LaSena Site, Nebraska
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11KBP
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uniface said:
I visited La Sena during the excavation and decided not to get too close to that cutbank shown in the picture, lol.
The spiral bone fractures indicating green bone breakage are hard to explain. However, with no cut marks on the bone and nary a worked stone or any stone for that matter being found at the site ...well, the evidence is a bit scant to be declaring human involvement. What do you think?
11KBP
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uniface
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Come to think of it, 11 (I'm slow, but I get there), I was under the impression that large parts of the midwest are pretty devoid of stones anyhow.
If that were the case there, it would only stand to reason that the stone they did have and use would have been what they carried in with them. And if (since) it would have been a long way back for more of it, they wouldn't have left what they had lying around to provide evidence for us.
So the absence of stone tools there would be in line with expectations, rather than a weak point in the argument for human butchering.
Or no ?
If that were the case there, it would only stand to reason that the stone they did have and use would have been what they carried in with them. And if (since) it would have been a long way back for more of it, they wouldn't have left what they had lying around to provide evidence for us.
So the absence of stone tools there would be in line with expectations, rather than a weak point in the argument for human butchering.
Or no ?
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11KBP
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Good question uniface.
At this year’s Plains Anthropological Conference I watched a presentation demonstrating the breakage of African elephant limb bones with a large hafted 9.5 lb. stone hammer (Holen). According to the presentation it took ten blows to break the bone so I assume a stone tool this size or larger would be needed to do the job. With that in mind I agree with you, such a tool may have been too valuable to leave behind in a region with no rock large enough to suit that purpose.
The La Sena site location is practically on top of a chert toolstone source. You called it a “butchered mammoth” and the link suggests a similar scenario.
Therefore, if people are breaking up these mammoth bones I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly?) they are spending enough time around this bone bed to leave some trace of their existence, maybe just a flake or two from resharpening a chert tool or a piece of bone exhibiting a cut mark. It’s not that I am anti-pre-Clovis it’s just a matter of wanting to see some solid evidence of human presence.
11KBP
At this year’s Plains Anthropological Conference I watched a presentation demonstrating the breakage of African elephant limb bones with a large hafted 9.5 lb. stone hammer (Holen). According to the presentation it took ten blows to break the bone so I assume a stone tool this size or larger would be needed to do the job. With that in mind I agree with you, such a tool may have been too valuable to leave behind in a region with no rock large enough to suit that purpose.
The La Sena site location is practically on top of a chert toolstone source. You called it a “butchered mammoth” and the link suggests a similar scenario.
Therefore, if people are breaking up these mammoth bones I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly?) they are spending enough time around this bone bed to leave some trace of their existence, maybe just a flake or two from resharpening a chert tool or a piece of bone exhibiting a cut mark. It’s not that I am anti-pre-Clovis it’s just a matter of wanting to see some solid evidence of human presence.
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uniface
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Real science examines the unexplained. Bogus "science" explains the unexamined.
At the risk of coming off like this is a case of number two, let's step back for a moment and re-hash what I'm sure you already know : that Paleoindian sites vary tremendously.
At a Quarry Site, all you're likely to find is tested and rejected nodules/blocks and quarry waste.
Not that far away from one, but still in a separate place, you'll find a Reduction Site, where they worked up what was good enough to start with into platter-like bifaces, preforms and blades. When something they were shaping wasn't working out (like a stack they couldn't remove), they left it there, allowing people to determine what all the flakes there were about.
At a kill site, all you're likely to find is bones (if the ground hasn't digested them back into soil), broken point blades and whatever butchering tools that were lost in the process that remained in what they left behind them there. Usually there aren't that many of either, and especially from a one-time event as opposed to a migratory crossing site or bog they were returning to repeatedly.
In some cases, nearby but still in a separate place, there'll be a Processing Site, where they broke what they'd killed down into, say, strips for drying, maybe smoked some of it for longer-term keeping, and so forth.
At a base camp type Habitation site -- especially if it was occupied over a long period of time -- you'll tend to find evidence of pretty much everything : camp fires, broken point bases, scrapers, blade tools, gravers and the rest of it. Even here there could be a seasonal aspect to what was left for us to find. (People are finally realising, incidentally, from how typically they've turned up on habitation sites, that big, ordinary rocks (often showing signs of battering) are part of the tool picture in these as well).
