Melbourne Bone Bed is a paleontological

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

 site located at Crane Creek

Crane Creek (Melbourne, Florida)

Crane Creek is a stream in Melbourne, Florida, United States. It is a tributary of the Indian River, with its mouth in the vicinity of Front Street.-History:...

 in Melbourne

Melbourne, Florida

Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. As of 2009, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 78,323. The municipal area is the second largest by size and by population in the county. Melbourne is a principal city of the Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville, Florida...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. This site contains fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s from the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 period 20,000 to 10,000 years before present. The fossils include extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

 animals such as varieties of camel

Camel

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...

s, giant armadillo

Holmesina

Holmesina is a genus of pampathere, an extinct group of armadillo-like creatures that were distantly related to extant armadillos. Like armadillos, and unlike the other extinct branch of Cingulata, the glyptodonts, the shell was made up of flexible plates which allowed the animal to move more easily...

s, giant beaver

Giant Beaver

Castoroides ohioensis was a species of giant beaver, huge members of the family Castoridae , endemic to North America during the Pleistocene epoch .-Morphology:...

s, giant bison

Bison latifrons

Bison latifrons is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene. Also known as the giant bison, it reached a shoulder height of 2.5 metres , and had horns that spanned over 2 metres...

, giant ground sloth

Eremotherium

Eremotherium is an extinct genus of actively mobile ground sloth of the family Megatheriidae, endemic to North America and South America during the Pleistocene epoch...

s, mammoth

Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...

s, mastodon

American mastodon

The American mastodon is an extinct North American proboscidean that lived from about 3.7 million years ago until about 10,000 BC. It was the last surviving member of the mastodon family. Fossil finds range from present-day Alaska and New England in the north, to Florida, southern...

s, saber-toothed cat

Saber-toothed cat

Saber-toothed cat or Sabre-toothed cat refers to the extinct subfamilies of Machairodontinae , Barbourofelidae , and Nimravidae as well as two families related to marsupials that were found worldwide from the Eocene Epoch to the end of the Pleistocene Epoch ,...

s and tapir

Tapir

A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...

s.

Melbourne Man

Geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

s uncovered a set of human remains among the fossils near the Melbourne Bone Bed and scientist

Scientist

A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

s exhibited the skull

Human skull

The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...

 at the Paleontological Society of America

Paleontological Society

The Paleontological Society, formally the Paleontological Society of America, is an international organisation devoted to the promotion of paleontology. The Society was founded in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland and was incorporated in April 1968 in the District of Columbia...

 meeting in 1925. This discovery sparked a 30 year debate between geologists and archaeologists

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 resulting in the skull becoming known as the Melbourne Man. Recent consensus dates the Melbourne Man as early as 10,000 BC confirming that Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 coexisted with Pleistocene mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s in the area at the end of that period.