Clovis Hunting Strategies, or How to Make out on Plentiful Resources

2003 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Waguespack ◽  
Todd A. Surovell
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Diet Breadth ◽  
Ecological Framework ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
Small Game ◽  
Terrestrial Mammals ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
Alternative Diet

Traditionally, hunter-gatherers of the Clovis period have been characterized as specialized hunters of large terrestrial mammals. Recent critiques have attempted to upend this position both empirically and theoretically, alternatively favoring a more generalized foraging economy. In this paper, the distinction between subsistence specialists and generalists is framed in terms of forager selectivity with regards to hunted prey, following a behavioral ecological framework. Faunal data are compiled from 33 Clovis sites and used to test the two alternative diet-breadth hypotheses. The data support the older “Clovis as specialist” model, although some use of small game is apparent. Furthermore, data from modern hunter-gatherers are marshaled to support the theoretical plausibility of specialized large-mammal hunting across North America during the Late Pleistocene.

Late Pleistocene Western Camel (Camelops Hesternus) Hunting in Southwestern Canada

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Kooyman ◽  
L.V. Hills ◽  
Shayne Tolman ◽  
Paul McNeil
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
Extinct Species ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Beach Site

AbstractLate Pleistocene large mammal extinctions in North America have been attributed to a number of factors or combination of factors, primarily climate change and human hunting, but the relative roles of these factors remain much debated. Clo-vis-period hunters exploited species such as mammoth, but many now extinct species such as camels were seemingly not hunted. Archaeological evidence from the Wally’s Beach site in southern Canada, including stone tools and butchered bone, provide the first evidence that Clovis people hunted North American camels. Archaeologists generally dismiss human hunting as a significant contributor to Pleistocene extinctions in North America, but Wally’s Beach demonstrates that human hunting was more inclusive than assumed and we must continue to consider hunting as a factor in Pleistocene extinctions.

scholarly journals Fossil and genomic evidence constrains the timing of bison arrival in North America

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (13) ◽  
pp. 3457-3462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane Froese ◽  
Mathias Stiller ◽  
Peter D. Heintzman ◽  
Alberto V. Reyes ◽  
Grant D. Zazula ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
North American ◽  
Marine Isotope Stage ◽  
Mitochondrial Genomes ◽  
Subsequent Evolution ◽  
Large Mammal ◽  
Morphological Diversification ◽  
Steppe Bison

The arrival of bison in North America marks one of the most successful large-mammal dispersals from Asia within the last million years, yet the timing and nature of this event remain poorly determined. Here, we used a combined paleontological and paleogenomic approach to provide a robust timeline for the entry and subsequent evolution of bison within North America. We characterized two fossil-rich localities in Canada’s Yukon and identified the oldest well-constrained bison fossil in North America, a 130,000-y-old steppe bison, Bison cf. priscus. We extracted and sequenced mitochondrial genomes from both this bison and from the remains of a recently discovered, ∼120,000-y-old giant long-horned bison, Bison latifrons, from Snowmass, Colorado. We analyzed these and 44 other bison mitogenomes with ages that span the Late Pleistocene, and identified two waves of bison dispersal into North America from Asia, the earliest of which occurred ∼195–135 thousand y ago and preceded the morphological diversification of North American bison, and the second of which occurred during the Late Pleistocene, ∼45–21 thousand y ago. This chronological arc establishes that bison first entered North America during the sea level lowstand accompanying marine isotope stage 6, rejecting earlier records of bison in North America. After their invasion, bison rapidly colonized North America during the last interglaciation, spreading from Alaska through continental North America; they have been continuously resident since then.

Power, security, and exchange: Impacts of a Late Holocene volcanic eruption in Subarctic North America

2021 ◽  
pp. 019769312098682
Author(s):  
Todd J Kristensen ◽  
John W Ives ◽  
Kisha Supernant
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Major Event ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Bow And Arrow

We synthesize environmental and cultural change following a volcanic eruption at A.D. 846–848 in Subarctic North America to demonstrate how social relationships shaped responses to natural disasters. Ethnohistoric accounts and archaeometric studies reveal differences in human adaptations in the Yukon and Mackenzie river basins that relate to exertions of power over contested resources versus affordances of security to intercept dispersed migrating animals. The ways that pre-contact hunter-gatherers maintained or redressed ecological imbalances influenced respective trajectories of resilience to a major event. Adaptive responses to a volcanic eruption affected the movement of bow and arrow technology and the proliferation of copper use in northwest North America.

