Acámbaro Figures

==Opening Statement - What is the artifact?==

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The Acámbaro figures are set of approximately 33,000 clay figurines. Discovered in July of 1944, in Mexico in the city of Acámbaro, Guanajuato, these figures resemble dinosaurs. Some people follow the belief that these figures are physical and credible evidence that dinosaurs and humans lived together. This is then used to oppose other scientific dating methods. At the moment, there is no reliable evidence that can validate the figures as real artifacts.

What is the context in which it was found?

Waldemar Julsrud, a German hardware merchant, came upon a clay figure at the base of a a mountain called el Toro, in the state of Guanajuato. Julsrud, being an owner of several other artifacts, was quite familiar with most pieces present at the time. However, Julsrud had never seen or heard of anything like this. Wanting to know if there were more buried around the area, he arranged with one of his employees to dig up the area. All together, Julsrud and his employee discovered around 33,000 different figures. A large majority of these figures were reptiles very closely resembling Dinosaurs. The other figures were human figures. Some of these figures specifically had interaction between the two, such as a human riding on the back of a dinosaur.

What makes this a pseudoarchaeological topic?

The Acabaro Figures are a highly debated concept. Due to the 33,000 figures showing dinosaurs and humans together, a number of people believe that this is physical evidence that at one point humans were coexisting at the time of dinosaurs. What makes this such a hot debate is that if this were true the entire history of mankind would have to be rewritten. Mainstream geology establishes that 65 million years ago dinosaurs became extinct. It is also said that humans appeared less than one million years ago. Those who believe in Young-Earth creationism, believe that humans, dinosaurs, and all other animals were created on the same day roughly 6,000 years ago. Therefore Youn-Earth creationist believers are heavily seeking physical proof of this belief.

After the discovery of the figurines, Julsrud wrote a book called Enigmas del Pasado where he recounted specific details on the figures. Lowell Harmer, Los Angeles Times writer, wrote an article in March after visiting Julsrud and the sculptures. It was titles "Mexico Finds Give Hint of Lost World: Dinosaur Statues Point to Men Who Lived in Age of Reptiles." In the article Harmer posed readers with questions such as "Did ancient man live and fight with dinosaurs 100,000,000 year ago in Mexico?" Harmer then said that Julsrud dates this figurines to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. In this article, Julsrud says "only men of an age-old civilization, who knew the monsters, could have executed the ceramics and left them in the earth where they are being found today." This is Julsrud saying that the sculptures were so perfect that it simply could not have been made up.

Later that year, William Russell went out to Acámbaro to write about the findings. He titled his article "Did Man Tame the Dinosaur?" In this article he concluded that there were no duplicate pieces and that "Each is either hand-molded, hand-carved, or both." At it's conception, people were skeptical of the authenticity of the figures yet according to Russell, "nothing should becloud the evidence that Julsrud's Objects are very old."

Almost emediately the authenticity of these figurines were debated. If these figures really were true, then human evolution as we know it would have to be rewritten. Archaeologist Charles DiPeso traveled to Acambaro in order to attempt to determine whether or not the artifacts were true. After chemical testing, DiPeso determined that while there was no true way to determine that the fabrications from the chemical test were recent, the figures had to have been around 200 years old. DiPeso went from initially believing there was a bare possibility of the truth, to not even considering it one.

With multiple sources, deconstruct the pseudoarchaelogical narrative

After DiPeso made his report on the figurines, he went on to further explain more evidence pointing towards why these sculptures do not prove the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. He wrote in his report: "The figures were broken, in most cases, where the appendages attatched themselves to the body of the figurines... No parts were missing. Furhtermore, none of the broken surfaces were worn smooth." This is DiPeso saying that the figurines are preserved too well. Saying that if these figurines really were around when dinosaurs were, there would have been much more damage to the artifacts. With further investigation, a family living near Acamboro admitted to making the figurines during the winter. When examining the hole in which the figurines were excavated, there were signs of digging prior to when the figurines were set.

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