Pre-Clovis mastodon hunting 13,800 years ago at the Manis site, Washington.
The tip of a projectile point made of mastodon bone is embedded in a rib of a single disarticulated mastodon at the Manis site in the state of Washington. Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis show that the rib is associated with the other remains and dates to 13,800 years ago. Thus, osseous projectile points, common to the Beringian Upper Paleolithic and Clovis, were made and used during pre-Clovis times in North America. The Manis site, combined with evidence of mammoth hunting at sites in Wisconsin, provides evidence that people were hunting proboscideans at least two millennia before Clovis.
Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, 4352 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4352, USA. mwaters@tamu.edu
Michael R
MR
Waters
Thomas W
TW
Stafford
H Gregory
HG
McDonald
Carl
C
Gustafson
Morten
M
Rasmussen
Enrico
E
Cappellini
Jesper V
JV
Olsen
Damian
D
Szklarczyk
Lars Juhl
LJ
Jensen
M Thomas P
MT
Gilbert
Eske
E
Willerslev
D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D001842:Bone and Bones; D019015:Geologic Sediments; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D056666:Mastodons; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D013995:Time; D014861:Washington; D054041:Weapons / Q000266:history*