Radiocarbon age constraints for late Pleistocene–early Holocene artifacts and portable art work from Jalisco, Mexico, carved from bones of the last elephants of North America

在新大陆，晚期更新世和早期全新世的艺术记录是非常罕见的，相比之下，丰富的档案可以追溯到距今3万年，甚至更早，来自欧洲和中东。在这里，我们展示了迄今为止未知的来自墨西哥中西部哈利斯科州的非常精致的便携式艺术品和工具，它们是美洲已知的最古老的艺术品之一。这些人工制品是由长鼻动物的长骨和象牙碎片以及其他被认为是更新世典型的巨型动物元素雕刻而成的。然而，基于这些化石的生物磷灰石的初始14C年龄表明，用于艺术骨修饰的动物可能在更新世末期大灭绝中幸存下来，并与人类共存至约7,6 ka cal. BP。在此，我们申请资助2019年3月在Paleontológico de Guadalajara博物馆采样的其他考古和古生物材料的14C辐射年龄测定，以支持我们的假设。

The record of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene art is remarkably rare in the New World as compared to rich archives dating back to 30,000 years before present (BP), and more, from Europe and the Middle East. Here we present hitherto unknown pieces of unusually elaborate portable art work and tools from Jalisco state in west-central Mexico, which are among the oldest known from the Americas. These artifacts are carved from long bone and tusk fragments of proboscideans and other megafaunal elements considered as typically Pleistocene in age. Nevertheless, initial 14C ages based on bioapatite of these fossils suggest that the animals used for artistic bone modification may have survived the end-Pleistocene- mass extinction and coexisted with humans to about 7,6 ka cal. BP. Here we apply for funding of 14C radiometric age dating of additional archaeological and palaeontological material sampled at the Museo Paleontológico de Guadalajara in March 2019, to support our hypothesis.