Location | Rio Puerco Canyon, near Abiquiu Lake |
---|---|
Region | Colorado Plateau |
Coordinates | 36°14′45″N106°32′0″W / 36.24583°N 106.53333°W |
Altitude | 1,970 m (6,463 ft) |
Type | open-air |
The Hartley Mammoth Site is a pre-Clovis archaeological and paleontological site in New Mexico. Preserving the butchered remains of two Columbian mammoths, small mammals and fish, the site is notable due to its age (~37,500 BP), which is significantly older than the currently accepted dates for the settlement of the Americas.
Situated on the south-eastern corner of the Colorado Plateau, the Hartley Mammoth Site lies on the canyon of the Rio Puerco, which flows into the Abiquiu Lake. Both the river and lake belong to the Chama basin of northern New Mexico. The slope's steepness (~19°) and abundance of sandstone boulders indicates a dynamic environment, discouraging soil formation. This dynamic environment is also evidenced in the poor sorting of sediment grain size. The site is located in a small (1.5 m) alluvial channel, formed in the depression of a block of Triassic sandstone (Poleo Formation) slumped over weaker mudstone (Salitral Formation), possibly exacerbated due to the wetter conditions and increased snowmelt of the Late Pleistocene. The Rio Puerco canyon represents around 150,000 years of erosion. The steepness of the slope and nature of the channel was noted as being unusual for a mammoth burial. The site today is of a semi-arid climate, and is occupied by piñon-juniper woodland. [1]
The site was discovered on Tim Rowe's property by Gary Hartley in 2013, while he was on a hike. On the surface was a tusk, three ribs, a broken dentary, a heavily reworked obsidian Clovis projectile point, and scattered lithic debitage of pedernal chert and obsidian. Upon excavation, the skeletons of two Columbian mammoths, a young female adult and a calf, were uncovered. The bones were primarily excavated by archeologists from the University of New Mexico, then catalogued for further study at the University of Texas, Austin. The expedition was led by Bruce Huckell, Tim Rowe, Leslie McFadden, and Grant Meyer. [2] [3]
The Hartley Mammoth Site is one of 87 other mammoth sites in New Mexico, with the closest other site nearby, at the La Chama river. The Hartley Mammoth Site is unique, as the mammoths were fully buried, and remained in a stable depositional environment. Most mammoth specimens, in contrast, are poorly fossilized. [1]
Initially, there was debate as to whether the site was purely paleontological or archeological. [1] Due to a nearby Clovis point, the site was believed to be a Clovis butchery site, rapidly buried by a debris flow. [1] [4] However, further examinations by a 2022 study using both established and new techniques for a pre-Columbian archeological site, along with radiocarbon dating, led to the conclusion that Clovis point and mammoths were not contemporaneous. Below the exposed tusk and ribs were the disarticulated, intermingled partial skeletons of a young-adult female mammoth (95% of the remains) and a young calf, mostly piled in a meter-thick concentration of broken bones and large cobbles. In total, the adult is represented by 44 broken cranial fragments, an intact upper right second molar and 12 isolated tooth plates, 25 ribs broken into 52 fragments, 3 vertebrae and 15 vertebral fragments, 32 percussion-impact bone flakes, 9 butterfly fragments, 20 unidentifiable bone fragments, and 267 bags of small ‘bone scraps’, whereas the calf's remains are composed of a partial left maxilla and dentary with intact dentitions, three isolated tooth plates, left tibia diaphysis, and 10 rib fragments. In the midst of the pile, lying on top of four broken ribs, was a 23.7 kg boulder interpreted as a hammerstone and/or anvil. [3] The excavations took place at 5 cm intervals, to ensure accuracy. [1]
Although the adult's face and tusks were stacked on top, 88% of the larger (>5 cm) bones and bone fragments in the main accumulation were buried in the lower two-thirds of the excavation. Also recovered were with six chert microflakes, the only excavated lithic remains, preserving evidence of percussion flaking. That two adult vertebral epiphyses remained in articulation with each other suggests that they were held together by an intact joint capsule at time of burial, one of many indications that burial was rapid. [3]
Almost every bone displays damage from near or during time of death. Additionally, the bones exhibit little evidence of damage of carnivore scavenging, weather, hydrologic abrasion, or sediment loading. Although some of the bones preserved post-mortem insect burrowing, none of the potential non-anthropogenic causes accounted for the intensive and systematic bone breakage, or the stacking of the bone assemblage. One diagnostic evidence of butchering found came from the processing of the left shoulder blade to transport the infraspinatus muscle. [3] Apart from some fragments, limb elements are noticeably absent- opening the possibility that humans may have removed the limbs from the site for later consumption. [1]
The adult's face (tusks, premaxillae, and partial maxillae), positioned on top of the bone pile, was sheared from the cranium at the nostrils. The face was separated from the cranium by a profound skull fracture, followed by the breakage of the skull from repeated dorsal impacts. On the dorsal side, large-diameter punctures occur in a cluster, with small-diameter punctures also perforating the dorsal surface of the frontal bone, and two penetrating the orbital wall, entering obliquely from above. Proboscidean skulls are commonly fragmented in archeological sites to gain access to the brain and other soft tissues. [3]
All proximal and distal ends exhibited perimortem damage, including detachment, circular punctures/gouges, blunt-force impact fractures, and spiral fractures, indicating they were fresh when fractured. Short, broad, parallel chop marks on one rib are consistent with expedient tools. This damage suggests systematic rib detachment from the vertebral column, costal cartilages, sternum, and from other ribs using cylindrical rods and expedient cutting and chopping tools. Similar highly patterned carcass processing sequences are similar to other butchered proboscideans from the Lower Paleolithic of Afro-Eurasia. [3]
