Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T21:28:30.313Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2021

Madeline E. Mackie Open the ORCID record for Madeline E. Mackie [Opens in a new window]  and
Randall Haas
Madeline E. Mackie*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 1000 East University Avenue, Laramie, Wyoming82071, USA
Randall Haas*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California95616, USA
*
*Corresponding author email addresses:[email protected] (M.E. Mackie); [email protected] (R. Haas).
*Corresponding author email addresses:[email protected] (M.E. Mackie); [email protected] (R. Haas).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The extent to which Clovis peoples hunted proboscideans is debated. Convention requires that for a proboscidean butchery site to be accepted, contemporaneous artifacts must be spatially associated with faunal remains, and there must be evidence of use of the remains. Fourteen sites in North America currently meet those criteria; at least 31 do not. While these are reasonable requirements for avoiding false positives, such an approach risks identifying false negatives—rejecting spatial associations that are systemic associations. Given the known distributions of Clovis and proboscidean sites, how likely is it that artifacts are coincidentally associated with proboscidean remains? Conversely, how many spatial associations could be unrecognized butchery sites? To answer these questions, we simulated chance associations by plotting empirically informed densities and sizes of archaeological and proboscidean sites on simulated landscapes in which people and animals are (a) uniformly distributed and (b) tethered to water sources. The simulated frequencies of coincidental associations were compared to the observed frequency of co-occurrences. Our results suggest that of the 31 indeterminate empirical associations, at least 17 and as many as 26 are likely systemic associations, more than doubling previous estimates and revealing a greater role of humans in Pleistocene proboscidean exploitation than previously recognized.

Keywords

PleistoceneNorth AmericaProboscideanClovis
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 103 , September 2021 , pp. 182 - 192
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alroy, J., 2001. A multispecies overkill simulation of the end-Pleistocene megafaunal mass extinction. Science 292, 1893–1896.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, David G, Echeverry, David, Shane Miller, D, White, Andrew A, Yerka, Stephen J, Kansa, E and Kansa, Sarah Whitcher, 2019. Paleoindian settlement in the Southeastern United States: the role of large databases. In Early Floridians: new directions in the search for and interpretation of Florida's earliest inhabitants, edited by Thulman, D. K. and Garrison, E. G., pp. 241–275. University Press of Florida, Gainsville.Google Scholar
Anderson, David G., Shane Miller, D., Yerka, Stephen J., Christopher Gillam, J., Johanson, Erik N., Anderson, Derek T., Goodyear, Albert C. and Smallwood, Ashley M., 2010. PIDBA (Paleoindian Database of the Americas) 2010: Current status and findings. Archaeology of Eastern North America 38:63–89.Google Scholar
Anderson, D.G., Faught, M.K., 1998. The distribution of fluted Paleoindian projectile points: update 1998. Archaeology of Eastern North America 26, 163–187.Google Scholar
Andrews, B.N., LaBelle, J.M., Seebach, J.D., 2008. Spatial variability in the Folsom archaeological record: a multi-scalar approach. American Antiquity 73, 464–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asher, B.P., 2016. Across the Central Plains: Clovis and Folsom land use and lithic procurement. PaleoAmerica 2, 124–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asher, B.P., Holen, S., 2013. Jetmore Mammoth site (14HO1), Hodgeman County, Kansas. Kansas Anthropologist 34, 1–12.Google Scholar
Bever, M.R., Meltzer, D.J., 2007. Exploring variation in Paleoindian life ways: the third revised edition of the Texas Clovis fluted point survey. Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society 78, 65–99.Google Scholar
Bivand, R., Keitt, T., Rowlingson, B., 2019a. Rgdal: Bindings for the “Geospatial” Data Abstraction Library. R Package Version 1.4-.8. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rgdal (accessed August 4, 2020).Google Scholar
Bivand, R., Pebesma, E., Gómez-Rubio, V., 2013. Applied spatial data analysis with R. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bivand, R., Pebesma, E., Gómez-Rubio, V., 2019b. Rgeos: Interface to Geometry Engine–Open Source (“GEOS”). R Package Version 0.5-1. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rgeos (accessed August 4, 2020).Google Scholar
Blackmar, J.M., 2001. Regional variability in Clovis, Folsom, and Cody land use. The Plains Anthropologist 46, 65–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brush, N., Smith, F., 1994. The Martins Creek Mastodon: a Paleoindian butchery site in Holmes County, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 11, 14–15.Google Scholar
