Science
B1 February 5 – 11, 2015
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A triceratops skull cast at
the Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History in
Washington, D.C. Recent testing suggests that dinosaurs
were around much longer
than we once thought—perhaps long enough to meet
humans.
Did Humans Walk the Earth With Dinosaurs?
Triceratops horn dated to 33,500 years
By April Holloway
A triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Mont.,
has been controversially dated to
around 33,500 years, challenging the view that dinosaurs died
out around 65 million years ago.
The finding radically suggests that early humans may
have walked the Earth with the
fearsome reptiles thousands of
years ago. The triceratops brow
horn was excavated in May
2012 and stored at the Glendive
Dinosaur and Fossil Museum.
The museum, which has since
2005 been in cooperation with
the Paleochronology Group, a
team of consultants in geology,
paleontology, chemistry, engineering, and education, sent a
sample of the outer portion of
the horn to the head of the Paleochronology Group, Hugh Miller,
at his request to carry out carbon-14 dating.
Miller sent the sample to the
University of Georgia, Center
for Applied Isotope Studies, for
this purpose. The sample was
divided at the lab into two fractions with the “bulk” or collagen
break down products yielding an
age of 33,570 ± 120 years and the
carbonate fraction of bone bioapatite yielding an age of 41,010
± 220 years [UGAMS-11752 &
11752a]. Miller told Ancient Origins that it is always desirable to
carbon-14 date several fractions
to minimize the possibility of
errors, which Miller requested,
and that essential concordance
was achieved in the thousands of
years as with all bone fractions
of 10k other dinosaurs.
Triceratops, a name meaning
“three-horned face,” is a genus
of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur that is said to have first
appeared during the late Maastrichtian stage of the late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago in what is now
North America, and became
extinct in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago. However, scientists from the Paleochronology
Group, who perform research
relating to “anomalies of science,” maintain that dinosaurs
did not die out millions of years
ago and that there is substantial
evidence that they were still alive
as recently as 23,000 years ago.
Until recently, carbon-14 dating was never used to test dinosaur bones, as the analysis is only
reliable up to 55,000 years. Scientists never considered it worthwhile to run the test since it is
generally believed that dinosaurs have been extinct for 65
million years, based on radiometric dating of the volcanic
layers above or below fossils, a
method which the Paleochronology Group states has “serious
problems and gross assumptions
must be made.”
“It became clear years ago
that paleontologists were not
just neglecting to test dinosaur
bones for C-14 content but were
refusing to. Normally a good scientist will be curious about the
ages of important fossil bones,”
Miller told Ancient Origins in
an email.
The results of the triceratops
horn analysis are not unique.
According to Miller, numerous
C-14 tests have now been carried out on dinosaur bones, and
surprisingly, they all returned
results dating back in the thousands rather than millions of
years.
“I organized the Paleochronology Group in 2003 to fill a void
with regard to fossil wood and
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An Inca stone etched with what
seem to be dinosaurs. Ancient
artworks and artifacts appear
to depict dinosaurs long
before modern science had
pieced together dinosaur
fossils.
Until recently,
Carbon-14
dating was
never used to
test dinosaur
bones.
dinosaur bones, as I was curious as to their age by C-14 dating. We thus have used C-14 dating to solve the mystery why soft
tissue and dinosaur depictions
exist worldwide. Our model predicted dinosaur bones would
have significant C-14 and indeed
they did in the range of 22,000 to
39,000 years BP,” Miller added.
Numerous independent
researchers have long argued
that there is evidence man and
dinosaur once walked the Earth
together, such as hundreds of
ancient artworks and artifacts
that appear to depict dinosaurs,
long before modern science had
pieced together dinosaur fossils
and conducted analyses to produce detailed reconstructions of
their appearance.
However, even more intriguing is the discovery of soft tissue
in dinosaur fossils. In the March
2005 issue of Science, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer and her
team announced the discovery
of soft tissue inside a 68-millionyear-old Tyrannosaurus rex leg
bone from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, a controversial finding, considering scientists had thought soft tissue
proteins degrade in less than
1 million years in the best of
conditions.
After
recovery, the
tissue was rehydrated
and testing revealed evidence of
intact structures such as blood
vessels, bone matrix, and connective tissue.
More recently, Mark Armitage and Kevin Anderson published results of a microscopic
analysis of soft tissue from a
triceratops horn in the peerreviewed journal Acta Histochemica. Armitage, a creationist, claimed that the preservation
of cells is a scientific impossibility if the dinosaur really walked
the Earth over 66 million years
ago. On this basis, he opened a
discussion with colleagues and
students about the implications
of such a finding being that the
creationist perspective is correct
and that dinosaurs existed much
later than mainstream science
maintains, a move that promptly
saw him fired by the University
of California.
While the Paleochronology
Group said it is not “of any particular creed or denomination,”
there are undoubtedly those with
creationist beliefs among the
group, a fact which critics may
say could bias their results. Nevertheless, the group has urged
any and all scientists to replicate their results
by carrying out rigorous C-14
testing on any dinosaur sample.
“Every sample tested yielded
significant original carbon-14
by extensive cross-checking
of their ages in bone collagen,
bulk organics, and carbonate
from bone bioapatite on AMS
units and obtained concordance.
Thus, the overwhelming odds
are that most if not all unpetrified or even supposed petrified
dinosaur bones in museum and
university collections will show
the same result,” Miller said.
“We urge therefore that all those
in charge of such collections see
if they can replicate our findings.
The implications are immense.”
The challenge, so far, has been
met with rejection, and previous attempts to publish C-14 test
results were repeatedly blocked.
Raw data without interpretation
was blocked from presentation
in conference proceedings by the
2009 North American Paleontological Convention, the American Geophysical Union in 2011
and 2012, the Geological Society of America in 2011 and 2012,
and by the editors of various
scientific journals. The
Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, which
conducted “blind” C-14
tests on dinosaur bones,
without knowing what
they were, refused to conduct further C-14 tests after
finding they were testing dinosaur bones.
Paleontologist Jack Horner,
curator at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies, who excavated the Tyrannosaurus rex remains that
contained soft tissue, even turned
down an offer of a $23,000 grant
to carry out a C-14 test on the
remains.
“The public should be made
aware that the discovery of soft
tissue, C-14 in dinosaur bones,
and dinosaur depictions worldwide renders current beliefs
about how old they are obsolete,”
Miller said. “Science is about
sharing evidence, and letting
the chips fall where they may.”
While there is a possibility that
the C-14 test results were a result
of contamination or error (even
though the results were replicated and rigorous pretreatments were carried out by the
University of Georgia to control
for this), or are perhaps due to
some other factor not currently
understood by science, it seems
reasonable to expect scientists
to attempt replication of such
groundbreaking test results.
Republished with permission
from Ancient-Origins.net