Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents

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Recent Survival Of The Elephant In The Americas

Mayan "elephant motif".

Elephants were supposed to have disappeared from the America about 10,000 years ago as the Ice Ages waned. This date is another of those "consensus" scientific facts that no one dares challenge if he or she wishes to get published or win research grants. Although this subject remains "closed off" in normal scientific intercourse, there remain tantalizing hints that elephants roamed the Americas until very recently - perhaps even a few hundred years ago!

The following snippets are culled from two articles written by G. Carter, Texas A&M, now emeritus, but always heretical:

1. Numerous folk memories of the elephamt were retained by American Indians.

2. A mastadon was killed, cooked, and eaten by humans in Ecuador circa 1500 BC.

3. Indians told Thomas Jefferson that elephants could still be seen in the region of the Great Lakes.

4. In Florida, a cache of extinct animals, including elephants, was carbon-dated at 2000 BP.

5. Elephant heads are prominent in art and sculpture from Mexico, Central American, and northern South America.

(Carter, George F.; "A Note on the Elephant in America," and "The Mammoth in American Epigraphy," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 18:90 and 18:213, 1989.)

Reference. The evidence for the recent survival of the mammoth is presented in BMD10 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. Details here.

From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990. � 1990-2000 William R. Corliss

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