An inter-site comparison of enamel hypoplasia in bison: implications for paleoecology and modeling Late Plains Archaic subsistence

More Than Just Mad Cows: Exploring Human‐Animal Relationships through Animal Paleopathology

“…A series of studies investigating enamel hypoplasia in Pleistocene and early Holocene bison (Niven 2000;Niven et al 2004;Byerly 2007) suggest that enamel hypoplasia in ancient bison can be potentially related to a range of regular seasonal stresses including post-rut nutritional deficiencies, weaning, coldseason forage quality, availability and seasonally dependent mineral deficits. Kierdorf et al (2006), however, questioned the fundamental data underpinning this work, suggesting that the observations of enamel hypoplasia were actually developmental defects in coronal cementum.…”

The prey as patch model: optimal handling of resources with diminishing returns

“…However, such ranking will change seasonally with the nutritional states of the animals [5] and marrow may need to be seen as a separate currency in many cases. Analyzing the situation from this perspective could allow us to identify a processing strategy that invested very little time in meat processing (high encounter rates) while simultaneously investing a larger relative proportion of time in marrow extraction, for example if animal prey were exceptionally lean [46]. Future considerations of this issue may benefit from combining our approach with the use of indifference curves that model trade-offs in investment between alternative resource combinations [28].…”

Palaeopathology in late Pleistocene and early Holocene Central Plains bison: dental enamel hypoplasia, fluoride toxicosis and the archaeological record

“…An appreciation for the palaeoecology of prey species is a recognized necessity to modeling prehistoric human subsistence behaviors (Niven et al, 2004). This is particularly germane to elucidating the predator/prey interaction of human hunter-gatherers and bison on the North American Great Plains from the late Pleistocene into the Holocene (e.g., Frison, 2004;Gadbury et al, 2000;Niven et al, 2004;Todd, 1987Todd, , 1991Widga, 2006;Wilson, 1974aWilson, , 1988Wilson, , 1999.…”