User:Auric/Guadelopue Woman



Guadelopue Woman also known as The Guadeloupe Skeleton, is the name of a supposed Miocene Homo sapiens fossil, discovered on Guadeloupe in 1812.

Discovery and examination
Having heard that there were human skeletons in a bed of stone that was exposed at low tide in a place near Le Moule, Guadeloupe, the island's governor, General Ernouf, ordered that M. Gerard, a naturalist from Brussels, make excavations there.

He discovered several and Ernouf ordered one removed, as he described in a letter to Faujas St. Fond, published in the fifth volume of the Annales du Museum.

The skeleton was removed in 1804. The skeleton is also mentioned by Juan José Dauxión Lavaisse, in his work Voyage a la Trinidad. He had also had excavations made there, although he was unable to obtain a complete skeleton.

The island was captured by the English before it could be sent to Paris to be examined by Georges Cuvier.

Sir Alexander Cochrane presented it to the British Museum in 1813, where it was examined by Charles Konig. Konig presented a paper to the Royal Society in 1814, stating that the skeleton was likely not a fossil, as the stone was actually a concretion of calcareous sand, which is known as beach rock, travertine or locally, "God’s masonry" (Maçonné-bon-dieu). The skeleton was also examined by Sir Humphrey Davy and found to be unfossilized.

A second skeleton was sent to Paris, after the island's return to French hands, by General Donzelot, where it was examined by Cuvier.

Duchassaing, a French naturalist, argued in a paper in 1847 that the skeletons belonged to the island's earlier residents, the Galibis. He also described a number of objects he had found in the deposits, such as vine stems of seagrape, Venus fan coral, land snails (Bulimulus guadalupensis) and pieces of pottery. In the upper part of the formation, he found a dog bone.

In more recent times, Edgar Clerc found archaeological remains in beds to the east and west of Moule, with three distinct levels of activity.

Characteristics
The block of stone measured 8 by. The skeleton was nearly complete, missing only the skull and neck vertebrae and parts of the hands and feet. The Paris skeleton was more complete, though in a contorted posture.

Display history
The skeleton in its block became part of the permanent collections of the Natural History Museum in 1881, accessioned as M 16820. It remained on display from 1882 to 1967, when it was transferred to a storehouse. In 2006 it was re-accessioned with the number PA HR 4128.

Recent history
After its discovery was announced, some Christians thought that this discovery was evidence of the Deluge of Noah. Subsequent examination of the remains disproved this and the subject faded from public view.

Bill Cooper, a creationist, revived this theory when he published a paper in 1983 claiming the skeleton was found embedded in an Early Miocene deposit dated at 25 million years old.