24,000-Year-Old Skeletons of 7,000 Extinct Animal Species Unearthed in Chile

Along the coasts of Chile, archaeologists and paleontologists have discovered more than 7,000 skeletons of extinct animal species, some of which date back as far as 24,000 years.

Ancestor Species

The extinct species that were uncovered were remains of Camelidae, which were ancestors of camels; Cervidae which are ancestors of deer; Equidae, which are ancestors of horses; Mylodontidae which is an extinct group of giant land sloths; Xenarthra, which is an ancestor of sloths, anteaters, and cingulatel; Canidae, which are an ancestor of dogs, foxes, and wolves; myocastorinae and octodontidae, which are two ancestors to rodents; and multiple mylodons which is another extinct type of giant sloth.

The wetlands that once covered the area where the remains were discovered were frozen between 24,000 and 17,000 years ago during an ice age. The area is now completely underwater.

The discovery of the fossils was made in the central Chilean coastal region of Quintero Bay, where researchers have been conducting excavations at a location known as GNL Quintero 1 (GNLQ1).

Last Ice Age 24,000 Years Ago

The area of the ocean that Quintero Bay now occupies was once a vast esplanade of wetlands that extended several miles from the present-day coastline. Paleolamas, mylodon, American horses, deer, and various rodent species, as well as foxes and coypus, lived on the Esplanade.

The esplanade became submerged as a result of the melting of the ice sheets, creating the only known end-Pleistocene submerged site located on South America's Pacific Coast.

Archaeologists teaming up with paleontologists have studied GNLQ1 and discovered deposits of the species, as well as numerous mylodon, remains; all of these discoveries are related to the kinds of animals discovered at Paleoindian hunter-gatherer sites in related environments in central Chile.

The underwater fieldwork involved excavation by strata, cleaning up the cleared sediments to later retrieve the faunal clusters in blocks, as well as the sediment containing skeletal remains, Heritage Daily reports.

Shasta: Giant Sloths of the Pleistocene

In the Pleistocene era, about 12,000 to 1.8 million years ago, giant sloths existed on earth. It is thought that both human hunting and climate change caused the extinction of the species, according to the Natural History Museum.

The sloths, who ate meat instead of scavenging like modern sloths, are believed to have lived in South America.

The "Shasta," which is one of the smallest species of the giant sloth, grew to a length of about 9 feet and weighed up to 550 pounds. However, the Megalonyx breed of giant sloths, one of the larger species, grew to a length of about 10 feet and a maximum weight of 2,200 pounds, The Jerusalem Post reports.

Other Species on Site

Isabel Cartajena, the OHC's director and a professor at the University of Chile's Department of Anthropology, and her team have also discovered the remains of reptiles as well as medium-sized species like foxes, numerous rodent species that make up the microfauna, as well as very tiny marsupials.

The OHC director and professor at the University of Chile's Faculty of Social Sciences stated that, up until this point, the GNLQ1 site had not reported any cultural evidence in support of the existence of early human groups. But this location shows that there was a landscape available for the habitation and movement of extinct fauna as well as early human groups along South America's Pacific coast, Scoop Trade reports.