Anyway, scientists have announced that they have discovered a bone fragment that is about 13,000 years old in Florida, of all places. It's "of all places" because the bone fragment has etched on it an engraving of a trunked animal. That, together with the dating of the fragment, make this find the only known example of art that a proboscidean (the aforementioned trunked animal) found in North or South America. Europe, of course, has several examples of such nose-heavy art, but the Americas haven't been able to join the nose-knows club, until now.
A fossil hunter found the bone fragment in Vero Beach, Fla., and found the artwork only while doing the cleaning. The fragment is just 3 inches long and 1.75 inches tall and is part of a bone of a large mammal — scientists think it was a mammoth or maybe a mastodon. (The longshot speculation would be on giant sloth, but none of the scientists were willing to enhance that speculation with enthusiastic support.)You can read all about it in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Also involved in the preservation of this terribly important fragment will be the Museum Conservation Institute and the National Museum of Natural History. Oh, and the Smithsonian Institution.
With such historical heavyweights involved, you'd have to ask what it all means in the grander scheme of things. Is it a watershed moment? Probably not. Is it something that hasn't been before? Well, yes and no — yes in various caves in Europe but no in parts Western. So from that perspective, it is significant. It's all part of a greater picture of anthropology that continues to emerge, from likely and unlikely sources.
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