This is another post in my series on pre-Clovis sites in America. A bone of an extinct ground sloth, a Lestodon, found in Uruguay, close to its capital city of Montevideo was reported last year by Fariña et al. The research paper cautiously suggests that the hole in the bone of this sloth was caused by humans, 33,000 years ago.
Read the original paper: Fariña RA, Hayes E, Lemoine LA, Fullagar R, Tambusso PS, Varela L (2025) An indentation in a 33,000-year-old right calcaneus of the ground sloth Lestodon (Xenarthra, Folivora) from Uruguay and its possible human agency. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology 144: 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13358-025-00379-0
The hole in the right calcaneus (a bone in the paw) of a ground sloth (Lestodon armatus), was found in Uruguay, in a site by a creek (Arroyo Vizcaíno), that has been dated by radiocarbon to 33,000 cal years ago. The authors, who made a cast of the hole and sampled it "argue that it could have been created by a penetrating object with a rounded tip, possibly a bone, ivory or hardened wood tip attached to a shaft. This evidence contributes to discussions on the dates of human arrival in South America and the potential interactions with the megafauna."
The paper points out that the lesion hadn't healed, it was not caused by cancer (neoplasia). It discards an attack by a predator as there are no other lesions in the bones (why would only one tooth of the preadotr impact the prey?). The article finds damage associated with fracture caused by penetration.
"The analysis of the mark and rounded surfaces within the indentation suggests that the perforating object had a rounded cross-section without a sharpened tip. We propose it was more likely to be made of bone, ivory or (less likely) hardened wood, inserted into a shaft or sleeve that was long enough to allow sufficient energy to penetrate the thick bone and allow rotational and lateral movement to generate the double cavity visible in the CT scan. In addition, the attack angle and location suggests a very close range attack of about 1 or 2 m away, which requires a club like and a hafted point heavy enough to produce the force required to break the relatively thick flat face of the calcaneus at this short distance."
Interestingly, the authors note a link with Siberian hunting technology: "Osseous projectile technologies are representative of the Early Upper Palaeolithic to Late Upper Palaeolithic industries in central and eastern Siberia and are key to understanding initial human dispersal in the Americas." In a recent post, I mentioned this when I wrote about the Yana Rive Site in Siberia and their bone foreshafts!
This is just another pre-Clovis site, but 33,000 years old, in Southern South America. Which prompts me to ask: how many more are out there, waiting to be discovered? and also why are so few discovered? Lack of research funds in South America seems to be the main reason, because when the local researchers look for pre-Clovis evidence, they find it!
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