- self-published a book years ago about his lifetime of derring-do.

No one would have ever heard of the book, had it not contained a bit of doggerel, which people charitably call a poem, that supposedly contains clues to a stash of gold and jewels that Fenn says he buried for others to find. (To read it, follow the link at the bottom of this post.)

Whether he actually did this is doubtful. What his motivations might be, if he did indeed do it, are dubious.

But people are taking it seriously anyway. Not since Oak Island has a rumor taken hold in the popular imagination to create a meme that, on its surface, is about attaining wealth but, at its core, is about desperate hope and frustration.

Santa Fe National Forest near Jemez (USFS)

I have a hard time deciding whether it's just a silly diversion or a cruel hoax. But as a person who cares about wilderness, historical resources, and simply other people, I wanted to give all of you potential treasure-hunters out there some things to consider.


1. What Fenn is asking you to do is dangerous. A 33-year-old woman hoofed it all the way from Carrollton, Texas, to the Santa Fe National Forest to search for the supposed prize, and 7 miles into her exploration, she got hopelessly lost. It took three aircraft, a team of rescue workers and a pack of search dogs to find her. It was a perverse errand into the wilderness.


2. When asked whether his secret cache was buried on public land, Fenn told the Daily Beast the answer was "too big of a clue." Which could be read to mean either -- and only -- "it doesn't matter because the whole thing's a ruse" or "yes."

Obviously, even if the treasure weren't a maguffin, the guy's not going to point you to someone's private property. Or maybe he would; I never met him, so I don't know. But he's made such a big deal about Yellowstone in the past that to admit it's on public land would be a dead giveaway.

So if you're going to take the bait and start digging up national park or forest or BLM land, you should probably sock away some bail money and keep your lawyer's number in your pocket. 'Cause digging on state or federal land without permission is illegal.

3. And even if you do manage to secure a permit for taking part in Fenn's publicity stunt, you can't keep whatever you find.

I can hear you already, libertarians and Blue Ribbon Coalitioners -- yeah, the American people own the land, but that means everyone owns it and what's on it. It's owned by public trust, not individual right, so you can't go spading over soil there because you think it's yours. Moreover, you won't own any Dominican cigar box full of costume jewelry that you happen to find there, any more than you, personally, own the natural gas that's being extracted from that same public land by oil companies.

If you don't like it, go find a country that doesn't have a government, because that's how government works.

To give you a sense of how fully aware Fenn is that this is illegal, and what little concern he has for you if you get caught, he recently said of this issue: "I’m staying out of those discussions, except to say it may be fun to redefine some of the terms.” 

4. Fun. In addition to the prospects of finding yourself stranded in the Sangre de Cristos dying of dehydration, or arrested on federal felony charges, what seems least "fun" about this whole misadventure is that it threatens very real, and literally irreplaceable, archaeological resources.

Western public lands are this country's greatest repository of historical records -- both human-made and not. Just in the Four Corners area alone, there are uncounted ruins of pithouses, tool-making sites, cliff dwellings and seasonal encampments going back a millennium and more.

I've been lucky enough to see some sites in Northern New Mexico that have never been excavated -- not dissembled and mortared back together like you find in most national parks -- and the experience of witnessing history in such places is unmatchable.

I'm not alone in my enthusiasm for this, which is why, under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, hunting for artifacts on public land is also a federal felony.

Clearly, Fenn doesn't care about this either. Conceiving of the past in a way that doesn't serve personal gain just isn't "fun."

5.  You have about as much a chance of finding hidden treasure using Fenn's poem as you do of finding Jimmy Hoffa's remains by poring over the New York Giants' passing stats over the past 30 years.

To see what I mean, you can read Fenn's buried treasure poem here.