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Moore CR, Brooks MJ, Dunbar JS, Hemmings CA, Langworthy KA, West A, LeCompte MA, Adedeji V, Kennett JP, Feathers JK. Platinum and microspherule peaks as chronostratigraphic markers for onset of the Younger Dryas at Wakulla Springs, Florida. Sci Rep 2023; 13:22738. [PMID: 38123649 PMCID: PMC10733423 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-50074-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Anomalous peak abundances of platinum and Fe-rich microspherules with high-temperature minerals have previously been demonstrated to be a chronostratigraphic marker for the lower Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) dating to 12.8 ka. This study used Bayesian analyses to test this hypothesis in multiple sequences (units) of sandy, weakly stratified sediments at Wakulla Springs, Florida. Our investigations included platinum geochemistry, granulometry, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, and culturally dated lithics. In addition, sediments were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy to investigate dendritic, iron-rich microspherules previously identified elsewhere in peak abundances at the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) cool climatic episode. Our work has revealed this abundance peak in platinum and dendritic spherules in five sediment sequences at Wakulla Springs. A YDB age of ~ 12.8 ka for the platinum and spherule chronostratigraphic datum in these Wakulla Springs sequences is consistent with the archaeological data and OSL dating. This study confirms the utility of this YDB datum layer for intersequence correlation and for assessing relative ages of Paleoamerican artifacts, including those of likely Clovis, pre-Clovis, and post-Clovis age and their possible responses to environmental changes known to have occurred during the Younger Dryas cool climatic episode.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher R Moore
- South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, P.O. Box 400, New Ellenton, SC, 29809, USA.
| | - Mark J Brooks
- South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, P.O. Box 400, New Ellenton, SC, 29809, USA
| | - James S Dunbar
- Aucilla Research Institute Inc., 555 North Jefferson Street, Monticello, FL, 32344, USA
| | - C Andrew Hemmings
- Aucilla Research Institute Inc., 555 North Jefferson Street, Monticello, FL, 32344, USA
| | - Kurt A Langworthy
- CAMCOR, University of Oregon, 1443 E 13Th Ave, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA
| | | | - Malcolm A LeCompte
- Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City, NC, 27909, USA
| | - Victor Adedeji
- Department of Natural Sciences, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City, NC, 27909, USA
| | - James P Kennett
- Department of Earth Science and Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - James K Feathers
- Luminescence Dating Laboratory, University of Washington, 125 Raitt Hall, Seattle, WA, 98195-3412, USA
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Nolan KC, Weiland A, Lepper BT, Aultman J, Murphy LR, Ruby BJ, Schwarz K, Davidson M, Wymer D, Everhart TD, Krus AM, McCoy TJ. Refuting the sensational claim of a Hopewell-ending cosmic airburst. Sci Rep 2023; 13:12910. [PMID: 37558779 PMCID: PMC10412550 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39866-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 08/11/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Kevin C Nolan
- Applied Anthropology Laboratories, College of Sciences and Humanities, Ball State University, Muncie, USA.
| | - Andrew Weiland
- Midwest Archaeological Center, National Park Service, Lincoln, USA
| | | | | | - Laura R Murphy
- Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Washburn University, Topeka, USA
| | - Bret J Ruby
- Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, National Park Service, Chillicothe, USA
| | | | - Matthew Davidson
- Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA
| | - DeeAnne Wymer
- Susquehanna River Archaeological Center, Waverly, USA
| | - Timothy D Everhart
- Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, National Park Service, Chillicothe, USA
| | - Anthony M Krus
- Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, USA
| | - Timothy J McCoy
- Curator of Meteorites, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, USA
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Smith A, Oechsner A, Rowley-Conwy P, Moore AMT. Epipalaeolithic animal tending to Neolithic herding at Abu Hureyra, Syria (12,800–7,800 calBP): Deciphering dung spherulites. