Clovis Mammoth Butchery
The Lange/Ferguson Site and Associated Bone Tool Technology
Publication Year: 2018
The Lange/Ferguson site is the earliest dated archaeological site in South Dakota and one of the few North American sites that provides evidence of a Clovis-period mammoth butchering event. In addition to the preserved remains of the two mammoths, the site yielded diagnostic Clovis weaponry—three Clovis projectile points recovered in context and stratigraphically associated with the mammoth bonebed—and flaked bone tools. The site offers a rare snapshot in time detailing early Paleoindian interactions with now-extinct megafauna nearly 13,000 years ago.
In Clovis Mammoth Butchery: The Lange/Ferguson Site and Associated Bone Tool Technology, L. Adrien Hannus provides a comprehensive look at one of the few New World Clovis-era sites with in-place buried deposits exhibiting evidence for an expedient bone tool technology. Multidisciplinary investigations include paleoenvironmental and geochronological reconstructions—pollen and phytoliths, geology and geomorphology, diatoms and ostracodes, mollusks, and vertebrate paleontology—as well as taphonomic evaluations and a microwear analysis of the chipped stone tools.
Clovis Mammoth Butchery offers readers a rare glimpse into a singular moment in prehistory that captures human interaction with extinct animals during a rapidly changing world for which there is no modern comparison. This book shares great insight into hunting and procurement strategies used by big game hunters during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.
Published by: Texas A&M University Press
Cover
Half Title, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
Preface
Serendipity. It describes perfectly the culmination of events that ultimately led to the discovery and investigation of the Lange/Ferguson site. The origin of the story can be traced back nearly six decades to an individual by the name of Les Ferguson. It was in 1960 that Ferguson, visiting a remote part of the Lange Ranch in the White River Badlands of South Dakota, ...
Acknowledgments
It is difficult to fully thank those who have been part of my involvement with the Lange/Ferguson site for more than 35 years. Accomplishing the fieldwork and associated research, and finally bringing this publication to fruition, would never have been possible without the friendship and personal commitment of many individuals. ...
Part I
Chapter 1. The Site Locale and Archaeological Investigations
L. Adrien Hannus
The Lange/Ferguson site (39SH33) represents one of the few North American archaeological sites that provide evidence of a Clovis-period mammoth butchering event. The remains of two butchered mammoths, either intentionally killed or opportunistically scavenged by Clovis hunters, were preserved in sediments of a Late ...
Part II
Chapter 2. Late-Glacial Vegetation from Stratum C, Lange/Ferguson Mammoth Site: Pollen and Opal Phytolith Evidence
Eric C. Grimm, Glen G. Fredlund
The late-glacial period (~16,000–11,500 cal yr BP) was a dynamic time of vegetation change, as climate shifted from glacial to interglacial conditions. In the eastern and central United States at the latitude of the Lange/Ferguson site, full-glacial spruce forest transitioned to Holocene deciduous forest and grasslands. This transitional period ...
Chapter 3. Geochronology of the Lange/Ferguson Clovis Site
C. Vance Haynes Jr.
The Lange/Ferguson site was found in 1960 when Les Ferguson of Hot Springs, South Dakota, discovered mammoth bones eroding out of the base of a small butte on the Lange Ranch. Excavations by L. Adrien Hannus (1980–1984) revealed the in-place bones of two mammoths and associated Clovis artifacts (Hannus 1985, 1989, 1990a, 1990b). ...
Chapter 4. Stratum C Paleoecology at the Lange/Ferguson Mammoth Site
Manuel R. Palacios-Fest
The Lange/Ferguson mammoth site contains a rich record of human and environmental interaction in the Late Pleistocene. This investigation documents the environmental conditions prevailing during deposition of a spring-fed pond overlying mammoth bones that have been recovered with evidence of Clovis butchering activity. Diatoms, ostracodes, and mollusks show ...
