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Analysis of Kill-Butchery Bonebeds and Interpretation of Paleoindian Hunting

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Book cover The Evolution of Human Hunting

Abstract

Unlike remote time periods where the degree of large animal predation is a key research question (Binford 1985; Bunn and Kroll 1986; Isaac and Crader 1981), hunting has long been considered a key component in the adaptation of many anatomically modern Homo sapiens and, in particular, the earliest Paleoindian inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. While there is little question that hunting of large body-sized animals occurred, the organizational role of predation to Paleoindian survival has received limited attention. Use of large herd mammals by Paleoindians on the North American Plains has often led to characterization of these groups as specialized “Big Game Hunters.” Since the first well-documented and accepted association between human artifacts and fossils of bison at the Folsom site in the late 1920s (Cook 1927; Figgins 1927), interpretations of Paleoindian subsistence strategies have frequently been based on evidence from these multianimal bonebeds.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

    Lawrence C. Todd

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  1. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Matthew H. Nitecki  & Doris V. Nitecki  & 

  2. Department of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60605, USA

    Matthew H. Nitecki

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Todd, L.C. (1987). Analysis of Kill-Butchery Bonebeds and Interpretation of Paleoindian Hunting. In: Nitecki, M.H., Nitecki, D.V. (eds) The Evolution of Human Hunting. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8833-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8833-3_7

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