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.