The adult frontal bone, 23 postcranial elements, and a calf tibia preserve circular cross-section punctures ~2 mm to ~1 cm in diameter. Detached surficial bone fragments were also found displaced up to 15 mm into the diplöe. The locations and 3D geometries of these punctures are entirely inconsistent with carnivore canine marks. Instead they suggest an insertion and rotation of a pointed tool that disrupted the trabeculae, facilitating extraction of grease from the interior of bone, and to retrieve pedal fat pads. The presence of "bone scraps", likely from the crushing and boiling of the medullary bone, is a classic sign of the rendering of animal fat. Similarly, in the vertebra, the detachment of the epiphyses from the centra, and punctures penetrating 45mm into the centra, are also thought to facilitate the extraction of lipids. [3]
The Hartley Mammoth site preserves a high number of bone flakes. Although bone flakes are sometimes formed due to weathering or scavenging, that the vast majority of the Hartley bone flakes were struck either perpendicular or parallel to the grain of their parent bone points to an anthropogenic origin. 47% of the flakes (15/32) have sharp edges suitable for cutting. The Hartley Mammoth site preserves a continuum in flakes sizes, including microflakes. High impact knapping tests on fresh bovine bones, resulting in arrested fractures, mimicked bone flakes from the Hartley Mammoth site and the Riley mammoth from Michigan. [3]
Butterfly fragments result from medium to high velocity impact to long bones or ribs, by blows perpendicular to the grain of the parent bone. Five butterfly fragments on the Hartley mammoth were derived from limb elements, and four from ribs. With rare exceptions, only humans are known to create butterfly fragments. 40% of the combined bone flakes and butterfly fragments preserve use-wear indicative of utilization as expedient tools. Similar bone flakes from other proboscidean butchery sites are described with compelling justification for interpreting them as percussion-flaked artifacts. [3]
Interspersed throughout the excavation were micro-particles created as a result of controlled fires fueled by burning wood, plant material, and bone. These particles include siliceous aggregates, recrystallized bone ash, pulverized bone fragments, shattered tooth and bone fragments, vitrified plant fragments, and charcoal fragments. The presence of lime mortar indicates that some parts of the fire were heated to temperatures exceeding 700 °C. These particles, along with pulverized bone and tooth fragments, are also ubiquitous in Afro-Eurasian archaeological hearths. [3]
Excavations also recovered an assemblage of teeth fragments, fish scales, and rare intact disarticulated bones, including a rodent incisor. The fish scales are notable, as the site is ~70 m above the nearest river. The fish scales and calcined bone were also found cemented into the burnt micro-particles, indicating that these tiny bones were not contaminants from packrat middens or raptor roosts. At the Hartley site, the concentrated biodiversity and different burning states of pulverized bone, fish scales and teeth, and mammal teeth also argue against natural wildfire or lightning, but instead most likely formed in a controlled fire. [3]
At the time of burial, mean annual temperatures on the southern Colorado Plateau were estimated to be at least 5 °C cooler than today during this stage of the Late Pleistocene. Additionally, there were substantially wetter conditions in Late Pleistocene in the Intermontane Plateau. Greater moisture resulted in denser vegetation, with juniper, pinon-juniper and pinon-juniper-oak woodlands extending into currently unforested elevations, with supplementary evidence suggesting weaker vegetation zonation throughout mountain elevations. Additionally, snow accumulation and melt were likely much greater than present at the Hartley Mammoth site. [1]
Multiple radiocarbon dating of the bone collagen of a single adult ulna/tibia butterfly fragment (TMM 47004–1.40/SR-9067) yielded ages ranging from 38,900 to 32,300 cal BP. The most robust age was 32,750 ± 430 radiocarbon years ago, or ~37,500 BP. [3] The oldest widely accepted dates of human occupation in North America south of the ice sheets are ~22,000 BP, from White Sands (also New Mexico). [5] [6]
This early date, along with technologies reminiscent of the Lower Paleolithic, courts controversy with conventional understandings of the settlement of the Americas. Although Upper Paleolithic stone tools, such as those from the Clovis culture, are often the standard for diagnosing cultural remains in North America, the narrow re-dating of sophisticated Clovis technologies to a 200 calendar year window (13,125 BP to 12,925 BP) suggests that criteria other than stone tools are needed to accurately assess human presence in prehistoric sites. For example, a similarly aged layer of the famous Monte Verde site in Chile, dated to ~33,000 BP preserves simple worked-stone implements and proboscidean bones in association with clay-lined hearth basins. The age of the Hartley Mammoth site, along with genomic and genetic evidence from across the Americas, suggests that two founding populations colonized the Americas. [3]
A mastodon is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus Mammut. Mastodons inhabited North and Central America from the late Miocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons are the most recent members of the family Mammutidae, which diverged from the ancestors of elephants at least 25 million years ago. M. americanum, the American mastodon, is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. M. americanum is inferred to have had a browsing diet with a preference for woody material, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth. Mastodons became extinct as part of the Quaternary extinction event that exterminated most Pleistocene megafauna present in the Americas, believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and hunting by recently arrived Paleo-Indians, as evidenced by a number of kill sites where mastodon remains are associated with human artifacts.