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0272947. [PMID: 36103475 PMCID: PMC9473395 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272947] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2022] [Accepted: 07/30/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Excavations at Abu Hureyra, Syria, during the 1970s exposed a long sequence of occupation spanning the transition from hunting-and-gathering to agriculture. Dung spherulites preserved within curated flotation samples from Epipalaeolithic (ca. 13,300–11,400 calBP) and Neolithic (ca. 10,600–7,800 calBP) occupations are examined here alongside archaeological, archaeobotanical, and zooarchaeological data to consider animal management, fuel selection, and various uses of dung. Spherulites were present throughout the entire sequence in varying concentrations. Using a new method to quantify spherulites, exclusion criteria were developed to eliminate samples possibly contaminated with modern dung, strengthening observations of ancient human behavior. Darkened spherulites within an Epipalaeolithic 1B firepit (12,800–12,300 calBP) indicate burning between 500–700°C, documenting early use of dung fuel by hunter-gatherers as a supplement to wood, coeval with a dramatic shift to rectilinear architecture, increasing proportions of wild sheep and aurochsen, reduced emphasis on small game, and elevated dung concentrations immediately outside the 1B dwelling. Combined, these observations suggest that small numbers of live animals (possibly wild sheep) were tended on-site by Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers to supplement gazelle hunting, raising the question of whether early experiments in animal management emerged contemporaneously with, or pre-date, cultivation. Dung was used to prepare plaster floors during the Neolithic and continued to be burned as a supplemental fuel, indicating that spherulites were deposited via multiple human- and animal-related pathways. This has important implications for interpretations of archaeobotanical assemblages across the region. Spherulite concentrations dropped abruptly during Neolithic 2B (9,300–8,000 calBP) and 2C (8,000–7,800 calBP), when sheep/goat herding surpassed gazelle hunting, possibly corresponding with movement of animals away from the site as herd sizes increased. As hunter-gatherers at Abu Hureyra began interacting with wild taxa in different ways, they set in motion a remarkable transformation in the ways people interacted with animals, plants, and their environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexia Smith
- Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Amy Oechsner
- Institut für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | | | - Andrew M. T. Moore
- Rochester Institute of Technology, New Castle, NH, United States of America
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Abstract
This review systematically presents all finds of geogenic, impact-induced, and extraterrestrial iron silicide minerals known at the end of 2021. The respective morphological characteristics, composition, proven or reasonably suspected genesis, and possible correlations of different geneses are listed and supported by the available literature (2021). Artificially produced iron silicides are only dealt with insofar as the question of differentiation from natural minerals is concerned, especially regarding dating to pre-industrial and pretechnogenic times.
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Abstract
The progress of science has sometimes been unjustifiably delayed by the premature rejection of a hypothesis for which substantial evidence existed and which later achieved consensus. Continental drift, meteorite impact cratering, and anthropogenic global warming are examples from the first half of the twentieth century. This article presents evidence that the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) is a twenty-first century case.The hypothesis proposes that the airburst or impact of a comet ∼12,850 years ago caused the ensuing ∼1200-year-long Younger Dryas (YD) cool period and contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna in the Western Hemisphere and the disappearance of the Clovis Paleo-Indian culture. Soon after publication, a few scientists reported that they were unable to replicate the critical evidence and the scientific community at large came to reject the hypothesis. By today, however, many independent studies have reproduced that evidence at dozens of YD sites. This article examines why scientists so readily accepted the early false claims of irreproducibility and what lessons the premature rejection of the YDIH holds for science.
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A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea. Sci Rep 2021; 11:18632. [PMID: 34545151 PMCID: PMC8452666 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2021] [Accepted: 08/30/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
We present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea. The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A city-wide ~ 1.5-m-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer contains peak concentrations of shocked quartz (~ 5-10 GPa); melted pottery and mudbricks; diamond-like carbon; soot; Fe- and Si-rich spherules; CaCO3 spherules from melted plaster; and melted platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz. Heating experiments indicate temperatures exceeded 2000 °C. Amid city-side devastation, the airburst demolished 12+ m of the 4-to-5-story palace complex and the massive 4-m-thick mudbrick rampart, while causing extreme disarticulation and skeletal fragmentation in nearby humans. An airburst-related influx of salt (~ 4 wt.%) produced hypersalinity, inhibited agriculture, and caused a ~ 300-600-year-long abandonment of ~ 120 regional settlements within a > 25-km radius. Tall el-Hammam may be the second oldest city/town destroyed by a cosmic airburst/impact, after Abu Hureyra, Syria, and possibly the earliest site with an oral tradition that was written down (Genesis). Tunguska-scale airbursts can devastate entire cities/regions and thus, pose a severe modern-day hazard.
