8,000 year old carved image maybe first ever of a leashed dogs

a reply to: diggindirt

No, I didn't take it personally at all,though in hindsight I can see that my reply looked slightly hostile so my apologies for that. You had a valid point that they used inferences to extrapolate a date and there wasn't a concrete way to verify it yet. There are a few techniques that could help such as taking samples of the patina. Essentially, after the stone is carved, residue from oxidation or other chemical processes in the local environment builds up in the engraved portions over time and that can provide. In carvings like this, it would be more accurate to describe it as cortification and is pretty well understood by geologists and archaeologists and it's much more accurate than basing an assessment based on weathering. The downside is that in an arid environment like this, the weathering from wind blown sand can often remove the patina and that may be why it wasn't used to date the carvings. Like. I mentioned earlier though, the dogs look very similar to those on Iranian pottery from 8Ka BP so it's not a huge stretch that these carvings are from the same time period. I also question how accurate it is to push the date of this site to 1000 years prior to the Iranian pottery but I've only read the paper I linked. Maybe if I feel frisky tomorrow, I'll send an email to Dr. Guagnin and ask her about the possibility of cortification and why or why it wasn't used.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: diggindirt

For anyone who thinks that archeology is not controlled, I urge looking into digs in the 1960's in Mexico. People's careers were ruined because of the true ages of finds. Those finds are now starting to be recognized now.

Archeology is a get along to get along career.

The only person involved with Hueyatlaco who had their career suffer was Virginia Steen-McIntyre and it wasn't because of the site or the ancient dates, it was because she decided thst as a grad student, she was going to screw over Cynthia Irwin-Williams and rush to publish material before Irwin-Williams, the lead on the excavation. She broke protocol and people didn't want to work with her because she couldn't be bothered to play by the rules. Cynthia Irwin-Williams, BJ Szabo and H.E. Malde published a paper with the same exact results with zero repercussions to their careers. In fact, the only person who claims careers were ruined is Virginia Steen-McIntyre, not even her coauthors of the paper she published have made such claims. So your assessment that careers were ruined because of the ages ascribed to artifacts at Hueyatlaco is about as correct as your insistence that this site is marred by the Smithsonian's non existent involvement.

Smithsonian is noted for their changing of history,I'm sure they have well laid plan to pull off whatever they want,plus a gullible society

a reply to: Oldtimer2

The Smithsonian has nothing to do with this. Though one would have to read the actual article and related paper that was published on this archaeological site to know this. But hey, why bother with facts when they get in the way of a good rant!

Maybe the "excited" point of the/this primitive attempt at communication/art,. Was just a simple an attempt at/to show the "subject", was just a human,.. being a male factor? I doubt the "author" was being a liberal female, transvestite, dike and man hater, democrat. They are/were just trying to communicate, that the "leashed dogs" belonged (obviously) to a male warrior. It is a very basic form of "literature" and simple enough to read. Unless you're "educated". That creates another problem.

a reply to: seasonal
Actually, the career being "ruined" was due to the junior member of the team publishing before the "leader" if memory serves me. That is taboo in the world of anthro. How that situation came about I'm not sure but I do know that the "leader" or primary investigator can drag their feet on publishing.

I was in that situation once, where the primary investigator had "moved on" to other things (that she thought would get her a big grant) and was ignoring the ethical obligation to publish all work. I had to threaten to publish just to get her to do what she should have done a couple of years earlier. I was warned not to do it by others in the profession because it was considered bad form for an underling to publish before the primary investigator. Yet they don't seem to see it as bad form if the primary investigator ignores the obligation to publish for years.

When I last checked the files at our university alone, there are 58 sites that have been studied and never published. Most are from the 70s and 80s, done by Masters students who "moved on" to their PhD and never bothered to fulfill their obligations. And yet they are allowed to go on digging with their PhD.

a reply to: diggindirt

Yeah, you're on the money with what happened at Hueyatlaco. Virginia Steen-McIntyre rushed to publish before the lead, Cynthia Irwin-Williams. The same data sets were published by both sonit wasn't the ridiculously ancient dates that caused problems for Steen-McIntyre, it was her failure to wait her turn.

Unfortunately, your own situation was definitely the pattern in anthropology for decades. Failure to publish and hoarding of data and remains was the rule not the exception. Hopefully that will begin to change as prominent Anthropologists like Lee Berger (Homo Naledi find in South Africa) makes a point to publish as quickly as possible with as much of the data as they can stuff into a paper. He also allows open access to his fossil collection and anyone with a 3D printer can download and print out copies of everything in the Universities collection. He gets a lot of grief from some of the old guard for changing how things are done, but personally I find the level of openness refreshing and had things been like that 20 years ago I would probably still be a working paleoanthropologist.

what is the deal with the balloon shaped area around the mouth/neck of some of them? Is it a representation of barking or something?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

It is thought that they represent markings

Sure, I'd like to believe it is 8k years old, isn't Gobekli Tepe
supposed to be 9k years old? If the pyramids at Giza were
built after the Sphinx, which may be 17,000 year old, then
lost civilization large and small are missing from our
history.

On the subject of the reason the Great Pyramid was built,
it can be reasoned that it is not a tomb, because the
Step Pyramid is a tomb, built the similarly constructed
Pacal's step pyramid is a tomb, so tomb must be only
step pyramids such as the Acapana.

a reply to: seasonal