[Aztlan] OLDEST HUMAN EVER FOUND IN THE AMERICAS ENGLISH TRANSLATION

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

Bruce Rogers provides us with an English translation of the Milenio  
article I posted yesterday.

Mike Ruggeri


"Eve of Naranan" (of Tulum), the oldest woman of the American  
continent announced at the Early Wo/Man in America symposium

By Leticia Sánchez,  August 13, 2008

"Eva de Naharon" was 45 years old when she died and measured 1.41  
meters high. Her bones have rested for 13,600 years say specialists.

The last 95,000 years of history of the wo/men are not as well known  
as the last 5,000 years of documented humanity. However, Mexico has  
contributed with the finding and dating of the oldest remains found  
of the continent in Naharon, Quintana Roo.

[[The Systema de Naranjal- Orange Grove Cave - is No. 4 in length in  
Mexico with about 24,257 meters of passage descending to a depth of  
34.7 m below its entrance just above sea level (~2.76 miles x 114  
ft.).  There are 8 cenote entrances to this system.  Data from A./T.  
Kampe as of April/May of 2008. <http://www.caves.org/project/qrss/ 
qrlong.htm>

These caves caves have formed in Cretaceous and Tertiary Period  
limestone (~144 million to 2 million years old) some 3,400 m thick.   
The caves themselves started forming about 125,000 years ago  when  
sea level was approximately 125 m (~400 ft.) below its present  
level.  About 18,000 years ago sea level started slowly rising.  This  
subsequent, slow sea level rise, stabilizing at about 7,000 years  
ago, flooded most of these caves, thus requiring SCUBA gear to  
explore, plus a slight propensity toward insanity.]]

These remains belonged to a woman 45 years of age, a meter, 41  
centimeters of stature and a weight of 53 kilograms. A carbon 14 date  
shows her remains are 13,600 years old, turns which her into the  
"Senior Woman" of the region, even older than the "Mujer de Penon de  
los Banos (Woman of the Rock Baths)," who is approximately 12,600  
years old.

Arthur González, director of the Coahuila Desert Museum; the  
anthropologist Jiménez Conception, Director of Physical Anthropology  
inthe INAH; anthropologist Gabriel Saucedo of the National Institute  
of Medical Sciences; and Nutricion Salvador Zubirán, will announce  
the find of this early wo/man at the Fourth International Symposium  
of Early Man in the Americas that will be held from the 18 to the 22  
of August at the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology.

In this forum, investigations like this one will assist giving  
answers to the problem of peopling the continent.

Also participating will be Carlos Lorenzo, member of the equipment of  
Eudald Carbonell, in Atapuerca, Spain, one of the more important  
archaeological sites of the human evolution.

Also participating will be Argentine investigator Luis Lanata who  
maintains that the human groups arrived in America more than 18,000  
years ago.

One of the displays that will call further attention to the early  
peopling of the Americas is one presented by James Chatters about the  
Kenewick Man whose remains have generated much controversy by their  
population affiliation.

Tulum in history
Two weeks ago in the World Congress of Archaeology in Ireland, the  
discovery of "Eva of Naharon" was announced by a spokesman for  
paleontologist Arthur González.  The remains were located in clear  
water in a cave located to 44.5 (~27 mi.) kilometers to the southwest  
of the town of Tulum, in the Orange Grove Cave System.

In this place, explained the paleontologist, was the partially  
complete skeleton of a woman between 30 and 40 years of age, 1.41  
meters (about 4 ft. 7 inches) tall and weighing about 53 kilograms  
(117 lbs.).

 From the bones of Naharon, a 14carbon date was obtained, through  
Accelerated Mass Spectrometer (AMS) techniques, which gave an age of  
13,600 years.

González explained that the collagen found in the bone cavities was  
in poor state of preservation.  Thus the specialists at Oxford  
University and University of California Berkeley had to work with  
little the material obtained from the bones, which had remained under  
the water for more than 13 thousand years.

"We did not know that Ice Age man had left us in Tulum, the funeral  
testimony of a woman who died at age 45 and has an antiquity of  
13,600 years," added Arthur González.

The discovery was not fortuitous, but is part of the work on the  
Archaeological Atlas Project in the (Quintana roo) region. The  
entrance was accessed through a natural well (cenote) of 30 by 45  
meters (98 x 148 ft.) in diameter. The human bones were located to  
368 meters (1207 ft.) from the entrance of the next oquedad, also  
called Naharon , at a depth of 22.6 meters (74 ft.).

In reference to this finding, the anthropologist Conception Jiménez,  
indicated that until a few years ago the oldest human remains in the  
Americas were those of the "Mujer de Penon" - Woman of the Rock  
Baths, dated to 12,600 years old eight years ago in 2000 by the  
14carbon methods. It was remembered that that woman's bones were  
found in an unarticulated state when Mr. Tereso Hernandez dug a well  
in his property in the Mexico City.

In the grand scheme of things, Arthur González, indicated that more  
archaeologists, biologists, and paleontologists interested in the  
study of the origin of the man are needed.