Have you ever wondered what prehistoric humans ate 13,000 years ago? Researchers in the United States and Canada have presented evidence suggesting that some of North America’s earliest inhabitants preferred steak big– as if it were the size of a mammoth.
A team of scientists, led by James C. Chatters of McMaster University and Ben A. Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has presented the first direct evidence that the inhabitants of Clovis consumed large animals, such as mammoths, for food . Their findings, detailed in a December 4 study published in the journal Advances in sciencethey could help explain the rapid expansion of early humans across the continent and shed light on their possible role in the extinction of large mammals at the end of the last ice age.
Clovis refers to aa prehistoric culture in North America, known for its distinctive stone tools, which emerged towards the end of the last ice age. Clovis people are widely regarded as ancestors of today’s indigenous peoples of the Americas, but their diet has become a controversial topic among experts. While some scholars argue that Clovis inhabitants thrived on foraging and small game, others argue that they were “megafauna specialists,” the researchers wrote in the study, referring to big game hunters. The results of the study confirm this latter theory.
The team analyzed the isotopic data, measuring atoms in the samples to discover their origins and ancient eating habits. They studied pre-existing isotope data from the remains of a 13,000-year-old planet. Clovis child discovered earlier in Montana and reconstructed his mother’s diet. They then compared the hypothesized diet with isotope data of foods that would have been available to him in that region.
“Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer’s diet and can be compared to those of potential foods to estimate the proportional contribution of different dietary foods,” Mat Wooller of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who participated in the study. declaration. In other words, Wooller and his colleagues were able to estimate the proportions of different food sources in the woman’s diet.
According to the study, 40% of the Clovis woman’s food came from here mammoth. Most of the rest came from other large animals like elk and bison, with only a small fraction coming from small mammals. This is the first direct evidence of Clovis people’s favorite meals: previous research had only inferred this through secondary evidence, including stone tools or animal remains.
The scientists then compared these findings to the diets of other omnivores and carnivores from the same period, and found that the woman’s diet was very similar to that of the scimitar cat, a large cat that famously preyed on mammoths. Coincidence? Researchers (and Edna Mode) would think not.
“What strikes me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites. For example, the animal parts left at the Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna (large animals) and the projectile points are large, fixed on darts, which were efficient ranged weapons,” Potter said.
The megafauna theory is also consistent with many other elements. Because animals like mammoths existed throughout the Americas, they would have been a reliable source of fatty protein for migrating people, like the Clovis, in a way that smaller regional animals could not.
“The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis humans could spread across North America and South America within a few hundred years,” Chatters said. The Clovis people’s preference for big game may also have played a role extinction of large animals occurred at the end of the last ice age.
“If the climate is changing in a way that reduces suitable habitat for some of these megafauna, then it potentially makes them more susceptible to human predation. These people were very effective hunters,” Potter said. Indeed, as the last ice age ended and the vast tundras turned into dense forests, the mammoths were already in trouble and humans struck them while they were on the ground.
“This study reshapes our understanding of how indigenous people across America thrived by hunting one of the most dangerous and dominant animals of the time, the mammoth,” said Shane Doyle, executive director of Yellowstone Peoples. The team contacted Native American tribal governments in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to involve them in studying their ancestors.
