Did Homo Erectus live in the Americas until fairly recently?

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

This stone sculpture was photographed at the remote “Olmec Civilization” town site of La Venta in the coastal plain forests of north central Tabasco. It appears to be a Homo Erectus man, with his hands bound behind his head. I noticed that it did not have a tail and did not resemble the monkeys living in southern Mexico and Central America today

This sculpture probably dates from around 800 BC to 400 BC, but I imagine that it is almost impossible to date it. My understanding is that it has now been moved to the safety of a museum in Villahermosa, Tabasco.

There are stories, both in the Lower Southeastern United States and in Southeast Asia of primitive humans with tails, who were capable of hurling rocks and sharpened sticks at Homo Sapiens humans. Those in what is now the United States disappeared soon after the arrival of Europeans. Apparently, they were extremely vulnerable to European diseases. During the Vietnam War, such creatures supposedly attacked both U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers, who ventured into an uninhabited mountain range in what was then South Vietnam.

The Truth is out there somewhere!