At a shorter-term habitation site, like where (in the south) they were collecting hickory nuts when they came ripe, or a river site (shad runs in the spring in the east, salmon runs and such elsewhere), it's a craps shoot.
So from that contextual perspective, the lack of artifacts at a kill site doesn't rule it out as a kill site -- especially if the carcass is disarticulated, and most especially if the big bones are percussion-fractured. Cut marks would, really, only confirm what the bone-fracturing established anyhow.
Doesn't settle anything, but the lack of artifacts there (i.e., at the carcass itself) doesn't close the door on it, either. Neither does the general failure to find blades anywhere but on a habitation site doesn't mean they weren't making and using them.
For what it's worth (assuming anything)
At the risk of coming off like this is a case of number two, let's step back for a moment and re-hash what I'm sure you already know : that Paleoindian sites vary tremendously.
At a Quarry Site, all you're likely to find is tested and rejected nodules/blocks and quarry waste.
Not that far away from one, but still in a separate place, you'll find a Reduction Site, where they worked up what was good enough to start with into platter-like bifaces, preforms and blades. When something they were shaping wasn't working out (like a stack they couldn't remove), they left it there, allowing people to determine what all the flakes there were about.
At a kill site, all you're likely to find is bones (if the ground hasn't digested them back into soil), broken point blades and whatever butchering tools that were lost in the process that remained in what they left behind them there. Usually there aren't that many of either, and especially from a one-time event as opposed to a migratory crossing site or bog they were returning to repeatedly.
In some cases, nearby but still in a separate place, there'll be a Processing Site, where they broke what they'd killed down into, say, strips for drying, maybe smoked some of it for longer-term keeping, and so forth.
At a base camp type Habitation site -- especially if it was occupied over a long period of time -- you'll tend to find evidence of pretty much everything : camp fires, broken point bases, scrapers, blade tools, gravers and the rest of it. Even here there could be a seasonal aspect to what was left for us to find. (People are finally realising, incidentally, from how typically they've turned up on habitation sites, that big, ordinary rocks (often showing signs of battering) are part of the tool picture in these as well).
At a shorter-term habitation site, like where (in the south) they were collecting hickory nuts when they came ripe, or a river site (shad runs in the spring in the east, salmon runs and such elsewhere), it's a craps shoot.
So from that contextual perspective, the lack of artifacts at a kill site doesn't rule it out as a kill site -- especially if the carcass is disarticulated, and most especially if the big bones are percussion-fractured. Cut marks would, really, only confirm what the bone-fracturing established anyhow.
Doesn't settle anything, but the lack of artifacts there (i.e., at the carcass itself) doesn't close the door on it, either. Neither does the general failure to find blades anywhere but on a habitation site doesn't mean they weren't making and using them.
For what it's worth (assuming anything)
11KBP
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uniface said:
Correct uniface, nothing is settled.
And as I stated in my previous post I am not “anti-pre-Clovis” …and for what its worth, I am not closing the door.
Perhaps in the future, similar early Plains pre-Clovis fractured-bone sites may provide irrefutable evidence of human association. I hope such a discovery happens in my lifetime.
On another note, finding these very early fractured mammoth bone sites does not necessarily mean a kill site where a mammoth was butchered. It has been suggested (E. Johnson, Mammoth Bone Quarrying) that pre-Clovis people could have scavenged bones from mammoths that had recently died. The thick-walled limb bones are well suited for the manufacture of a number of useful tools, weapons or weapons parts.
Below is a picture of a piece of spiral fractured mammoth limb bone I found and you can see how thick the bone walls are, on this piece depending where you measure the thickness is from 1inch to 1 1/8 inch thick. Thick enough to manufacture foreshafts and projectiles.
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uniface
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11KPB said:
Another good point. I would only bear in mind, before assigning this too much weight, that the oldest peoples were, as a general rule, fixated on certain cherts, ignoring others that weren't necessarily of any lesser quality.
As a case in point, Delaware chert from middle/western Ohio. Although it was widely and easily available there, Early and Middle Paleo people all but ignored it, going all the way back from Michigan to Coshocton for what they wanted (or trading for it). I've only ever seen (or at least recognised) one fluted point made of it.
Ditto Onondaga from upstate New York there.
They liked what they liked, only turning to local stuff of (seemingly dire) necessity.
Which may or may not be significant.
I still want them to survey around that site using ground-penetrating radar to find the place they were camping. (Come on -- Nobody camps next to a rotting elephant
).That's where the lithics will turn up -- if there are any.
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