Exploring Potential Ancient Human-Proboscidea Interaction at Lake Red Rock, Marion County, Iowa

Summary

Discoveries of juxtaposed proboscidean remains from a single individual are rare in the Midwest and there are no known human-occupied pre-Holocene sites in Iowa with good preservation. The Lake Red Rock (Marion County, Iowa) discovery locale has yielded preserved mammoth remains—a clear indicator of late Pleistocene (> 10,000 years ago) context—and the suggestion of possible human interaction. If validated such a site will be a first in the state and among only a few in the nation. The grant-funded project team conducted intensive, multi-disciplinary (geomorphology, geology, paleontology, archaeology) field investigations for two weeks in late spring of 2016 to collect key environmental context and archaeological data from an actively eroding shoreline context. Recovery of a single stone artifact from the same location as the proboscidean bones is suggestive human activity co-occurred with the mammoth. Detailed laboratory investigation of recovered remains and associated sediments are underway including efforts to extract and date bone collagen. This poster will present the results of the field and lab efforts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14507