Mega-sloths with flesh-rending claws: new research suggests the giants lived alongside humans for about 10 thousand years
Scientists recently shared interesting facts about giant animals that lived alongside humans for about 10 thousand years. They spoke about four-ton sloths with claws that could easily tear through flesh.
Until now, experts believed that these carnivorous animals, 6 meters high, were quickly exterminated by humans when they reached the Americas. However, new research has shown that people who lived next to them 27,000 years ago turned the bones of the giant sloth were into jewelry, TheSun reports.
The illustration shows the gigantic size of ancient sloths.
Source: thesun.co.uk
According to scientists, a penny-sized fossil of a sloth, intentionally polished and with a hole at one end, is the evidence of thet. It's one of many similar artifacts discovered in Santa Elina, modern-day Brazil, that are approximately 27,000 years old.
That is as much as 10,000 years earlier than humans were thought to arrive in the Americas for the first time. This means that humans have been living alongside giant sloths, as well as other large animals such as mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, and dire wolves, for thousands of years.
Giant sloths lived alongside humans in what is now Brazil.
Source: Getty
Scientists say that giant sloths once lived from Alaska to Argentina. Some species had bone structures on their backs - a bit like the plates of modern armadillos - that may have been used to make jewelry.
Initially, researchers wondered if ancient jewelry makers were working on already old fossils, but Mírian Pacheco, a researcher at the University of São Paulo, found that ancient people carved "fresh bones" shortly after the animals died.
"We believe it was intentionally altered and used by ancient people as jewelry or adornment. We found that the osteoderms were carved before the fossilization process... in fresh bones," the researcher said.
People lived at the same time as saber-toothed tigers and giant sloths, using their bones to make jewelry.
Source: Getty
The bones of a mega-sloth were found in a human camp. Scientists know that the first humans appeared in Africa, then moved to Europe and Asia before finally making their way to the Americas.
It was previously believed that humans arrived in the Americas about 11,000 and 13,000 years after a discovery in New Mexico. This date coincides with the end of the last ice age, when people could cross a land bridge from Asia to North America.
The fossil record also shows a widespread decline in megafauna - giant animals - that began around the same time.
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