Byers, D.A., 2002. Taphonomic analysis, associational integrity, and depositional history of the Fetterman mammoth, eastern Wyoming, USA. Geoarchaeology 17, 417–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byers, D.A., Ugan, A., 2005. Should we expect large game specialization in the late Pleistocene? An optimal foraging perspective on early Paleoindian prey choice. Journal of Archaeological Science 32, 1624–1640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cannon, M.D., Meltzer, D.J., 2004. Early Paleoindian foraging: examining the faunal evidence for large mammal specialization and regional variability in prey choice. Quaternary Science Reviews 23, 1955–1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, D.L., Steele, D.G., 1992. Human-mammoth sites: problems and prospects. In: Fox, J.W., Smith, C.B., Wilkins, K.T. (Eds.), Proboscidean and Paleoindian Interactions. Baylor University Press, Waco, TX, pp. 149–169.Google Scholar
Chacon-Soria, E., Aguilar, F.J., 2010. El Abrevadero, Chihuahua: a site with remains of Pleistocene fauna and artifacts of early humans in northwestern Mexico. Current Research in Pleistocene 27, 8–9.Google Scholar
Corfield, T.F., 1973. Elephant mortality in Tsavo National Park, Kenya. African Journal of Ecology 11, 339–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crook, W.W., Harris, R.K., 1958. A Pleistocene campsite near Lewisville, Texas. American Antiquity 23, 233–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dansie, A.J., Davis, J.O., Stafford, T.W. Jr., 1988. The Wizards Beach recession: Farmdalian (25,500 yr BP) vertebrate fossils co-occur with early Holocene artifacts. In: Willig, J.A., Aikens, C.M., Fagan, J.L. (Eds.), Early Human Occupation in Far Western North America: The Clovis-Archaic Interface. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers 21. Carson City, NV, pp. 153–200.Google Scholar
Dick, H.W., Mountain, B., 1960. The Claypool site: a Cody Complex site in northeastern Colorado. American Antiquity 26, 223–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falquet, R.A., Hanebert, W.C., 1978. The Willard Mastodon: evidence of human predation. Ohio Archaeologist 28, 17.Google Scholar
Ferring, C.R., 2001. The archaeology and paleoecology of the Aubrey Clovis site (41DN479), Denton County, Texas. Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State. https://doi.org/10.21112/ita.2001.1.37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fosha, M., Donohue, J., 2005. Updates on the Chalk Rock site and its geologic relationship to Holocene/Pleistocene transition soils in South Dakota. Newsletter of the South Dakota Archaeological Society 35, 1–3.Google Scholar
Fosha, M., Holen, S.R., Donohue, J., 2012. Virgil Schulz Mammoth. Newsletter of the South Dakota Archaeological Society 42, 2.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.L., Miller, L.J., 1973. The Trappey Mastodon. Institutional Research, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K., 2001. The archaeological record of human impacts on animal populations. Journal of World Prehistory 15, 1–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D.K., Meltzer, D.J., 2002. Clovis hunting and large mammal extinction: a critical review of the evidence. Journal of World Prehistory 16, 313–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D.K., Meltzer, D.J., 2003. A requiem for North American overkill. Journal of Archaeological Science 30, 585–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D.K., Meltzer, D.J., 2015. Revisiting Paleoindian exploitation of extinct North American mammals. Journal of Archaeological Science 56, 177–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, W.R., Klink, C.J., Maggard, G.J., Aldenderfer, M.S., 2015. Settlement-size scaling among prehistoric hunter-gatherer settlement systems in the New World. PLOS ONE 10, e0140127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haas, W.R., Kuhn, S.L., 2019. Forager mobility in constructed environments. Current Anthropology 60, 499–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halligan, J., 2012. Geoarchaeological Investigations into Paleoindian Adaptations on the Aucilla River, Northwest Florida. Texas A & M University, College Station.Google Scholar
Halligan, J.J., Waters, M.R., Perrotti, A., Owens, I.J., Feinberg, J.M., Bourne, M.D., Fenerty, B., Winsborough, B., Carlson, D., Fisher, D.C., 2016. Pre-Clovis occupation 14,550 years ago at the Page-Ladson site, Florida, and the peopling of the Americas. Science Advances 2, e1600375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, M.J., Buchanan, B., Walker, R.S., 2018. Scaling the size, structure, and dynamics of residentially mobile hunter-gatherer camps. American Antiquity 83, 701–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, T.M., 1996. The Miami Mastodon, 23SA212. The Missouri Archaeologist 54, 79–88.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V., Huckell, B.B., 2007. Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Haynes, C.V., Surovell, T.A., Hodgins, G.W.L., 2013. The UP Mammoth site, Carbon County, Wyoming, USA: more questions than answers. Geoarchaeology 28, 99–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, G., 1988. Longitudinal studies of African elephant death and bone deposits. Journal of Archaeological Science 15, 131–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, G., Klimowicz, J., 2015. Recent elephant-carcass utilization as a basis for interpreting mammoth exploitation. Quaternary International 359, 19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, G., Stanford, D., 1984. On the possible utilization of camelops by early man in North America. Quaternary Research 22, 216–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemmings, C.A., 1998. Probable association of Paleoindian artifacts and mastodon remains from Sloth Hole, Aucilla River, North Florida. Current Research in the Pleistocene 15, 16–18.Google Scholar
