Mastodons may have been on the menu for Ice Age Americans
The Indigenous American Indians who lived in Ohio and neighboring Ontario during the Ice Age made flint spear points that are similar, if not identical, to Clovis points. Clovis points are a particular style of spear point found throughout much of North America during the relatively brief period between about 13,000 and 12,800 years ago. A few have been found out West among the bones of mammoths; and Clovis hunters have even been blamed for driving these and other so-called megafauna to extinction. But in spite of the fact that hundreds of Clovis and Clovis-like points have been found across Ohio and southern Ontario and similar numbers of mammoths and mastodon also have been found here, archaeologists have never found these spear points in clear association with their bones. Does this mean that Paleoindians in this region never hunted these hairy elephants?
Ron Williamson, founder of Archaeological Services, Inc. in Toronto, is the lead author of a paper published in the February Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports that provide new evidence that Ontario Paleoindians did, at least occasionally, dine on mastodons or mammoths.
The Mt. Albion West site in southern Ontario was a campsite for Ice Age Paleoindians. Among the many artifacts recovered by the excavation team, there was one complete Clovis-like spear point and 11 fragments of similar points along with other stone tools.
Several of the tools had traces of a black “organic residue” on them. Chemical tests of the residues on 29 artifacts revealed proboscidean (mammoth or mastodon) proteins on one of them and canid (probably domesticated dog) proteins on two others. Williamson and his co-authors conclude that their results “suggest, for the first time, that Early Paleoindians in Ontario may have butchered, if not hunted, proboscideans.”
There was a similar discovery in Ohio at the Martins Creek mastodon site in Holmes County. Excavations in 1993 uncovered scattered mastodon bones along with a handful of artifacts, including a scraping tool and several flint flakes. A study of organic residues on several artifacts identified traces of proboscidean proteins on one flake knife. As Williamson and his team noted in regard to the Mt. Albion proboscidean proteins, finding traces of mastodon blood on a knife doesn’t necessarily mean Paleoindians hunted and killed the critter. They may have been scavenging meat from a mastodon that died of natural causes.
The Mt. Albion West canid proteins are also tremendously interesting. Wolves and foxes are also canids, but dogs were domesticated in East Asia by 16,000 years ago, so we’re pretty sure that Paleoindians brought dogs with them when they came to America. And we know dogs were here by at least 10,000 years ago. They would have been useful pulling sleds, helping with hunting, guarding the camp from predators and also as a source of food. So it makes sense that the Mt. Albion canids were dogs.
Archaeologists are always looking for new ways to open windows on the past. Chemical analyses of organic residues on stone tools is a way to gain insights on what people were eating even when other traces, such as butchered animal bones, haven’t been found. And finding evidence that Paleoindians in Ontario were eating mastodons and maybe dogs is an important contribution to our understanding of the ways of life of the first Americans.
Brad Lepper is the Senior Archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection’s World Heritageprogram.
blepper@ohiohistory.org