Estimating the frequency of coincidental spatial associations between Clovis artifacts and proboscidean remains in North America

Mackie, Madeline E.; Haas, Randall

doi:10.1017/qua.2021.1

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 53 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…In North America, the link between Clovis points and the hunting of megafauna is quite clear 13 and has fueled a long and ongoing debate on the role of humans in the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions 14 – 18 . Although this debate has not yet occurred in South America due to limited direct evidence of human exploitation of megafauna 19 – 21 , a recent paper gives FPP a firmer and more important role in the extinction debate 22 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveal the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America

Prates

Rivero

Pérez

2022

Sci Rep

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Fishtail projectile points are the earliest widespread projectile type in South America, and share chronology and techno-morphology with Clovis, the oldest North American projectile type. Both were temporally associated with late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. Although the elusive direct evidence of human exploitation of megafauna in South America had kept Fishtails out of the extinction debate, a recent paper showed a strong relationship between the temporal density and spatial distribution of megafauna and Fishtail projectile points, and proposed that this weapon was designed and used for megafauna hunting, contributing to their extinction. If so, this technology must be distinctly different from post-FPP technologies (i.e., early Holocene projectile points), used for hunting smaller prey, in terms of distribution and functional properties. In this paper, we explore the changes in projectile point technology, as well as the body mass of potential megafaunal prey, and show that Fishtails were strongly related to the largest extinct megafaunal species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveal the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America

Prates

Rivero

Pérez

2022

Sci Rep

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A New Approach to the Quantitative Analysis of Bone Surface Modifications: the Bowser Road Mastodon and Implications for the Data to Understand Human-Megafauna Interactions in North America

Otárola‐Castillo

Torquato²,

Keevil³

et al. 2022

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Toward the end of the Pleistocene, the world experienced a mass extinction of megafauna. In North America these included its proboscideans—the mammoths and mastodons. Researchers in conservation biology, paleontology, and archaeology have debated the role played by human predation in these extinctions. They point to traces of human butchery, such as cut marks and other bone surface modifications (BSM), as evidence of human-animal interactions—including predation and scavenging, between early Americans and proboscideans. However, others have challenged the validity of the butchery evidence observed on several proboscidean assemblages, largely due to questions of qualitative determination of the agent responsible for creating BSM. This study employs a statistical technique that relies on three-dimensional (3D) imaging data and 3D geometric morphometrics to determine the origin of the BSM observed on the skeletal remains of the Bowser Road mastodon (BR mastodon), excavated in Middletown, New York. These techniques have been shown to have high accuracy in identifying and distinguishing among different types of BSM. To better characterize the BSM on the BR mastodon, we compared them quantitatively to experimental BSM resulting from a stone tool chopping experiment using “Arnold,” the force-calibrated chopper. This study suggests that BSM on the BR mastodon are not consistent with the BSM generated by the experimental chopper. Future controlled experiments will compare other types of BSM to those on BR. This research contributes to continued efforts to decrease the uncertainty surrounding human-megafauna associations at the level of the archaeological site and faunal assemblage—specifically that of the BR mastodon assemblage. Consequently, we also contribute to the dialogue surrounding the character of the human-animal interactions between early Americans and Late Pleistocene megafauna, and the role of human foraging behavior in the latter’s extinction.

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Reframing Prehistoric Human-Proboscidean Interactions: on the Use and Implications of Ethnohistoric Records for Understanding the Productivity of Hunting Megaherbivores

Lupo

Schmitt

2023

J Archaeol Method Theory

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The role that humans played in the extinction of Pleistocene proboscideans is highly controversial. Ethnohistoric records of elephant hunting, in concert with theoretical rationales, are often used as proxy evidence to support the view that ancient humans regularly and efficiently targeted large-sized proboscideans to the point of extinction. This paper examines the socioeconomic and technological contexts of elephant hunting in contemporary and ethnohistoric records to show how these circumstances influenced the scale of harvest, productivity, and valuation of elephants. Quantitative and qualitative evidence derived from some of these records are used to analyze the efficiency of elephant capture using traditional hunting technologies (spears, poisoned projectiles, traps, and drives). This analytical framework provides a systematic method for evaluating the productivity of proboscidean predation. Results show that prior to the widespread use of firearms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the acquisition of elephants, irrespective of the traditional hunting technology used, was a dangerous, high-cost activity often associated with a high-risk of hunting failure. In the ethnographic record, elephant hunting is consistently associated with prestige-seeking among egalitarian hunter-gatherers. Although the analysis presented here is derived from hunting episodes that involved modern elephants, the physical characteristics and abilities that make these animals expensive and risky to hunt were likely manifested by most Pleistocene proboscideans. Using ethnographic data, a framework for recognizing how prestige hunting is manifested under different ecological and sociopolitical circumstances is provided and offers an alternative and compelling explanation for zooarchaeological patterning of costly prey in the past.

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Estimating the frequency of coincidental spatial associations between Clovis artifacts and proboscidean remains in North America

Cited by 5 publications

References 53 publications

Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveal the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America

Changes in projectile design and size of prey reveal the central role of Fishtail points in megafauna hunting in South America

A New Approach to the Quantitative Analysis of Bone Surface Modifications: the Bowser Road Mastodon and Implications for the Data to Understand Human-Megafauna Interactions in North America

Reframing Prehistoric Human-Proboscidean Interactions: on the Use and Implications of Ethnohistoric Records for Understanding the Productivity of Hunting Megaherbivores

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