WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH SKIN
WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH PLUS
WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH SERIES

Using measurements of ribs from two Columbian mammoths, whose remains are mounted at a Texas museum, Eren’s team then estimated how far a Clovis spearpoint had to travel to reach vulnerable internal organs.Ī Clovis point had to plunge 17 to 30 centimeters deep to kill an Asian woolly mammoth, the team calculated. And above that skin, woolly mammoth hides were covered by 5 to 15 centimeters of dense underfur topped by a layer of outer hairs 10 to 60 centimeters long.

WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH SKIN

Beneath the skin lay 8 to 9 centimeters of fat. Several frozen carcasses recovered in Asia indicate that woolly mammoth skin was 2 to 3 centimeters thick on average, the group estimates. The reconstructions show how well-protected these creatures were from spears heaved or thrust at them.Įren’s team combined measurements from Asian woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths of North America, the presumed prey of Clovis people. Crucial clues came from reconstructions of mammoths’ skeletal and internal anatomy - both from earlier studies by other researchers, as well as new evidence gathered by Eren’s group.

Since then, several lines of evidence have led Eren to retract that claim.

WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH SERIES

A spear tipped with a Clovis point and hurled from a spear thrower “could have easily taken down the largest Stone Age beasts,” he said on camera in an episode of the 2015 PBS documentary series First Peoples. “I remain convinced that Clovis points were designed to serve as reliable hunting weapons.” Mammoth challengesĮren made the same argument not too long ago. “We have an instrument, the Clovis point, that keeps showing up in direct association with dead bodies,” says archaeologist David Kilby of Texas State University in San Marcos. His argument has been greeted with interested skepticism by some Clovis investigators. “We need to stop assuming that Clovis people and earlier Stone Age groups must have been mammoth hunters.” “It’s not clear that Clovis points attached to spears could even have penetrated a mammoth’s hide,” Eren says. A view from the top, right, shows presumed average (red) and maximum (blue) penetration depths of Clovis points hurled at high speeds at a mammoth, based on experimental evidence, assuming the weapons passed through dense hair and a thick hide, and avoided bones. More often, these tools served as knives to cut meat off carcasses of already dead mammoths or as dart tips hurled to scare away other scavenging animals drawn to mammoth remains, Eren and his colleagues conclude in the October Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.Ī mammoth’s skeleton shows ribs and other bones that sheltered internal organs. Spear-throwing hunters might have occasionally killed a mammoth, especially one separated from its group or slowed due to injury. Clovis points had many uses, like a Swiss Army knife, Eren contends. New experimental and archaeological studies suggest an entirely different scenario, says archaeologist Metin Eren of Kent State University in Ohio. 22).īut the Clovis people’s status as adept killers of tusked beasts weighing up to about 9 metric tons has come under fire. If so, Clovis big-game hunters possibly contributed to the extinction of their enormous prey ( SN: 11/24/18, p. It’s long been assumed that Clovis hunters must have left spearpoints lying among the bones of mammoths and other massive creatures after killing and butchering them. 7).Īrchaeologists typically refer to these places as kill sites.

WE HUNTED THE MAMMOTH PLUS

Two other North American sites containing mastodon bones, one featuring remains of extinct elephant-like creatures called gomphotheres, plus a site that yielded camel and horse fossils also include Clovis points or evidence of injuries from sharp, pointed stones ( SN: 8/9/14, p. Clovis points or skeletal damage presumably caused by them have been found among mammoth bones at 11 North American sites, including Blackwater Draw. Ensuing generations of archaeologists filled out the picture of an intrepid mammoth-killing bunch, dubbed the Clovis people, who spread across North America between around 13,500 and 12,500 years ago. Researchers who examined the Blackwater Draw finds saw them as clear evidence of mammoths having been killed by human hunters sometime in the past. Thin grooves chipped into the bases of these stone points suggested that they were spearpoints that people had once attached to handles or poles. Razor-sharp edges bordering each artifact gracefully curved up to a pointed tip. He came across chiseled stone points strewn among mammoth fossils. An amateur archaeologist exploring a dried-out, ancient stream channel called Blackwater Draw near Clovis, New Mexico, made a startling discovery in 1929.

We hunted the mammoth