SCOTT CITY — Kansas University researchers have been digging for evidence that would tie a 15,500-year-old mammoth discovered in west-central Kansas with prehistoric human artifacts found nearby. The mammoth bones and stone flakes left by a prehistoric tool-maker were unearthed in 2011 found about 50 yards apart in a field northeast of Scott City. KU Professor Rolfe Mandel said if it can be proved that the people who created the flakes also killed the mammoth, it will prove that humans were in the central plains 2,500 years earlier than currently proven. Radiocarbon dating shows the approximate time of the adult mammoth but the stone flakes are impossible to date, he said. Researchers are looking for human artifacts among the animal’s remains or butcher marks on the bones to prove that pre-clovis-age people were in the area at the same time as the mammoth, he said. The excavation has been made more difficult because the mammoth skeleton was scattered — likely by wolves or other scavengers, he said.
Updated 8/6/13 @ 10:20 pm
