- Moab Man
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The Moab Man (also called "Malachite man") is a controversial find of around ten human skeletons found after bulldozing in a mine whose rock dated to the Early Cretaceous period, about 140 Ma. The discovery was made in 1971 by Lin Ottinger in the Keystone Azurite Mine near Moab, Utah and has been used by creationists as an argument for humans coexisting with dinosaurs. John Marwitt, an archaeologist and the Field Director for the Utah Archaeological Survey, examined the fossils and concluded that the fossils were probably only hundreds of years old, the result of burials of Native Americans.[1]
Contents
Debated fossil status and age
In the 1980s, Paluxy Creationist Carl Baugh purchased a "Moab Man" skeleton from Ottinger; the skeleton was displayed in the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, as evidence of humans living at the same time as dinosaurs.[1] The Creation Evidence Museum also housed a collection of supposedly human fossil footprints, vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, and fossils attributed to various dinosaur genera, including a mislabeled pubis and ischium assigned to Acrocanthosaurus and a solitary "Y-shaped" fossil assigned the name "Unicerosaurus" (Armstrong, 1987, identified this fossil as belonging to a fish).[2] Studies over the years had concluded that the fossil "human" footprints were actually "forms of elongate dinosaur tracks, while others were selectively highlighted erosional markings, and still others (on loose blocks) probable carvings."[3]
Later examination of the "Moab Man" skeletons indicate that they are unfossilized, and have been carbon dated to between 210 and 1450 years old (Berger and Protsch, 1989; Coulam and Schroedl, 1995)[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Kuban, Glen J. (2005) "Moab Man" - "Malachite Man"
- ^ Armstrong, John R. (1987). Creation/Evolution Newsletter 7 5:21
- ^ Kuban, G (1995). "On the Heels of Dinosaurs". TalkOrigins.org. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/onheel.html. Retrieved 2009-05-25.
- Coulam, Nancy J.; Schroedl, Alan R. (1995). "The Keystone Azurite Mine in Southeastern Utah". Utah Archaeology 8 (1): 1–12.
External links
- "Moab Man" - "Malachite Man" The Paluxy Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy
- Read about the "Malachite man" (Moab man) at www.bible.ca
Categories:- Archaeology of the United States
- 1971 in science
- Creationism
- Geography of Grand County, Utah
- Pseudoarchaeology
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