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University of Glasgow
The Hunterian Museum

August 31st 1973

Dear Dr. Velikovsky,

Having said in my article in the New Scientist last January that the dating of mammoths was one example of a prediction of yours which did not appear to have been born out by subsequent discoveries—most C-14 dates for mammoths being earlier than about 10000 B.C.—I feel a strong obligation to bring to your attention three C-14 dates which have just been done on mammoth bone from Bavaria. They appear in Radiocarbon 15 (1973), 1, p. 114. (Kiel university laboratory).

The site is Tettenhausen, Bavaria, Germany and the dates were done on fragments of a tusk found in a pit near that town. The dating of a bone should of course date the death of the animal concerned. The dates are: —

KI.358.031 1620 ± 70 B.C.
KI.358.041 2080 ± 80 B.C.
KI.358.041 2120 ± 60 B.C.

If one uses the tree-ring calibration of Suess the dates fall near the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.--perhaps soon after the end of the Old Kingdom? If not they would be coeval with the Middle Kingdom. The dates seem to me a truly remarkable vindication of one of your more controversial ideas. There was not eve a comment in Radio. that the dates might be contaminated in some way and therefore too young. Perhaps I should write a letter to Pensée and draw attention to them. Alternatively you might like to ask Steve Talbott to mention them?

I was glad to see the two new issues of the magazine, which seems to get better all the time, ad particularly glad to hear both that you had recovered well from an illness and were to receive an honorary degree. The latter is surely long overdue but, as you said, understandable to some extent.

There is no need to reply to this.

All good wishes to your wife and yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Euan W. MacKie


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