Punish Them 911
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Most of the "complete" Neanderthal and European Upper Paleolithic fossils were excavated in the 19th/early 20th centuries. In fact, the last "complete" European Neanderthal skull (Saint Cesaire 1) was discovered in 1979, after an accidental intrusion by road cutters years before:
The same process is likely to destroy fossils in Asia, as China ramps up investments in Mongolian and central Asian infrastructure spending. Future global conflicts are also likely to see the destruction or loss of fossil specimens. In WW2 almost all of the Predmosti fossils were destroyed by Nazi bombing, and the Shanidar Neanderthal remains were lost during the Iran-Iraq and Desert Storm wars. Many other fossils have likely been bombed, lost, or chucked in to coal fired power plants.
To make matters worse, aging in developed countries means there are fewer and fewer archaeologists every year as more retire, and archaeology is not a popular career for our ever shrinking numbers of young people. This means the golden age of aDNA may be coming to a close.
Although we might look at this as an example of industry finding fossils for science, it is all the more likely that the intensive suburban development and land utilization of the past 50 years has led to the destruction of more fossils than their discovery. Neanderthal and early modern human excavations have since fizzled out in Europe. One of the most important, Oase, was recovered from a cave under extraordinary circumstances. Today, we find more such specimens in Siberia than in Europe.In 1975, earthworks to facilitate the passage of trucks carrying mushrooms unearthed some flints and animal bones. The first to see these was an amateur prehistorian, Bernard Dubiny. He was on his way to fish for trout, and stopped to have a look at the road cutting. Although the area was not known as a prehistoric site, he persuaded the owner of the cutting, the mayor of Saint-C?saire, Ren? Boucher, to stop work on the cutting immediately.
The same process is likely to destroy fossils in Asia, as China ramps up investments in Mongolian and central Asian infrastructure spending. Future global conflicts are also likely to see the destruction or loss of fossil specimens. In WW2 almost all of the Predmosti fossils were destroyed by Nazi bombing, and the Shanidar Neanderthal remains were lost during the Iran-Iraq and Desert Storm wars. Many other fossils have likely been bombed, lost, or chucked in to coal fired power plants.
To make matters worse, aging in developed countries means there are fewer and fewer archaeologists every year as more retire, and archaeology is not a popular career for our ever shrinking numbers of young people. This means the golden age of aDNA may be coming to a close.