Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals.
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals.
The study, featured on the Dec. 4 cover of the journal Science Advances, used stable isotope analysis to model the diet of the mother of an infant discovered at a 13,000-year-old Clovis burial site in Montana. Before this study, prehistoric diet was inferred by analyzing secondary evidence, such as stone tools or the preserved remains of prey animals.
The findings support the hypothesis that Clovis people specialized in hunting large animals rather than primarily foraging for smaller animals and plants.
The Clovis people inhabited North America around 13,000 years ago. During that time period, animals like mammoths lived across both northern Asia and the Americas. They migrated long distances, which made them a reliable fat- and protein-rich resource for highly mobile humans.
„The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years“, said co-lead author James Chatters of McMaster University.
„What’s striking to me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites. For example, the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna, and the projectile points are large, affixed to darts, which were efficient distance weapons“, said co-lead author Ben Potter, an archaeology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