Hijmans, R.J., 2019. Raster: Geographic Data Analysis and Modeling. R Package Version 3.0-2 https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/index.html (accessed August 4, 2020).Google Scholar
Hoffman, C.A., 1983. Mammoth kill site in the Silver Springs Run. Florida Anthropologist 36, 83–87.Google Scholar
Holen, S.R., 2006. Taphonomy of two last glacial maximum mammoth sites in the central Great Plains of North America: a preliminary report on La Sena and Lovewell. Quaternary International 142, 30–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Institute of Medicine, 2004. Dietary Reference Intakes for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Kelly, R.L., Todd, L.C., 1988. Coming into the country: early Paleoindian hunting and mobility. American Antiquity 53, 231–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerr, H., 1964. Bartow Mammoth site. Oklahoma Anthropological Society Newsletter 12, 4–8.Google Scholar
Lepper, B., 1983. A preliminary report of a mastodon tooth find and a Paleo-Indian site in Hardin County, Ohio. Ohio Archaeologist 33, 10–13.Google Scholar
Lima-Ribeiro, M.S., Felizola Diniz-Filho, J.A., 2013. American megafaunal extinctions and human arrival: improved evaluation using a meta-analytical approach. Quaternary International 299, 38–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loebel, T.J., 2012. Pattern or bias? A critical evaluation of midwestern fluted point distributions using raster based GIS. Journal of Archaeological Science 39, 1205–1217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubinski, P.M., Terry, K., McCutcheon, P.T., 2014. Comparative methods for distinguishing flakes from geofacts: a case study from the Wenas Creek Mammoth site. Journal of Archaeological Science 52, 308–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupo, K.D., Schmitt, D.N., 2016. When bigger is not better: the economics of hunting megafauna and its implications for Plio-Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 44, 185–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, M.E., Surovell, T.A., O'Brien, M., Kelly, R.L., Pelton, S., Haynes, C.V., Frison, G.C., et al. ., 2020. Confirming a cultural association at the La Prele Mammoth site (48CO1401), Converse County, Wyoming. American Antiquity 85, 554–572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, D.B., 2000. A high-elevation Allerød-Younger Dryas megafauna from the west-central Rocky Mountains. In: Madsen, D.B., Metcalf, M.D. (Eds.), Intermountain Archaeology. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, Salt Lake City, pp. 100–113.Google Scholar
Martin, P.S., 1967. Prehistoric overkill. In: Martin, P.S., Wright, H.E. (Eds.), Pleistocene Extinctions: The Search for a Cause. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, pp. 75–120.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D.J., 1986. Pleistocene overkill and the associational critique. Journal of Archaeological Science 13, 51–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D.S., Holliday, V.T., Bright, J., 2014. Clovis across the continent. In: Graf, K., Ketron, C.V., Waters, M.R. (Eds.), Paleoamerican Odyssey. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, pp. 207–220.Google Scholar
Mitzenmacher, M., 2004. A brief history of generative models for power law and lognormal distributions. Internet Mathematics 1, 226–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullen, P.O., 2008. The Effects of Climate Change on Paleoindian Demography. University of Wyoming, Laramie.Google Scholar
Murphy, J.L., 1983. The Seeley Mastodon: a Paleo-Indian kill? Ohio Archaeologist 33, 12–13.Google Scholar
Overstreet, D.F., Kolb, M.F., 2003. Geoarchaeological contexts for late Pleistocene archaeological sites with human-modified woolly mammoth remains in southeastern Wisconsin, USA. Geoarchaeology 18, 91–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Packer, R., 2002. How Long Can the Average Person Survive Without Water. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-the-average/ (accessed August 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Palmer, H.A., Stoltman, J.B., 1976. The Boaz Mastodon: a possible association of man and mastodon in Wisconsin. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 1, 163–177.Google Scholar
Pebesma, E., Bivand, R., 2005. Classes and methods for spatial data in R. R News 5.Google Scholar
Pekel, J.F., Cottam, A., Gorelick, N., Belward, A.S., 2016. High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes. Nature 540, 418–422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prasciunas, M.M., 2011. Mapping Clovis: projectile points, behavior, and bias. American Antiquity 76, 107–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prasciunas, M.M., Haynes, C.V. Jr., Nials, F.L., McNees, L.M., Scoggin, W.E., Denoyer, A., 2016. Mammoth potential: reinvestigating the Union Pacific Mammoth site, Wyoming. In: Kornfeld, M., Huckell, B.B. (Eds.), Stones, Bones, and Profiles: Exploring Archaeological Context, Early American Hunter-Gatherers, and Bison. University of Colorado Press, Boulder, pp. 235–257.Google Scholar