Chapter 5. Ecological and Climatic Implications of Fossil Mollusks at the Lange/Ferguson Mammoth Site
A. Byron Leonard
More than 30 species of fossil mollusks occur in the deposits (Substratum B3 per C. V. Haynes, chapter 3, this volume) associated with the bones of butchered mammoths at the Lange/Ferguson site in Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota. About two-thirds of the molluscan species are terrestrial pulmonates that lived in the wooded, ...
Part III
Chapter 6. Bone Structure and Taphonomic Processes
L. Adrien Hannus
The interpretation of vertebrate skeletal remains is a significant component in our understanding of the global archaeological record. This significance is evident not only in the abundance of osseous material in many archaeological assemblages, but also in this material’s ability to provide insights or meaning relative to the activities, social structures, belief systems, technological ...
Chapter 7. Taphonomic Evidence at Lange/Ferguson
L. Adrien Hannus
Taphonomic factors affecting the bone assemblage at the Lange/Ferguson site must be considered in determining whether the presence of modified bone is attributable to cultural or natural (i.e., animal or geological) processes. The broken bone controversy is based on the assumption that before altered bones are accepted as evidence for the presence of humans, ...
Chapter 8. A Scanning Electron Microscopy Evaluation of the Lange/Ferguson Mammoth Bone Assemblage: Bone Fracture, Technology, and Use-Wear in Taphonomic Context
Pat Shipman
In this chapter, I review attempts to define clear, objective criteria upon which bone expediency tools can be recognized in the archaeological or fossil record and how I have applied those criteria to materials from the Lange/ Ferguson site in South Dakota (39SH33). Criteria include both gross or macroscopic features (preservation of surfaces, damage, breakage patterns) of the specimens ...
Chapter 9. Patterns of Natural and Cultural Disarticulation
L. Adrien Hannus
Central to the thesis that the Lange/Ferguson site is a Clovis mammoth butchery locale is the empirical evidence that indicates that the recovered mammoth bone does, indeed, represent a culturally derived assemblage. Given the controversy of human versus nonhuman patterns of bone modification, it is necessary to discount the ...
Chapter 10. The Butchering Sequence at Lange/Ferguson
L. Adrien Hannus
The convergence of a number of taphonomic factors at Lange/Ferguson allowed in situ preservation of culturally modified mammoth bone elements. These taphonomic factors include (1) rapid burial by very low-velocity sediments that precluded bone alteration by either carnivore/scavenger activity or weathering; (2) minimal effects ...
Chapter 11. The Lange/Ferguson Artifact Assemblage
L. Adrien Hannus
The Lange/Ferguson site artifact assemblage constitutes both lithic and bone specimens. More than 100 culturally modified artifacts were identified at the site; four are lithic tools and the remainder are bone. A sample of 61 of these specimens, including the four lithic tools (table 22) and 57 bone items (table 23), are presented here. ...
Chapter 12. Use-wear Analysis of the Lange/Ferguson Chipped Stone Artifacts
Marvin Kay
My formative statement of Clovis chipped stone artifact wear traces from the Colby site (Kay 1996) largely holds true today. It is, with one notable exception, a general guide to the analysis of a flake excavated in the Lange/Ferguson mammoth bonebed and three Clovis points slightly more than 16 m to the south. I did not ...
Part IV
Chapter 13. Summary and Conclusions
L. Adrien Hannus
The Lange/Ferguson site affords a rare snapshot in time detailing early Paleo-Indian interactions with now-extinct megamammals nearly 13,000 years ago. Moreover, the site provides a singular view of the dynamic, transitional environment during the terminal Pleistocene and evidence of a proboscidean bone tool technology attributable to the area’s Clovis inhabitants. ...
Back Cover
E-ISBN-13: 9781623495930
E-ISBN-10: 1623495938
Print-ISBN-13: 9781623495923
Page Count: 262
Illustrations:
Publication Year: 2018
OCLC Number: 1031090235
MUSE Marc Record: Download for Clovis Mammoth Butchery
