The Real Story of Vero Beach Wasn’t Ancient Mammoth Art but Rather; Ancient "Mammoth" Humans and Mammoth Archaeological Misdirection
When Your PhD in Paleontology State  Geologists Finds 12 Foot Tall Giants with Giant Reptiles and Publishes in Scientific Journal
 

by Chris Parker  (photos at the bottom of this article)

There could be no better metaphor for modern science, particularly archaeology than Dr. Zaius from the movie “Planet of the Apes”.

When that Minister of Science found the talking human doll in a cave which would have overturned his scientific paradigm he had the cave sealed and the eyewitnesses arrested.

This week, the Huffington Post published a story about ancient mammoth art discovered at Vero Beach Florida which managed to both bury the lead and to seal the real archeological experience of North America in a cave, metaphorically speaking.

The original article announcing this discovery was published in 2009 so it’s a bit of a mystery why this article is being published now. (We had our own article last year). However, here is an "offensive quote" from the article:

“While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science”

Seriously? Are you kidding? There have been literally hundreds of prior discoveries of “prehistoric” art in the Americas depicting animals with trunks. The problem was, mainstream archeology had decided and pronounced that elephants or “animals with trunks” had not lived in North America and so discounted all evidence to the contrary.

A few examples of art depicting animals with trunks are shown at the top of the page. Another famous example is a pictograph discovered in the Grand Canyon in 1924 by Samuel Hubbard Jr. along with dinosaur and human footprints, petrified giant human bodies and pictographs showing dinosaurs. This was the Doheny Expedition and Hubbard had brought along Charles Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Museum of Natural History to certify his discoveries.

In the Vero Beach find we had the same pedantic initial skepticism but this time the paradigm was unable to relegate the piece to the cave and it has been grudgingly accepted. Now the field is trying to feign excitement about it. And what of all those other pieces of trunked art that have been discovered over the past three hundred years? Can you imagine that now that science has to admit that the mammoth was here in ancient times after all that nevertheless this is the first and only representation of the huge creature ever found?

As to burying the lead, Vero Beach, Florida first became famous and controversial back in 1917 when then State Geologist and later Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, Elias Sellards and colleague reported that they had found numerous bones, fossils, weapons etc. of “modern” men from 10 to 12 feet tall, along with the bones of extinct creatures and [giant reptiles] in Pleistocene strata. Given that scientific report and the controversy it engendered, why in the world is anyone talking about an etching of a mammoth on bone?

When it comes to the science known as Archaeology, or at least to its practitioners, one can learn more from the mammoth paradigm supporting misdirection than one can learn from an incised bone portraying a mammoth…..s8int.com

GIANTS INHABITED FLORIDA IN THE YEAR 123,084 B. C.
State Geologist Sellards and Prof. Hay Concur in Opinion After Study of Fossil Found at Vero-
Say Men Grew 12 Feet Tall.
New Smyrna Daily News Jan. 5, 1917

Background

“Elias Howard Sellards, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1899 and 1900, respectively, at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. He was awarded both a scholarship and a fellowship at Yale University, where he completed his doctorate in paleontology in 1903.

After graduating from Yale, Sellards taught geology and mineralogy for a year at Rutgers College, before becoming a professor of geology and zoology at the University of Florida in 1904. In 1907 he was named the first state geologist of Florida and held that position until 1918.” University of Texas Source

He was serving in that position when he found giant human bones near Vero Beach, Florida. He was later to serve as director of the Texas Memorial Museum from 1938 to 1957. In 1932 he became the director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, the source of this information. His discoveries were very controversial both because of the strata where the bones were discovered and because of their size.

Dr. OP Hay, co-discoverer was from the Carnegie Institution".  s8int.com

Smyrna Daily News Jan. 5, 1917–“That human beings inhabited the North American continent more than 125,000 years ago has been conclusively proven through a recent discovery in this state by E. H. Sellards, state geologist, and Prof. Oliver P. Hay who have made a study of the fossil. Though their opinions are not fully concurred in by other scientists, they are positive that their researches have been thorough and there is no room for a mistake.

The discovery was made several months ago, and though nothing of a definite nature had been given out until recently, it is now officially stated that human bones intermingled with those of the mastodon, saber tooth tiger, and many other extinct animals that formerly ranged this hemisphere have been found. The deposit was found near Vero.

That the human beings were of enormous size is evidenced by the bones. It is thought that some were ten or twelve feet in height. Some excellent specimens of the skeleton of these gigantic men have been found, some of them locked in the deadly embrace of great animals, with strange weapons of bone clutched in skeleton hands a foot long.”
Sellards and Hay must have known that their professional reputations would be at stake after such an announcement. Sellards did leave for Texas the following year. But to claim that human remains had been found in North America in the Pleistocene period and of a size that science claims never existed was unprecedented and incredible-twice over. No wonder they waited several months prior to the announcement.

They supposed that so many ancient animals had been found in association with the human bones because they had died together “locked in deadly combat”

A group of six; including anthropologists and geologists quickly arrived on site and eventually wrote a report which was published in Jan-Feb issue of the Journal of Geology. In that report, Sellards is quoted as saying that this was the oldest deposit from which human remains had ever been taken. Note that what Mr. Sellards meant is that these were not the bones of some ape being passed off as a pre-human.