Prescott, G.W., Williams, D.R., Balmford, A., Green, R.E., Manica, A., 2012. Quantitative global analysis of the role of climate and people in explaining late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, 4527–4531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ray, C.N., Bryan, K., 1938. Folsomoid point found in alluvium beside a mammoth's bones. Science 88, 257–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rayl, S.L., 1974. A Paleo-Indian Mammoth Kill Site near Silver Springs, Florida. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff.Google Scholar
R Core Team, 2020. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing (accessed August 4, 2020). https://www.r-project.org/Google Scholar
Sanford, J.T., 1935. The Richmond Mastodon. Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science 7, 137–156.Google Scholar
Schiffer, M.B., 1987. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Shott, M.J., 2002. Sample bias in the distribution and abundance of midwestern fluted bifaces. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27, 89–123.Google Scholar
Surovell, T.A., 2009. Toward a Behavioral Ecology of Lithic Technology: Cases from Paleoindian Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Surovell, T.A., Finley, J.B., Smith, G.M., Brantingham, P.J., Kelly, R., 2009. Correcting temporal frequency distributions for taphonomic bias. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 1715–1724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surovell, T.A., Grund, B.S., 2012. The associational critique of Quaternary overkill and why it is largely irrelevant to the extinction debate. American Antiquity 77, 672–687.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surovell, T.A., Waguespack, N.M., 2008. How many elephant kills are 14? Clovis mammoth and mastodon kills in context. Quaternary International 191, 82–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, A.K., 2003. Results of a Great Basin fluted-point survey. Current Research in the Pleistocene 20, 77–79.Google Scholar
Thomas, E.S., 1952. The Orleton Farms mastodon. The Ohio Journal of Science 52, 1–5.Google Scholar
Tijms, H.C., 2003. A First Course in Stochastic Models. Wiley, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tune, J.W, Waters, M.R., Schmalle, K.A., DeSantis, L.R.G., Kamenov, G.D., 2018. Assessing the proposed pre-last glacial maximum human occupation of North America at Coats-Hines-Litchy, Tennessee, and other sites. Quaternary Science Reviews 186, 47–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United States Census Bureau, 2018. State area measurements and internal point coordinates (accessed November 25, 2018). https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/state-area.html.Google Scholar
Waguespack, N.M., 2005. The organization of male and female labor in foraging societies: Implications for early Paleoindian archaeology. American Anthropologist 107, 666–676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waguespack, N.M., Surovell, T.A., 2003. Clovis hunting strategies, or how to make out on plentiful resources. American Antiquity 68, 333–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, M.R., Stafford, T.W., 2007. Redefining the age of Clovis: implications for the peopling of the Americas. Science 315, 1122–1126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Widga, C., Lengyel, S.N., Saunders, J., Hodgins, G., Walker, J.D., Wanamaker, A.D., 2017. Late Pleistocene proboscidean population dynamics in the North American Midcontinent. Boreas 46, 772–782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, A.L., Broughton, J.M., 2020. A foraging theory perspective on the associational critique of North American Pleistocene overkill. Journal of Archaeological Science 119, 105162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wroe, S., Field, J., Fullagar, R., Jermin, L.S., 2004. Megafaunal extinction in the late Quaternary and the global overkill hypothesis. Alcheringa 28, 291–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yule, J.V., Fournier, R.J., Jensen, C.X.J., Yang, J., 2014. A review and synthesis of late Pleistocene extinction modeling: progress delayed by mismatches between ecological realism, interpretation, and methodological transparency. The Quarterly Review of Biology 89, 91–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zier, C.J., Jepson, D.A., McFaul, M., Doering, W., 1993. Archaeology and geomorphology of the Clovis-age Klein site near Kersey, Colorado. The Plains Anthropologist 38, 203–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuo, W., Smith, F.A., Charnov, E.L., 2013. A life-history approach to the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction. The American Naturalist 182, 524–531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Mackie and Haas supplementary material

Mackie and Haas supplementary material

Download Mackie and Haas supplementary material(File)
File 91.1 KB