A mammoth diet: What early Americans really ate

A new study published in the journal Science Advances provides the first direct evidence that the Clovis culture relied heavily on mammoth meat, confirming that they were "megafaunal specialists." Researchers analyzed data extracted from the 12,800-year-old remains of a Clovis infant named Anzick-1, revealing that the diet of the Paleoindian Clovis culture was rich in mammoth meat, with about 40% of Anzick-1's mother's diet coming from mammoth meat, supplemented by other large animals like elk and bison.

To investigate the diet of Anzick-1's mother, the research team looked at stable radioisotopes in Anzick-1's bones, as reported by Live Science. Since Anzick-1 was likely still nursing, his isotope values reflected those of his mother, providing clues to her diet, according to Science News. The researchers compared Anzick-1's mother's isotopic fingerprint to those found in potential prey species to reconstruct her diet, reflecting at least a year of her dietary intake as the isotopes take time to build up in tissues.

The results revealed that mammoth meat represented about 35 to 40 percent of Anzick-1's mother's diet, making it the largest single contributor, as reported by Gizmodo. Most of the remainder of her diet came from other large animals such as elk, bison, and a now-extinct type of camel, in significantly smaller proportions. The contribution of small mammals and plants in her diet was very minor to negligible.

Ben Potter, co-lead author and an archaeology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that the results of the study confirmed what had been found at other archaeological sites, noting that "the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna," according to Live Science. "This is not just a single site with a single meal of mammoth. This is a tradition of the people," coauthor Potter said, as reported by Science News.

"The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years," stated James Chatters of McMaster University, co-lead author of the study, according to Phys.org. The Clovis people were highly mobile, transporting resources like toolstone over hundreds of miles. "They were highly mobile. They transported resources like toolstone over hundreds of miles," Potter added.

The researchers wrote in the paper, "These data suggest that Western Clovis people [...] were more focused on larger-bodied megafauna grazers, primarily mammoths, and were not generalists who regularly consumed smaller-bodied herbivores."

"Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer's diet and can be compared with those from potential diet items to estimate the proportional contribution of different diet items," stated Mat Wooller of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who participated in the study, as reported by Gizmodo. 

The findings shed new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals. "If the climate is changing in a way that reduces the suitable habitat for some of these megafauna, then it makes them potentially more susceptible to human predation. These people were very effective hunters," Potter added, according to Gizmodo. The authors suggest that the Clovis preference for mammoth meat may have played a part in the demise of these giant beasts in the Americas toward the end of the last ice age.

Anzick-1 was originally found in 1968 near Wilsall, Montana, at a Clovis burial site, and is significant because these are the only relatively complete burial remains found in close association with Clovis artifacts for which researchers have generated an isotopic "fingerprint," as reported by Phys.org. The Clovis culture is known for its distinctive pointed and sharp-edged stone tools, which emerged toward the end of the last Ice Age.

Some researchers are cautious about the findings. Vance Holliday cautioned that sweeping assumptions can't be made from a single skeleton. "I don't know how you could ever test them unless you found more human remains," he said, according to Science News.

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq