You better watch out for Beastie on Dr. Shades site though. She's got a whole site dedicated to disparaging Clayton E. Ray. Apparently... some of his Cattle bones ended up being Bison. Or some such silly thing as that.
Oh, yeah, I've got a whole site dedicated to disparaging C. Ray. And his cattle bones were bison. Or some such silly thing like that.
Here's my statement about C. Ray. First I shared his article:
The remains of horses have been reported from cave deposits in the state of Yucatan, Mexico, on two previous occasions. Mercer (THE HILL CAVES OF YUCATAN, LIPPINCOTT, PHILA., 1896, p. 1972 and map opposite title page) found horse remains in three caves in the Serrania, a low range of limestone hills lying in southwestern Yucatan and trending roughly parallel to the southwest border of that state. The horse material was associated with pot sherds and other artifacts and showed no evidence of fossilization. Cope (in Mercer op. cit. p. 172, footnote) examined the material and considered it referable to Equus occidentalis on morphological characteristics but noted absence of fossilization.
Hatt records numerous fragments of Equus ?conservidens from Actun Lara, one of Mercer’s caves, (1953, Cranbrook Inst. Sci., Bull. 33, pp. 71-72 and map 2). These remains were tentatively referred to Equus tau by R. A. Stirton (in Hatt, p. 71). Hibbard regards E. tau as probably synonymous with E. conservidens (1955, Contrib., Mus. Paleo. Univ. Mich.,12:61). Although the teeth and bones were in many cases heavily encased in lime, pottery occurred throughout the deposits and two foot bones present in the upper layer of two layers in which horse remains occurred were identified as those of domestic cattle.
It is now possible to report horse remains of probably pre-Columbian age from a new locality in Yucatan. This material consists of one complete upper molar and 3 fragmentary lower molars, all preserved in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cat. No 3937), The teeth constitute a part of a large collection of vertebrate remains obtained by archaeologists of the Carnegie Institution of Washington during excavation at the Mayan ruins of Mayapan, Yucatan (20,38N,89,28W). This collection was submitted to the author for identification, and a checklist of the material is in preparation. The horse teeth were collected in cenote Ch’en Mul (Section Q, topographic map of the ruins of Mayapan, Jones, Carnegie Inst. Washington, Dept. Archaeology, Current Rept. 1, 1952) from the bottom stratum in a sequence of unconsolidated earth almost 2 meters in thickness. As in the deposits reported by Mercer and Hatt, pottery occurs throughout the stratigraphic section. The horse teeth are not specifically identifiable. They are considered to be pre-Columbian on the basis of depth of burial and degree of mineralization. Such mineralization was observed in no other bone or tooth in the collection although thousands were examined, some of which were found in close proximity to the horse teeth.
It is by no means implied that pre-Columbian horses were known to the Mayans, but it seems likely that horses were present on the Yucatan Peninsula in pre-Mayan time. The tooth fragments reported here could have been transported in fossil condition as curios by the Mayans, but the more numerous horse remains reported by Hatt and Mercer (if truly pre-Columbian) could scarcely be explained in this manner. CLAYTON C. RAY, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. Received May 28,1956).
Then I cited studies that followed up on these findings:
Additional information is available to evaluate these original dated findings. The book "Ice Age Faunas of North America" has certain pages available on a google book search, and several of these pages address this event.
Henry C. Mercer (1896), who explored the cave and dug 2 pits in Chamber 3 in 1895, found similar ceramic and nonceramic layers. His attempt to locate preceramic artifacts with extinct fauna in association with Loltun or other nearby caves was unsuccessful. Some skeletal remains dubiously identified as Ursus (bear) were found in Loltun in a ceramic layer. Mercer reported the presence of Equus (horse) teeth and bones on the surface of three different caves. Although similar to the extinct horse Equus Occidentalis, the remains were identified as modern horse. Cope (1896) studied the remains of other animals collected by Mercer in Loltun, including species of opossums, bats, rabbit, mice, peccary, and deer if two sizes (page 263)
The same text also addresses the Hatt findings.
The most extensive study of the region was undertaken by Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Hatt, who in 1929 and 1947 explored fourteen “cenotes” and dug in nine of them. (Hatt et al 1953). Two cenotes near Loltun contained the remains of extinct animals. Pleistocence Equus conversidens was recovered from Actun Lara. Actun Spukil produced a left tympanic ring and a molar fragment from the ground sloth, Paramylodon. In all, Hatt et al. (1953) collected forty-five species of mammals, of which six had been introduced by the Spaniards.
The Hatts collected only on the surface and in the top 10 cm of sediments in Chamber 3 in Loltun Cave (Hatt et al. 1953). Although further excavations were not pursued, the Hatts did recover twenty four mammal species, five of which were introduced (Mus Musculus, Canis familiaris, Equus axinus, Capra Hircus, and Bos Taurus). Native species represented two marsupials, one insectivore, four bats, one lagomorph, nine rodents, one carnivore, and one artiodactyls (Table 10.1). Hatt et al. (1953) indicated in their final report that the Loltun Cave was the most promising archaeological site for obtaining clues to the cultural and faunal changes since the end of the Pleistocene. (page 263)
This reference clarifies that the horse remains were from the Pleistocene Era, which ends around 11,550 years before present.
A summary of the animal remains in the Loltun Cave was also provided.
The time range represented is from over 28,400 year BP. Not all taxa are found throughout this long period, but they can be divided into three main groups (Table 10.3). Group I (Holocene and Pleistocene) is formed by those species that occur through most of the stratigraphic sequence, accounting for more than half of the identified of the identified species (n = 39, 57.3 percent). Group 2 (n = 18 species, 26.5 percent) is composed of those species found only in the Holocene sediments. Species that occurred only in the Pleistocene strata constitute Group 3.
Table 10.3 Mammal Species from Loltun Cave Divided According to Their Temporal Record in the Excavation.
Group 1- Holocene and Pleistocene
Didelphis marsupialis, Marmosa canescens,M. Mexicana, Cryptotis, Cryptotis mayensis, Peropteryx macrotis, Pteronotus parnellii, Mormoops megalophylla, Chrotopterus auritus, Glossophaga soricina, Stumira lilium, Artibeus jamaicensis, hiroderma villosum, Desmodus rotundus, Diphylla ecaudata,Eptesicus furinalis, Lasiurus ega I. Intermedius, Nyctinomops laticaudatus, Herpailurus yagouaroundi, Leopardus pardalis, L. wiedii, Puma concolor, Panthera onca, Conepatus semistriatus, Spilogale putorius, Nasua narica, Mazama sp, Odocoileus virginiamus, Pecari tajacu, Sciurus deppei, S. yucatanemis, Orthogeomys hispidus, Heteromys gaumeri, Oryzomys couesi, Ototylomys phyllotis, Peromyscus leucopus, P. yucatanicus, Sigmodon hispidus, Sylvilagus floridanus.
Group 2 – Holocene Only
Philander opposum, Pteronotus davyi, Carollia brevicauda, Centurio senex, Natalus stramineus, Myotis keaysi, Eumops bonariensis, E. underwoodi, Promops centralis, Molossus rufus, Dasypus novemcinctus, Canis familiaris, Urocyon cinereoargenteus, Bassariscus sumichrasti, Procyon lotor, Mustela frenata, Coendou mexicanus, agouti paca
Group 3 – Pleistocene Only
Marmosa lorenzoi, desmodus cf. D draculae, Canis dirus, C. latrans, C. lupus, mephitis sp, Cuvieronius sp, Equus Conversidens, Bison sp, Hemiauchenia sp, Sylvilagus brasiliensis
page 267
Note that Equus Conversidens is listed as ONLY Pleistocene. The Bison reference is to a now extinct species that was extanct during the Pleistocene era. This is likely what Mercer originally thought were "cattle" bones.
Now, where were the Pleistocene animal remains found? The next citation makes it very clear:
The Pleistocene mammal fauna from Loltun Cave consist of those remains from the bottom of Level VII downward and is represented by fifty species (Groups 1 and 3) in forty genera, twenty-three families, and nine orders. This variety is one of the largest from the late Pleistocene of Mexico (Arroyo-Cabrales et al, in press; Kurten and Anderson 1981). Furthermore, it is the most diverse fossil mammal fauna for the Neotropical region of North and CentralAmerica (Fernasquia-Villafranca 1978; Webb and Perrigo 1984).
page 268
There was only one citation that made the dating of the horse bones seem questionable, and it certainly wasn’t placing them up in level V. This citation does not contradict the previous one, because we already know the scientists say that the demarcation between the Pleistocene era and the Holocene era could be in the bottom of Level VII. This would be around 9,500 BC.
To date, a comprehensive publication on the site has not been produced; however, several studies have reported on some of the important findings from the excavations by INAH. These findings include layers with ceramics and lithics, and layers with only lithics in association with extinct animals. These ceramic lithic layers are important for assessing the purpose and lifestyle of the first human beings that occupied the Yucatan Peninsula. Other studies cover lithic morphology and typology (Konieczna 1981), and biological remains, such as mammal bones (Alvarez and Polaco 1972; Alvarez and Arroyo-Cabrales 1990; Arroyo-Cabrales and Alvarez 1990), mollusk shells (Alvarez and Polaco 1972), and plants (Montufar 1987; Xelhuanzi-Lopex 1986).
It is clear that Loltun Cave is an important site because of the presence of lithic tools and Pleistocene fauna, though doubts still exist about the stratigraphic and temporal associations. The presence of Pleistocene Equus conversidens in ceramic layers has been interpreted as possible proof of the survival of the extinct horse into the Holocene (Schdmit 1988)
page 264
Level VII is a ceramic level, and we already know that the animals were at the bottom of Level VII. There is uncertainty as to whether the demarcation between the Pleistocene and Holocene eras would be in Level VIII or at the bottom of Level VII. The rest of the citations in this book accept the placement of the demarcation in Level VII.
Now could this be evidence of the horse in the Book of Mormon time period? Nonsense. This is like Sorenson’s earlier statement that supposedly finding pockets of extinct animals surviving into 8,000 BC would constitute evidence for the Book of Mormon. We are still talking about many thousands of years prior to the Book of Mormon time period.
Yet another citation refers to this particular find. The following is obtained from the text “The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of North America”, page 62, which is available from a google book search:
Currently, only one site in Mesoamerica supports the hypothesis of human occupation in lowland environments before 12,000 years ago. In the Puuc Hills of northern Yucatan, the lowest levels of excavations reported by R. Velazquez at Loltun Cave have produced some crude stone and bone tools along with the remains of horse, mastodon, and other now extinct Pleistocene animals. Felines, deer, and numerous rodents round out the archaeological assemblage. No radiocarbon dates have been forthcoming for this proposed early components that underlies later ceramic occupations. On the basis of stone tool typology and faunal association, MacNeish has proposed that the lower levels of Loltun Cave are somewhere between 40,000 and 15,000 years old.
This citation demonstrates that the horse remains were identified as extinct Pleistocene animals, and were located in the lower levels underlying the ceramic levels.
One interesting aspect of these particular defenses is that they tend to rely on dated references. One possible reason for this is that the results of radiocarbon dating was less reliable in its early phase. The following statement by Paul Martin, in an essay dealing with mammoth extinction, also emphasizes this point:
Not since the early years of 14C dating, when laboratory protocols for sample selection and pretreatment were not standardized or well understood by consumers of dates (see, e.g., Martin 1958 and Hester 1960), has anyone seriously advanced the thought that mammoths or mastodons survived into the mid-Holocene. Those North American Holocene dates of yore were not replicated and could not be supported stratigraphically and geochemically. They moulder in the graveyard of unverified measurements.
In addition to the unreliability of early carbon dating, another problem originates from the excavation of caves themselves. The abstract for the article Excavations in Footprint Cave, Caves Branch, Beliz, states the following:
The use of caves by the ancient Maya has been previously documented, but the nature of artifact preservation in these caves presents unique problems not encountered in surface sites of the region. The absence of stratigraphy, though it means that we can view objects as they were left by the Maya, also means that perspective can be distorted, for actions that may have taken place over a long period of time result in an arrangement of objects that appears to us to be synchronic. The nature of artifact preservation in caves presents another, more pressing problem: artifacts are accessible and therefore easily stolen. Although all surface sites in Belize are endangered, cave sites are especially so, and in recent years theft of artifacts and attendant destruction of sites has increased. The following is a report of excavations in a cave that is one of many in an area that has begun to experience the destructive effects of looting within the last decade. We hope that this report will heighten the awareness of archaeologists of the significance of cave sites and stimulate interest in the reconnaissance and recording of such sites before the looters prevail.
Given these circumstances, it is understandable that earlier archaeologists may have been confused about their finds, but these updated sources demonstrate that when these findings are more thoroughly investigated, the same conclusion is verified: there was no post-Pleistocene, pre-Conquest horse in the New World.
(end citation from my site)
The only thing Zak took out of all this was that cattle were bison... or something silly like that.