The Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis Revisited: Taphonomic Evidence for a Pre-LGM Occupation of the Americas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Pre-Clovis: Human Occupations in the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Perpetual Debate" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2013 we published a book chapter titled “The Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis: The Middle Wisconsin Peopling of North America”. Although this chapter has been largely ignored by the archaeological community, we think the hypothesis is more easily defended today based on new evidence. Here, we present the archaeological, geoarchaeological, actualistic and experimental taphonomic evidence first used to develop this hypothesis and argue that taphonomic evidence of percussion modification of large mammal limb bones, especially mammoths and mastodons, represents compelling archaeological evidence of human presence in the Americas during and before the Last Glacial Maximum. We then test the hypothesis with new archaeological evidence published after 2013 which strongly supports the Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis. While this hypothesis posits a terrestrial entry into the Americas from Siberia during the mid-Wisconsin, sometime between 25,000 and 40,000 years ago, there is also evidence of a coastal migration route, therefore the two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Pre-Clovis: Human Occupations in the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Perpetual Debate   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51769