The article continues on: If this research proves to be all that the scientists think it is, the world at large will be astounded to know that many things which had long been suspected are true. (There were giants in those days?)

There are many who believe Bering straight was crossed ages ago by inhabitants of European countries who probably had to flee across the Stnnovoi Mountains of Siberia.

The claims that Sellards and O.P. Hay were making did not sit well with many scientists and the debate raged for many years with the paradigm working to show that the bones really came from a much higher and thus geologically younger strata (intrusion). (Of course, I do not personally agree with the geological timescale the current scientific paradigm advances, either.) s8int.com

One can find many articles about these discoveries by searching Google for Vero Beach and the Antiquity of man. Rarely if ever do we see Sellards’ claims about the stature of the ancient men addressed. He did not leave himself without testimony however, as photographs of some of the bones, human and animal can be found online at the State of Florida Library website.

Left: Ulna of man, #5895, anterior view]
Publication info: 1916.
Physical descrip:
1 photoprint : b&w ; 5 x 7 in.
Series Title:
(Florida Geological Survey Collection.)
General Note: Used in 8th Annual report, pl.18, fig.2. Found in stratum 3 at Vero.
Date/place captured:
Photographed in February of 1916.

Tibia (right) of man, #5196, and right ulna (left) Canis dirus, #5451] [picture]
Greene, E. Peck.

This source: Lists many news articles and provides other research material descriptions and locations

Sellards defended his findings in among other reports; FLORIDA STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.
E. H. SELLARDS, PH. D., STATE GEOLOGIST. NINTH ANNUAL REPORT.

His Report Conclusion: “The human remains and artifacts are contemporaneous with extinct species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and at least one extinct species of plants, as well as with other animal and plant species that do not at the present time extend their range into Florida. The age of the deposits containing these fossils according to the accepted interpretation of faunas and floras is Pleistocene.” s8int.com

Epilogue: University of Florida: Epic carving on fossil bone found in Vero Beach

In what a top Florida anthropologist is calling “the oldest, most spectacular and rare work of art in the Americas,” an amateur Vero Beach fossil hunter has found an ancient bone etched with a clear image of a walking mammoth or mastodon.

According to leading experts from the University of Florida, the remarkable find demonstrates with new and startling certainty that humans coexisted with prehistoric animals more than 12,000 years ago in this fossil- rich region of the state.

Source

Bonus Material: Quote from 1884 Re: The Elephant in North America

MAN A CONTEMPORARY WITH THE AMERICAN ELEPHANT.

Perhaps those who are of the opinion that man dwelt here in ancient times contemporaneously with some species of the extinct American elephant, may see in the close proximity and association of the remains of these huge mammalians with the pottery of the ancient Americans, some evidence favoring their theory.

In fact, the huge elephant mound in Grant County, Wisconsin, which must have been made by a people familiar with elephants; and the engravings of elephants on tablets found in mounds; and the recent discovery in the quarry at Carson. Nevada, of human and elephant foot-marks, one human foot- mark being obliterated by the, subsequent passage of an elephant, the foot mark of the latter showing up beautifully, would seem to be evidence sufficient to establish the fact beyond a doubt, that man and some species of American elephant dwelt in ancient America together.

Prof. G-. Frederick Wright conjectures that the so-called human footprints at Carson, Nevada, were those of a bear, made long by lapping of the tracks of the hind feet into those of the fore feet. He thinks some such supposition necessary to account for the large size of the tracks—nineteen inches in length, six inches across the broadest part of the heel, and seven inches at the base of the toes.

He forgets that there were giants in those days, as is proven by the giant skeletons exhumed from mounds in various parts of America. And then, Mr. Wright’s conclusions do not at all tally with the description of these tracks, by those who carefully examined them, which description shows that; these impressions clearly indicate rights and lefts, and deviate to either side from a straight line about as much as the ordinary step of a man. * *

The hollow under the instep is remarkably prominent, and characteristic of the human foot, as is also the curvature around the toes. The impression is exactly like that of an Indian moccasin pressed into shallow mud. No separate impressions of toes are visible, from the fact that the whole interior of the impression clearly appears as if a sandal had been worn. The sharp line corresponding to the cut edge of a piece of hide is visible everywhere.”

Perhaps instead of a mere sandal, a rawhide shoe, with a sole on it, was worn. This would account for other things noticed. The reporter to the New York Weekly Herald of Nov. 18, 1882, further says:

“I was shown by Prof. Harkness, of San Francisco, the tracing of the sole of a shoe, worn by a Sonoran, which measures exactly eighteen and a half inches, just half an inch less than the fossil footprints.”

He further says of the fossil footprints:
“The straddle or distance between rights and lefts varies from almost nothing to sixteen inches. Neither of the above measurements is remarkable when we consider the proportions of the individual, as indicated bv the size of the feet.”

Besides all this evidence that they are human footmarks, is it not more than probable that, if they were those of an animal, the lap of the hind upon the fore-feet tracks would show somewhere, in so many tracks—over one hundred?

Wilford’s Microcosm: Volume 4 – Page 269 1884

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