Many children today go through a 'dinosaur phase' and if you were to poll a classroom of youngsters, a least a few of them would say that they want to be a Paleontologist or 'T-Rex' finder when they grow up. It's no wonder really, when you consider that the spines and teeth alone from one of the ancient beasts, capture the imaginations of adults and children alike. Although they died off millions of years ago, leaving only skeletal remains from an age long before humans, there are people today that believe that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. The Acambaro figurines from Guanajuato, Mexico, were held up as proof of their claims for a long time. Thought to be a real archeological find initially, the relics were quickly shown to be fake.
A German immigrant (Waldemar Julsrud) in Acambaro, Mexico, uncovered ceramic figurines in a grouping while working there in 1944. They looked quite old, and seemed to come from one of the pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Maya or Aztec. Fascinated, he hired local help to dig up the pieces that were left, and promised payment for each artifact that was brought to him. The peasant and his assistants unearthed over 32,000 figures, which were carved to resemble everything from Egyptian and Sumerian people to dinosaurs.
While the figures attracted very little attention from historical scholars, Julsrud became convinced that the pieces were representations of dinosaurs which predated scientific awareness of the beasts, and tabloids were quick to hop on the story. Initial dating attempts using thermoluminescence showed that they had been made around 2500 BC, but this technique was in its infancy, and very prone to error. The artifacts were finally discovered to be fakes, once they were examined by an archeologist.. Most of the clay pieces were intact and showed no signs of age; the few which were broken had been smashed cleanly and all the pieces were present. Buried in what appeared to be recently dug soil, there was no dirt in the crevices of the sculptures.
A pay scale based on volume, encouraged the enterprising farmer and his friends, to produce as many figurines as they could, the evidence had shown. Furthermore, a local family had a long history of making these little sculptures for sale in the local markets. Despite the overwhelming amount of proof that the Acambaro artifacts were fraudulent, many people still believed that they showed humans had coexisted with dinosaurs.
Most recently, proponents of young Earth creationism have used them as a central arguing point. The bible is to be taken literally, according to this belief system and the age of the Earth said to be about 4,000 years following this faith (rather than 1.4 billion). The Acambaro figurines they say, are proof that humans saw and interacted with dinosaurs. They are now considered to be a mere footnote in the history of paleontology, as accurate dating techniques showed the firing date of the figures to be approximately 1939.
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