The Moab Man (also called "
Malachite
Malachite () is a copper Carbonate mineral, carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the chemical formula, formula Basic copper carbonate, Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often for ...
man") is a find of several human skeletons found after bulldozing in a mine whose rock dated to the Early
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
period, about 140 million years ago. The original discovery of two individuals was made in 1971 by Lin Ottinger in the Keystone Azurite Mine near
Moab
Moab () was an ancient Levant, Levantine kingdom whose territory is today located in southern Jordan. The land is mountainous and lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by ...
,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, and has been used by
creationist
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation, and is often pseudoscientific. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary' ...
s as an argument for humans coexisting with
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
s. 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.
Debated fossil status and age
In the 1980s,
Paluxy Creationist
Carl Baugh
Carl Edward Baugh (born October 21, 1936) is an American young Earth creationist. Baugh has claimed to have discovered human footprints alongside non-avian dinosaur footprints near the Paluxy River in Texas. Baugh promoted creationism as the form ...
purchased a "Moab Man" skeleton from Ottinger; the skeleton was displayed in the
in
Glen Rose, Texas
Glen Rose is a city in and the county seat of Somervell County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 2,659.
History
19th century
The area was first settled in 1849 by Charles Barnard, who opened a trading post ...
, as evidence of humans living at the same time as dinosaurs.
The Creation Evidence Museum also housed a collection of supposedly human fossil footprints, vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, and fossils attributed to various dinosaur
genera
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...
, including a mislabeled
pubis and
assigned to ''
Acrocanthosaurus
''Acrocanthosaurus'' ( ; ) is a genus of carcharodontosaurid dinosaurs that existed in what is now North America during the Aptian and early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous, from 113 to 110 million years ago. Like most dinosaur genera, ...
'' and a solitary "Y-shaped" fossil assigned the name "
Unicerosaurus" (Armstrong, 1987, identified this fossil as belonging to a fish ''
Xiphactinus
''Xiphactinus'' (from Latin and Greek for "sword-ray") is an extinct genus of large predatory marine ray-finned fish that lived during the late Albian to the late Maastrichtian. The genus grew up to in length, and superficially resembled a garga ...
'').
[Armstrong, John R. (1987). ''Creation/Evolution Newsletter'' 7 5:21] 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."
Later examination of the "Moab Man" skeletons indicate that they are unfossilized remains that were subject to an intrusive burial, and have been carbon dated to between 210 and 1450 years old (Berger and Protsch, 1989; Coulam and Schroedl, 1995).
See also
*
Meister Print
*
London Hammer
The London Hammer (also known as the "London Artifact") is a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas in 1936. Part of the hammer is embedded in a limey rock concretion, leading some to regard it as an anomalous artifact. Th ...
*
Out-of-place artifact
An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt or oopart) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest to someone that is claimed to have been found in an unusual context, which someone claims to challenge conventional historica ...
References
*
* {{Cite book, title=Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States , author=Jim Brandon, page=221, year=1978
External links
"Moab Man" - "Malachite Man"The Paluxy Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy
Archaeology of the United States
1971 in science
Creationism
Geography of Grand County, Utah
Pseudoarchaeology
1971 in the United States
People from Moab, Utah
1971 archaeological discoveries