SURVIVAL OF MASTODONTS, GROUND SLOTHS, AND HUMAN PRESENCE IN THE VALLEY OF THE MAGDALENA BETWEEN 6000 AND 5000 YEARS AGO.

Abstract

"An analysis of the stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of an excavation in the El Totumo site (Tocaima, Cundinamarca, Colombia), where bones of Mastodon and Megatherium were found associated with stone artifacts of the El Abra type, brings to the conclusion that man and megafauna still cohabited in the area between 6000 and 5000 years before present. A stone statue of the early San Agustín Culture (perhaps of the ninth century before Christ), shows a face or mask that seems to represent an elephant; this may mean that they had knowledge of the existence of Mastodons still in that time, or of an ancestral memory (cultural/ tradition) of an earlier period."