A
Triceratops brow horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, 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
once walked the earth with the fearsome reptiles thousands of years ago.
The Triceratops brow horn was excavated by
palaeontologist Otis Kline Jr, microscope scientist Mark Armitage, and
microbiologist and avocational palaeontologist Kevin Anderson, in May
2012, and two horn samples (GDFM 12.001a and GDFM 12.001b) were given to
the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Montana. The samples were
then sent to the University of Georgia, Center for Applied Isotope
Studies for Carbon-14 dating, which yielded an estimated date of 33,570 ±
120 years for the first sample and 41,010 ± 220 years for the second.
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, a team
of consultants in geology, paleontology, chemistry, engineering, and
education, 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,” Hugh Miller, a research and consulting
chemist and Head of the Paleochronology Group, told Ancient Origins in
an email.
The results of the Triceratops Horn analysis are
not unique. According to Mr 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 regards fossil wood and 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
world-wide. 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,” Mr 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.
Top left: Relief carving at Angkor Wat, Cambodia
(1186 AD). Top Right: Textile from Nazca, Peru (700 AD). Bottom:
Tapestry in the Chateau de Blois (1500 AD)
Top left: Relief carving at Angkor Wat, Cambodia
(1186 AD). Top Right: Textile from Nazca, Peru (700 AD). Bottom:
Tapestry in the Chateau de Blois (1500 AD)
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-million-year-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 by the science team 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 peer-reviewed journal Acta Histochemica. Mr
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 says 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,” Mr Miller told
Ancient Origins. “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, who 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.
“[T]he public should be made aware that the
discovery of soft tissue, C-14 in dinosaur bones and dinosaur depictions
world-wild renders current beliefs about how old they are obsolete,”
said Mr Miller. “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 pre-treatments were carried out by
the University of California 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. Failure to investigate or even acknowledge
such significant findings unfortunately suggests that some scientists
are more interested in holding on tight to current perspectives, rather
than seeking to advance knowledge and understanding in this field.
Featured image: Triceratops horn discovered in Dawson County, Montana, which yielded C-14 results of around 33,500 years.
