The first people to live in North America shared landscapes with megafauna. On any given day, these hunters might encounter a giant, snarling saber-toothed cat ready to pounce, or a group of elephant-like mammoths slashing tree branches. A herd of giant bison may have escaped.
Obviously, you can’t see any of these megafauna in the Ice Age now. They all became extinct about 12,800 years ago. Mammoths, mastodons, huge bison, horses, camels, very large ground sloths, and giant short-faced bears all died out as massive continental ice sheets disappeared at the end of the Ice Age. What happened to them?
Scientists have pointed out several possible causes for the extinction. Some suggest Environmental changes happened faster of animals that can adapt to it. Others put forward a The catastrophic effect of a fragmentation comet. Maybe it was Overfishing by humansor A combination of all of these factors.
One of my main interests as an archaeologist We were meant to understand how the oldest Paleo-Americans lived and interacted with megafauna species. How involved should humans be in the extinction of these Ice Age animals? In a new study, my colleagues and I used the most common forensic technique to identify blood on objects at crime scenes to investigate this question.
Testing stone tools such as murder weapons
Archaeologists have discovered a scattering of stone tools left at the campsites of the Paleo-American Clovis hunter-gatherers who lived around the time of the megafauna’s extinction.
These include iconography Clovis spearpoints With its characteristic flutes – concave areas left by removed stone veneers that extend from the base to the mid-point. It is likely that people placed the points in this way so that they could easily attach them to the spear shaft.
Based on Excavation sites in the western United StatesPaleo-American Clovis hunter-gatherers who lived around the time of the extinctions are known to archaeologists at least occasionally killing or scavenging Ice Age megafauna such as mammoths. There they found preserved bones of megafauna along with stone tools used to kill and butcher these animals. These sites are crucial to understanding the possible role that the first Americans played in the extinction event.
Unfortunately, many areas in the southeastern United States lack sites containing preserved bones and associated stone tools that might indicate whether megafauna were hunted there by Clovis or other ancient American cultures. Without evidence of preserved megafauna bones, archaeologists have to find other ways to examine this question.
Use forensic scientists Immune residue analysis technology called Immunorephoresis for more than 50 years to identify blood residue attached to objects found at crime scenes. In recent years, researchers have applied this method to determine Animal blood proteins preserved in ancient stone tools. They compare aspects of ancient blood with blood antigens derived from modern relatives of extinct animals.
Residue analysis does not depend on the presence of DNA, but rather on conserved and identifiable proteins that sometimes survive Within microscopic fractures and defects of stone tools Created during its manufacture and use. Usually, only a small percentage of artifacts are produced Positive results for blood residueindicating a match between the ancient remains and serum particles from modern animals.
Previous study of blood residue A small number of ancient American artifacts in South Carolina and Georgia fail to provide evidence that these people hunted or excavated the extinct megafauna. The researchers found evidence of bison and other animals such as deer, bear, and rabbits, but no evidence of proboscideans (mammoths or mastodons) or an extinct species of North American horse.
Recognize the ancient prey of human hunters
My colleagues and I realized we needed a much larger sample of ancient American stone tools for testing. Because Clovis points and other ancient American artifacts are rare, they have relied heavily on local museums, private collectors, collections at state universities, and even military installations to compile a sample of 120 Paleolithic American stone tools from across North Carolina and South Carolina.
Because these artifacts are irreplaceable, I personally carried all 120 Clovis tools and entrapments inside a protective bag onto a flight from South Carolina to the Blood Residue Laboratory in Portland, Oregon. I pre-coordinated with TSA so that my collection of 13,000-year-old weapons could pass the inspection process.
Analysis of the blood remains provided unequivocal evidence that the tools were in contact with the blood proteins of ancient animals. The findings included the first direct evidence of ancient stone tools blood of the extinct mammoth or Proboscidean and extinct North American horse (Equidae) on Paleolithic American artifacts in eastern North America. This evidence is important because it proves that these animals were once present in the Carolinas, and were hunted or plundered by early Native Americans.
In addition to Proboscidean and horse, bison (Bovidae) blood residues were more common, leading to earlier blood residue research Which indicates a focus on bull hunting By Clovis and Other Ancient American Cultures. The North American bison is not extinct however Instead it got smallerlikely as a result of climate change as the last ice age ended and the climate warmed.
So, what do these findings suggest for the extinction debate? While this study does not prove that humans were responsible for the extinctions, it does show that ancient Americans across the continent likely hunted or scavenged these animals, at least occasionally. The findings also indicate that Proboscidians and horses were around when the Cloviss were here – just a few hundred years before their eventual extinction in North America.
Another interesting finding is that while Proboscidean blood remains have been found on Clovis artifacts, equine blood remains (Equidae) are found on both Clovis and Paleo-American points that are slightly more recent than Clovis. This may indicate that the Proboscidean extinction was complete in the Carolinas by the end of the Clovis period, and that the Pleistocene horse species’ extinction took much longer.
Examining a larger sample of ancient American stone tools from different regions of North America could help pinpoint the timing and geographic variation in megafauna species extinctions and provide more clues about why these animals disappeared when they did.
Christopher R. Moore Research Professor and Director of the Southeastern Survey of Ancient America (SEPAS) at the South Carolina Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina
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