内容摘要：In internal correspondence from 2012, also seen by AP, Shell’s U.S. operations chose not to use the surveys at all after a lawyer raised “legal liability concerns.” The company said its common practice for legal teams to advise on processes, and it doesn’t fall to just one team to direct how risk is managed.

In internal correspondence from 2012, also seen by AP, Shell’s U.S. operations chose not to use the surveys at all after a lawyer raised “legal liability concerns.” The company said its common practice for legal teams to advise on processes, and it doesn’t fall to just one team to direct how risk is managed.

to arrive in the Americas soon killed off these giant ground sloths through hunting, along with many otherlike mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that once roamed North and South America.

But new research from several sites is starting to suggest that people came to the Americas earlier —— than once thought. These findings hint at a remarkably different life for these early Americans, one in which they may have spent millennia sharing prehistoric savannas and wetlands with enormous beasts.This combination of illustrations provided by researchers in 2024 shows large animals which once roamed prehistoric North and South America. Top row from left, a glyptodon, a lestodon, and a horse. Bottom row from left, a mastodon, a saber-toothed cat and a toxodon. (Mauro Muyano via AP)

This combination of illustrations provided by researchers in 2024 shows large animals which once roamed prehistoric North and South America. Top row from left, a glyptodon, a lestodon, and a horse. Bottom row from left, a mastodon, a saber-toothed cat and a toxodon. (Mauro Muyano via AP)“There was this idea that humans arrived and killed everything off very quickly — what’s called ‘Pleistocene overkill,’” said Daniel Odess, an archaeologist at

in New Mexico. But new discoveries suggest that “humans were existing alongside these animals for at least 10,000 years, without making them go extinct.”

Some of the most tantalizing clues come from an archaeological site in central Brazil, called Santa Elina, where bones of giant ground sloths show signs of being manipulated by humans. Sloths like these once lived from Alaska to Argentina, and some species had bony structures on their backs, called osteoderms — a bit like the plates of modern armadillos — that may have been used to make decorations.Mine Safety Health Administration, Hibbing, Minn. (2,622 square feet)

Geological Survey, Hilo, Hawaii (10,731 square feet)Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Independence, Ohio (6,609 square feet)

United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Indianola, Iowa (2,616 square feet)United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Jacksonville, Fla. (2,700 square feet)