Call number: LD2668 .T4 1933 M61

The Clovis style point was used by Paleoindians to hunt and kill the proboscidean mammoths and mastodons of the era in the New World. How the Paleoindians specifically used Clovis technology and their hunting strategies are ambiguous. Middle range theory is used in a comparison of ethnographic, archaeological, paleontological, and experimental archaeological evidence. Deductive and inductive reasoning are used in conjunction with this data to develop an interpretive model. This type of study can help to reconstruct a part of the past lifeways of the Clovis Paleoindians. A general model taken from the evidence is presented of Paleoindian proboscidean hunting strategy and the possible design and use of weaponry. However, the majority of the data comes from western Clovis sites associated with Columbian mammoths. A universal or regional based model for Paleoindian proboscidean hunting tactics and weapon design and employment cannot be fully dictated. Creating a model of this type requires an intensively thorough survey of all Clovis archaeological and ancient proboscidean sites. / Department of Anthropology

The Quaternary (the approximately the last 2.6 million years) of North America is a tremendously exciting time period to study with respect to ecology. It saw periods of immense climatic turbidity - the expansion and retreat of continental ice-sheets and large swings in temperature, resulting in the wide scale restructuring of terrestrial ecosystem. It also saw widespread migrations of many species and out of Eurasia, mostly notably of modern humans. Ancient DNA offers powerful tools to examine the relationships and responses of megafunal species to these events, but has largely focused on cold-adapted species, and within radiocarbon-time (i.e. the last 50 thousand years). In this thesis I work to expand our understanding of the genetic landscape of Pleistocene megafuna in three ways. First, I describe the analysis of coprolites from Bechan Cave, Utah and characterize the mammoth inhabitants in the broader context of North American mammoths. Second, I characterize the diversity of American mastodons across the continent and through time, showing that their range likely repeatedly expanded and contracted in response to Pleistocene glaciations. Lastly, I begin to fill in some of the gaps in the American mastodon dataset from chapter 3, and begin to address some of the taxonomic and biogeographic questions about American and Pacific mastodons in Idaho. Understanding how North American megafauna responded to these climatic and anthropogenic stresses may help to explain why so many species went extinct at the end of the last glaciation, and how species may respond to present day warming. However, it is important to include taxa from warmer locales and environments to ensure our models and hypotheses are comprehensive. / Thesis / Doctor of Science (PhD) / Pleistocene North America was a time period of immense climatic turbidity, with temperature swings greater than 15°C in response to the expansion and contraction of continental ice-sheets. Despite these massive swings in temperature, many species managed to thrive on the continent and adapt to glacial-associated ecosystem restructuring. Ancient DNA from Pleistocene megafauna can serve as a very useful tool to answer many questions about the distribution of megafaunal species, and how they may have responded to these climatic events. However, most studies have largely focused on species adapted to cold environments and from the last fifty thousand years. In this thesis I extend our knowledge of the genetic landscape of Pleistocene proboscideans, characterizing the mammoth inhabitants of Bechan Cave, Utah, and producing the first look at American mastodon diversity through space and time. This work increases our representation of warm-adapted specimens and characterizes the effects of glacial cycles on megafauna populations.

Stable isotopes of mammoths and mastodons have the potential to illuminate ecological changes in late Pleistocene landscapes and megafaunal populations as these species approached extinction. The ecological factors at play in this extinction remain unresolved, but isotopes of bone collagen (δ13C, δ15N) and tooth enamel (δ13C, δ18O, 87Sr/86Sr) from midwestern North America are leveraged to examine ecological and behavioral changes that occurred during the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Both species had significant C3 contributions to their diets and experienced increasing levels of niche overlap as they approached extinction. A subset of mastodons after the last glacial maximum exhibit low δ15N values that may represent expansion into a novel ecological niche, perhaps densely occupied by other herbivores. Stable isotopes from serial and microsampled enamel show increasing seasonality and decreasing temperatures as mammoths transitioned from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e to glacial conditions (MIS 4, MIS 3, MIS 2). Isotopic variability in enamel suggests mobility patterns and life histories have potentially large impacts on the interpretation of their stable isotope ecology. This study further refines the ecology of midwestern mammoths and mastodons demonstrating increasing seasonality and niche overlap as they responded to landscape changes in the final millennia before extinction.

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