Gary Haynes

A guide for differentiating mammalian carnivore taxa responsible for gnaw damage to herbivore limb bones

Large cats, canids, bears, and hyenas create distinctive types of damage when they gnaw bones. This paper describes the diagnostic characteristics of damage done by each taxon to femora and tibiae of herbivores whose body weights are 300 kg or more. Pleistocene and Recent fossil collections that include gnawed bones might provide data on the presence of carnivores whose own remains are not found in the collections. Information might also be gained about predator and scavenger utilization of prey carcasses, often a reflection of prey vulnerability or availability in past communities.

Longitudinal studies of african elephant death and bone deposits

Abstract Hundreds of non-cultural elephant bone sites have been studied in southern Africa, starting at or before the actual moments of death and continuing through bone burial or destruction. In some sites, dozens of elephants died en masse due to drought. These sites contain spirally fractured limb bones in proportions as high as 62% of counted limb elements. Many naturally broken tusk fragments are similar to specimens that have been interpreted as artifacts in fossil proboscidean collections. Trampling marks on bones closely mimic cut marks made by stone tools. As reported here, numerous attributes of non-cultural assemblages are virtually indistinguishable from attributes that archaeologists have believed to be created by human behaviour alone.

Mass deaths and serial predation: Comparative taphonomic studies of modern large mammal death sites

Abstract Longitudinal studies of bone sites in Africa and Canada indicate that both mass death sites and sites of serial predation share many significant characteristics, such as dense bone deposits, representation of multiple taxa, presence of different degrees of gnaw-damage and different weathering stages, and concise spatial areas containing the bones. Surface densities of bone range from 1 per 3m2 in a mass death site to 1 per 125 m2 in a site where serial predation accounted for all bones. The average number of bones per represented individual ranges from a low of about seven elements per animal, to a high of about 20, with no difference between mass death and cumulative death sites.

Observations on Elephant Mortality and Bones in Water Holes

An unusually severe drought in 1982 led to a temporary die-off of elephants at a natural water source in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Compared to living populations, the age structure of the animals killed by drought is strongly biased toward 2-to 8-year-old animals. However, the fresh carcasses of these young elephants were commingled with weathered remains of adults that had died earlier, creating a mixed skeletal sample whose age structure was much closer to that of living populations. Observations of elephant bones that have accumulated due to natural mortality at water holes might provide analogs for paleoecological interpretations of fossil proboscidean assemblages.

American Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene

Chapter 1: Introduction to the volume, Gary Haynes Chapter 2: Sudden deaths: the chronology of Terminal Pleistocene megafaunal extinction, Stuart Fiedel Chapter 3: Estimates of Clovis-era megafaunal populations and their extinction risks, Gary Haynes Chapter 4: Paleobiology and extinction of proboscideans in the Great Lakes region of North America, Daniel C. Fisher Chapter 5: Human prey choice in the Late Pleistocene and its relation to megafaunal extinctions, Todd A. Surovell and Nicole M. Waguespack Chapter 6: Ancient DNA and the genetic consequences of Late Pleistocene extinctions, Alex D. Greenwood Chapter 7: Did humans cause the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene mammalian extinctions in South America in a context of shrinking open areas? Alberto L. Cione, Eduardo P. Tonni, and Leopoldo Soibelzon Chapter 8: The elusive evidence: the archeological record of the South American extinct megamammals, Luis Alberto Borrero Chapter 9: Insulae infortunatae: establishing a chronology for Late Quaternary mammal extinctions in the West Indies, R.D.E. MacPhee Chapter 10: Afterword, and thoughts about the future literature, Gary Haynes

On the possible utilization of Camelops by early man in North America

Camelops was a major faunal element in late Wisconsin biotic communities over much of North America. Interpretations of possible human association with Camelops are often based on poorly evaluated evidence. Ideal standards for acceptable evidence are compared here to the actual evidence that has been advanced. Of 25 fossil assemblages examined, 2 might be examples only of geological contemporaneity of humans and Camelops; 2 might indicate behavioral association of humans and Camelops bones; and 2 might indicate actual human utilization of Camelops (killing and/or butchering). Camelops bones interpreted as artifacts are similar to modern specimens affected by noncultural processes.

Age profiles in elephant and mammoth bone assemblages

Abstract Age profiles of modern African elephant (Loxodonta africana) populations are significantly affected by drought conditions that cause local die-offs. Subadult animals die in proportions that may be nearly twice what is recorded in live populations. Such biasing of death sample age profiles might also have occurred during late Pleistocene die-offs of Mammuthus. This comparative study of modern and fossil proboscidean age structures supports a tentative interpretation that late Pleistocene extinction of Mammuthus (at least in the southwestern United States) resulted from severe drought conditions, at which Clovis hunters were witnesses, but not necessarily frequent participants.

Proboscidean Die-offs and Die-outs: Age Profiles in Fossil Collections

Abstract Distinctive age profiles result from certain types of mortality processes that affect modern African elephants. Large collections of fossil proboscidean bones sometimes have similar age profiles—for example, those of the Lehner and Dent assemblages are identical to age profiles seen in modern drought-caused die-offs. Two other samples of mammoths (one from the Fairbanks muck deposits and one from a site near Waco, Texas) have age profiles suggestive of a stable age distribution in a mature population, resulting in the first case from long-term attritional mortality, and in the other case from sudden “catastrophic” mortality. Other fossil proboscidean age profiles that show high proportions of prime-age adults may have resulted from prolonged or recurring die-offs.

The Millennium before Clovis

Abstract This paper reviews the published information, uncertainties about claims, and possible technological and cultural relationships of a sample of sites which have older-than-Clovis dates in North America. The goal is to trace the origins of “Classic” Clovis techno-cultural patterns. Some sites in the sample contain lithic artifacts and some do not. Production technology and artifact characteristics in a number of the lithic sites (such as Debra Friedkin and possibly Page-Ladson) may be evidence of Clovis ancestry, but the lithic materials in most pre-Clovis sites cannot be explicitly linked to Clovis. A few nonlithic sites (such as Manis, Firelands, and Lindsay) may indicate a pre-Clovis pattern of large-mammal exploitation foreshadowing a later Clovis trait. Overall, the available data are incomplete or ambiguous, and as a result, individual interpretations have produced incompatible models of Clovis origins.

Estimates of Clovis-Era Megafaunal Populations and Their Extinction Risks

In order to evaluate the contribution that Clovis-era hunting made to the end-Pleistocene extinctions, we must examine the North American empirical evidence fairly, without using models from different continents and different taxa as blueprints for the process of human hunting impacts. Before trying to decide how (or if) Clovis hunting could have had a significant effect on American megamammal extinctions,1 a worthwhile thing to know or estimate is the size of the continental populations of megamammals during the Clovis era. Of course, no direct measure is possible, but there are some possible clues and guides in the methods employed in modern wildlife conservation practices.