Climatic implications of latest Pleistocene and earliest Holocene mammalian sympatries in eastern Washington state, USA

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lee Lyman
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Rocky Mountains ◽  
Taxonomic Composition ◽  
Washington State ◽  
The West ◽  
Mammalian Faunas ◽  
Eastern Washington

AbstractFor more than fifty years it has been known that mammalian faunas of late-Pleistocene age are taxonomically unique and lack modern analogs. It has long been thought that nonanalog mammalian faunas are limited in North America to areas east of the Rocky Mountains and that late-Pleistocene mammalian faunas in the west were modern in taxonomic composition. A late-Pleistocene fauna from Marmes Rockshelter in southeastern Washington State has no modern analog and defines an area of maximum sympatry that indicates significantly cooler summers than are found in the area today. An earliest Holocene fauna from Marmes Rockshelter defines an area of maximum sympatry, including the site area, but contains a single tentatively identified taxon that may indicate slightly cooler than modern summers.

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene human paleoecology in the highland savanna ecosystem of mainland Southeast Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kantapon Suraprasit ◽  
Rasmi Shoocongdej ◽  
Kanoknart Chintakanon ◽  
Hervé Bocherens
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Tooth Enamel ◽  
Stable Carbon Isotope ◽  
Lower Latitude ◽  
Stable Carbon ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Carbon And Oxygen Isotope ◽  
Northwestern Thailand ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia

AbstractThe late Pleistocene settlement of highland settings in mainland Southeast Asia by Homo sapiens has challenged our species’s ability to occupy mountainous landscapes that acted as physical barriers to the expansion into lower-latitude Sunda islands during sea-level lowstands. Tham Lod Rockshelter in highland Pang Mapha (northwestern Thailand), dated between 34,000 and 12,000 years ago, has yielded evidence of Hoabinhian lithic assemblages and natural resource use by hunter-gatherer societies. To understand the process of early settlements of highland areas, we measured stable carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of Tham Lod human and faunal tooth enamel. Our assessment of the stable carbon isotope results suggests long-term opportunistic behavior among hunter-gatherers in foraging on a variety of food items in a mosaic environment and/or inhabiting an open forest edge during the terminal Pleistocene. This study reinforces the higher-latitude and -altitude extension of a forest-grassland mosaic ecosystem or savanna corridor (farther north into northwestern Thailand), which facilitated the dispersal of hunter-gatherers across mountainous areas and possibly allowed for consistency in a human subsistence strategy and Hoabinhian technology in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia over a 20,000-year span near the end of the Pleistocene.

A Carved Stone from D'Arcy, Saskatchewan

1940 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 334-335
Author(s):  
Vladimar Alfred Vigfusson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Glacial Lake ◽  
Bering Strait ◽  
The North ◽  
Gravel Pit ◽  
North Bank ◽  
The Town

In recent years, the attention of some archaeologists has been directed to the Canadian Northwest with the expectation of finding some evidence or indication of the early migrations of man on this continent. That man reached North America by Bering Strait from Asia, is generally accepted, but the theory that the migrations took place in late Pleistocene times and by way of an open corridor between the Keewatin ice and the Rockies, requires confirmation. It is significant that Folsom and Yuma points from Saskatchewan, described by E. B. Howard, were found mainly in areas bordering the ancient glacial Lake Regina.As a further contribution to this problem, it seems desirable to present a brief description of a carved stone relic found in gravel in central Saskatchewan about three years ago.The stone was found about seven miles southeast of the town of D'Arcy in a gravel pit located on Sec. 9, Tp. 28, Rge. 18, W. 3rd Meridian, on the north bank of a ravine running east into Bad Lake.

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