archeologia: Mummy

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In the mid-1990s, the Nevada State Museum had textile samples from the Spirit Cave Assemblage analyzed for radiocarbon dating. The results indicated an age in excess of 10,000 years for one set of the burials, a mummified set of remains now believed to be one of the oldest in North America. Spirit Cave was located by archaeologists Sydney and Georgia Wheeler in 1940 during salvage excavations conducted by the Nevada State Parks Commission east of Fallon, Nevada. The human remains of four individuals, dating from 5,400 to 10,600 years ago, and 10 associated funerary objects, known as the Spirit Cave Assemblage, were found in the cave, and are being curated at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nevada. RENO, Nev. – The Department of the Interior announced today that effective November 18, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) transferred control of human remains and funerary objects found in Spirit Cave, Nevada to the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Indian Tribe.

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least the early 17th century. Mummies of humans and animals have been found on every continent, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Over one million animal mummies have been found in E…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The Spirit Cave mummy is the oldest human mummy found in North America. It was discovered in 1940 in Spirit Cave, 13 miles (21 km) east of Fallon, Nevada, United States, by the husband-and-wife archaeological team of Sydney and Georgia Wheeler. Analysis of the remains showed similarities to North and South American indigenous peoples and in 2016, the remains were repatriated to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of Nevada. The Spirit Cave mummy was one of the first to be dated using accelerated mass spectrometer radiocarbon dating. In turn, its discovery and analysis gave much insight and motivation of further research into the chronology of the western Great Basin.

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U-series dating of water-table fluctuations in Devils Hole cave (Nevada, USA) over the last 800,000 years. <p>²³⁴U-²³⁸U is a powerful geochronometer that can provide absolute ages of secondary carbonates over a greater interval of time than the well-established ²³⁰Th-U. In this study, we apply ²³⁴U-²³⁸U dating techniques to subaqueous calcite deposits in Devils Hole cave, located in the Amargosa Desert (Nevada, USA). Subaqueous calcite deposits record paleo water table elevations within the cave. Previous work used ²³⁰Th-U dating techniques to reconstruct fluctuations in the local water table over the last 350,000 years (Wend…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 72

Mummy Cave is a rock shelter and archeological site in Park County, Wyoming, United States, near the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The site is adjacent to the concurrent U.S. Routes 14/16/20, on the left bank of the North Fork of the Shoshone River at an altitude of 6,310 feet (1,920 m) in Shoshone National Forest. At its mouth, the cave is approximately 150 feet (46 m) wide, and it extends approximately 40 feet (12 m) into a volcanic cliff above the North Fork. It lies along the left bank of the river, next to the mouth of a small stream and opposite from the mouth of Blackwater Creek. The largest known cave along the North Fork, it is believed to have been carved by the r…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 80

A Brief History and Perspective on Spirit Cave, Nevada

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