Clovis points are the characteristically fluted projectile points associated with the New World Clovis culture, a prehistoric Paleo-American culture. They are present in dense concentrations across much of North America and they are largely restricted to the north of South America. There are slight differences in points found in the Eastern United States bringing them to sometimes be called "Clovis-like". Clovis points date to the Early Paleoindian period, with all known points dating from roughly 13,400–12,700 years ago. As an example, Clovis remains at the Murry Springs Site date to around 12,900 calendar years ago. Clovis fluted points are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman.
Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican archaeological culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two Columbian mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 and 1937, though Paleoindian artifacts had been found at the site since the 1920s. It existed from roughly 11,500 to 10,800 BCE near the end of the Last Glacial Period.
Monte Verde is a Paleolithic archaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. It contains two separate layers, the younger Monte Verde II, dating to 14,500 cal BP, and an older, much more controversial layer suggested to date to 18,500 cal BP. The Monte Verde II site has been considered key evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1,000 years. This contradicts the previously accepted "Clovis first" model which holds that settlement of the Americas began after 13,500 cal BP. The Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community, but the evidence then became more accepted in archaeological circles.
Jebel Sahaba is a prehistoric cemetery site in the Nile Valley, near the northern border of Sudan with Egypt in Northeast Africa. It is associated with the Qadan culture. It was discovered in 1964 by a team led by Fred Wendorf.
The Columbian mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas as far north as the Northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. The Columbian mammoth descended from Eurasian mammoths that colonised North America during the Early Pleistocene around 1.5-1.3 million years ago, and later experienced hybridisation with the woolly mammoth lineage. The Columbian mammoth was among the last mammoth species, and the pygmy mammoths evolved from them on the Channel Islands of California. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian elephant.
Vero Man refers to a set of fossilized human bones found near Vero, Florida, in 1915 and 1916. The human bones were found in association with those of Pleistocene animals. Pleistocene dates range from 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago. The suggestion that humans might have been present in Florida during the Pleistocene was controversial at the time and most of the contemporary archaeologists did not accept that the Vero fossils could be that old.
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Cuvieronius is an extinct New World genus of gomphothere which ranged from southern North America to western South America during the Pleistocene epoch. Among the last gomphotheres, it became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, approximately 12,000 years ago, following the arrival of humans to the Americas.
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The Coats–Hines–Litchy site is a paleontological site located in Williamson County, Tennessee, in the Southeastern United States. The site was formerly believed to be archaeological, and identified as one of only a very few locations in Eastern North America containing evidence of Paleoindian hunting of late Pleistocene proboscideans. Excavations at the site have yielded portions of four mastodon skeletons, including portions of one previously described as being in direct association with Paleoindian stone tools. The results of excavations have been published in Tennessee Conservationist, and the scholarly journals Current Research in the Pleistocene, Tennessee Archaeology, and Quaternary Science Reviews. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 2011.
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Broken Mammoth, Alaska is an archeological site located in the Tanana River Valley, Alaska, in the United States. The site was occupied approximately 11,000 B.P. to 12,000 B.P. making this one of the oldest known sites in Alaska. Charles E. Holmes discovered the site in 1989 and investigation of the site began in 1990 and excavations are ongoing to this day.
Saltville Archaeological Site SV-2 an apparent Pre-Clovis archaeological site located in the Saltville Valley near Saltville, Virginia. The site was excavated from 1992 to 1997 by paleogeographer Jerry N. McDonald of the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
Lamb Spring is a pre-Clovis prehistoric Paleo-Indian archaeological site located in Douglas County, Colorado with the largest collection of Columbian mammoth bones in the state. Lamb Spring also provides evidence of Paleo-Indian hunting in a later period by the Cody culture complex group. Lamb Spring was listed in 1997 on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Dent site is a Clovis culture site located in Weld County, Colorado, near Milliken, Colorado. It provided evidence that humans and mammoths co-existed in the Americas. The site is located on an alluvial fan alongside the South Platte River.
Domebo Canyon, Oklahoma is a Paleo-Indian archaeological site: the site of a mammoth kill in the prairie of southwestern Oklahoma. The Domebo archaeological site features deposits of both incomplete and partially articulated mammoth skeletal remains. Also found at the site were two complete and one fragmentary projectile point, along with three un-worked tool flakes made by prehistoric hunters who lived during the Pleistocene Epoch.
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