4 ms·
Has a headline been ever made about fossils dated younger than previously thought?
by otabdeveloper4 4y ago
Has a headline been ever made about fossils dated younger than previously thought?
- _djo_ 4y agoOccasionally yes, however scientists generally err on the side of being conservative in their calculations for things like this so corrections will generally be in one direction.
- adastra22 4y agoYes, but usually of a species that was thought to have gone extinct earlier. If dinosaur bones were found in 55 million year old strata, that’d be news :)
- geoduck14 4y agoI have a rotisserie chicken carcass in garbage that is less than 55 million years old
- AlotOfReading 4y agoIt happens occasionally. The Wrangel Island Mammoths are a famous example of remains that date far younger than anyone expected [1]. For human origins, "human ancestors are older than we thought" is usually more sensational than "survived later than we thought" though, so you might not remember examples like [2]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/25/us/dwarf-mammoths-may-have-put-off-demise.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/25/us/dwarf-mammoths-may-hav... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/our-ancient-neanderthal-relatives-went-extinct-much-later-we-thought-716370 https://www.newsweek.com/our-ancient-neanderthal-relatives-w...
- yCombLinks 4y agoYes, but it's often not nearly as newsworthy. A fossil being older is much more likely to change the timeframe for when something occurred. A younger fossil probably just means that same thing was still occurring
- WalterBright 4y agoPiltdown Man.