Cut marks can be seen on the mammoth’s ribs. There is a blunt force fracture on the upper rib, a puncture wound on the middle rib, and chopping marks on the lower rib. (Timothy Rowe et al., University of Texas at Austin)
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AUSTIN, Texas – A surprising discovery of mammoth remains in a paleontologist’s backyard led to an even more unexpected find.
The roughly 37,000-year-old remains of a female mammoth and her calf show distinct signs of butchering, providing new evidence that humans may have arrived in North America earlier than previously thought.
Paleontologist Timothy Rowe first learned about the fossils in 2013 when he noticed something sticking out of a hillside in Rowe’s New Mexico neighborhood.
Upon closer inspection, Rowe found a tooth that appeared to have been deliberately broken, a crushed mammoth skull and other bones. I believed this was where the two mammoths were slaughtered.
“What we have is amazing,” Rowe said in a statement. “It’s not a charismatic site with a beautiful skeleton laid out on its side. Everything is destroyed. But that’s the story.”
Rowe, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Earth Sciences, specializes in vertebrate paleontology and doesn’t typically study mammoths or early humans. But he couldn’t help but work on the research because of the location of the discovery.
Rowe said two six-week excavations were conducted at the site in 2015 and 2016, but the lab analysis took longer and is still ongoing. He is the lead author of a new study that presents an analysis of the site and its findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in July.
What we get is amazing. Not a charismatic site with a nice skeleton next to it. It’s all gone. But here’s the story.
– Timothy Rowe, paleontologist
“I have yet to fully process the cosmic coincidence of this site appearing in my backyard,” Rowe said in an email.
Site analysis
Numerous finds at the site paint a portrait of what happened there thousands of years ago, including bone tools, evidence of fire, broken bones and other signs of animal butchery by humans.
Before fire, long mammoth bones, made into disposable knives, were used to dismember the carcasses of animals.
According to research, blunt force fractures can be seen in bones. There were no stone tools at the site, but researchers found flake knives made from bone with worn edges.
Chemical analysis of the sediments around the mammoth bones showed that the fire was sustained and controlled, not caused by wildfire or lightning. There was evidence of pulverized bones, along with cremated remains of small animals, including birds, fish, rodents and lizards.
The research team used CT scans to analyze the bones in situ, finding puncture wounds that would be used to extract fat from the ribs and vertebrae. Rowe said the people who butcher the mammoths are thoroughbreds.
“I’ve excavated cleaned dinosaurs, but the fracture pattern from breaking bones and cutting people up is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Rowe said.
The most surprising detail about the site is that it’s in New Mexico — and previous evidence suggested people weren’t there until tens of thousands of years later.
Retracing the steps of early man
Collagen from mammoth bones helped researchers determine that the animals were butchered at the site between 36,250 and 38,900 years ago. According to the researchers, this age range makes the New Mexico site one of the oldest human-made sites in North America.
Scientists have debated for years about when the first humans first arrived in North America.
The 16,000-year-old Clovis culture is known for the stone tools it left behind. But growing evidence suggests that older sites in North America were home to a pre-Clovis population of a different genetic lineage. Older sites contain distinct evidence, such as preserved footprints, bone tools, or animal bones with cut marks older than 16,000 years ago.
“Humans have been in the Americas for twice as long as archaeologists have maintained for many years,” Rowe said. “This site shows that humans achieved a global spread much earlier than previously understood.”
This site shows that humans had a global spread much earlier than previously understood.
– Timothy Rowe, paleontologist
According to the study, the location of the site in the western interior of North America suggests that the first humans arrived as long ago as 37,000 years ago. These early humans likely traveled overland or along coastal routes.
Rowe said he would like to take samples from the site next time to look for signs of ancient DNA.
“Tim has done an excellent and thorough job representing frontier studies,” said Texas State University professor emeritus Mike Collins. release. “It creates a path for others to learn and follow.”
Collins did not participate in the study. I led research at the Gault archaeological site near Austin, Texas, which contains both Clovis and pre-Clovis artifacts.
“I think the deeper meaning of early human attainment of global distribution is an important new question to explore,” Rowe said. “Our new techniques have provided nuanced evidence of human presence in the archaeological record, and I suspect there are other sites that are comparable and even older that are unrecognized.”