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Abstract
The Younger Dryas (YD), arguably the most widely studied millennial-scale extreme climate event, was characterized by diverse hydroclimate shifts globally and severe cooling at high northern latitudes that abruptly punctuated the warming trend from the last glacial to the present interglacial. To date, a precise understanding of its trigger, propagation, and termination remains elusive. Here, we present speleothem oxygen-isotope data that, in concert with other proxy records, allow us to quantify the timing of the YD onset and termination at an unprecedented subcentennial temporal precision across the North Atlantic, Asian Monsoon-Westerlies, and South American Monsoon regions. Our analysis suggests that the onsets of YD in the North Atlantic (12,870 ± 30 B.P.) and the Asian Monsoon-Westerlies region are essentially synchronous within a few decades and lead the onset in Antarctica, implying a north-to-south climate signal propagation via both atmospheric (decadal-time scale) and oceanic (centennial-time scale) processes, similar to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events during the last glacial period. In contrast, the YD termination may have started first in Antarctica at ∼11,900 B.P., or perhaps even earlier in the western tropical Pacific, followed by the North Atlantic between ∼11,700 ± 40 and 11,610 ± 40 B.P. These observations suggest that the initial YD termination might have originated in the Southern Hemisphere and/or the tropical Pacific, indicating a Southern Hemisphere/tropics to North Atlantic-Asian Monsoon-Westerlies directionality of climatic recovery.
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Moore CR, Brooks MJ, Goodyear AC, Ferguson TA, Perrotti AG, Mitra S, Listecki AM, King BC, Mallinson DJ, Lane CS, Kapp JD, West A, Carlson DL, Wolbach WS, Them TR, Harris MS, Pyne-O'Donnell S. Sediment Cores from White Pond, South Carolina, contain a Platinum Anomaly, Pyrogenic Carbon Peak, and Coprophilous Spore Decline at 12.8 ka. Sci Rep 2019; 9:15121. [PMID: 31641142 PMCID: PMC6805854 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-51552-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2019] [Accepted: 09/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
A widespread platinum (Pt) anomaly was recently documented in Greenland ice and 11 North American sedimentary sequences at the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) event (~12,800 cal yr BP), consistent with the YD Impact Hypothesis. We report high-resolution analyses of a 1-meter section of a lake core from White Pond, South Carolina, USA. After developing a Bayesian age-depth model that brackets the late Pleistocene through early Holocene, we analyzed and quantified the following: (1) Pt and palladium (Pd) abundance, (2) geochemistry of 58 elements, (3) coprophilous spores, (4) sedimentary organic matter (OC and sedaDNA), (5) stable isotopes of C (δ13C) and N (δ15N), (6) soot, (7) aciniform carbon, (8) cryptotephra, (9) mercury (Hg), and (10) magnetic susceptibility. We identified large Pt and Pt/Pd anomalies within a 2-cm section dated to the YD onset (12,785 ± 58 cal yr BP). These anomalies precede a decline in coprophilous spores and correlate with an abrupt peak in soot and C/OC ratios, indicative of large-scale regional biomass burning. We also observed a relatively large excursion in δ15N values, indicating rapid climatic and environmental/hydrological changes at the YD onset. Our results are consistent with the YD Impact Hypothesis and impact-related environmental and ecological changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher R Moore
- Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, P.O. Box 400, New Ellenton, SC, 29809, USA.
| | - Mark J Brooks
- Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, P.O. Box 400, New Ellenton, SC, 29809, USA
| | - Albert C Goodyear
- South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA
| | - Terry A Ferguson
- Department of Environmental Studies, Wofford College, 429N Church Street, Spartanburg, SC, 29303-3663, USA
| | - Angelina G Perrotti
- University of Wisconsin, Geography Department, 550N Park Street, Madison, WI, 53707-1404, USA
| | - Siddhartha Mitra
- Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
| | - Ashlyn M Listecki
- Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
- Department of Chemistry, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
| | - Bailey C King
- Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
- Department of Chemistry, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
| | - David J Mallinson
- Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353, USA
| | - Chad S Lane
- Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, 28411, USA
| | - Joshua D Kapp
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA
| | | | - David L Carlson
- Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4352, USA
| | - Wendy S Wolbach
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, 60614, USA
| | - Theodore R Them
- Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, 29424, USA
| | - M Scott Harris
- Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, 29424, USA
| | - Sean Pyne-O'Donnell
- Earth Observatory of Singapore and Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
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