Recent elephant-carcass utilization as a basis for interpreting mammoth exploitation

How Important was the Presence of Elephants as a Determinant of the Zhizo Settlement of the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape?

“…In central Europe and during the Clovis era in North America, people left behind sites dominated by elephant remains (Haynes & Klimowicz 2014). The same was found at an Upper Acheulian butchery site at Lehringen, near Bremen in Germany (Movius 1950), at Gesher Benot Ya'Aqov in Israel (Goren-Inbar et al 1994), in Kent, United Kingdom (Wenban- Smith et al 2006) and in Spain, such as at the Middle Pleistocene site of Aridos (Villa 1990;Yravedra et al 2010).…”

A preliminary review of bone and teeth abnormalities seen in recent Loxodonta and extinct Mammuthus and Mammut, and suggested implications

“…Aside from providing a possible explanation for several pathological conditions in Loxodonta and Mammuthus, the climatecaused dietary deficiency proposition also has implications for understanding human interactions with mammoths in prehistory (Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015). Loxodonta in Zimbabwe's six-month dry season try to stay close to scattered remaining water sources, and their feeding puts a heavy burden on surrounding vegetation, exacerbating nutrient shortages as nearby forage is depleted.…”

“…Weissengruber and Forstenpointer (2014) surveyed the wide range of disorders and pathologies known from captive and free-ranging proboscideans. Here our primary objective is to report similar or unique instances seen by us during three decades of actualistic fieldwork (Haynes, 1991;Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015) in Zimbabwe's wildlife reserves. We also compare the Loxodonta specimens to similar abnormalities seen in Mammuthus sp.…”

Hunters of the giants: Woolly mammoth hunting during the Gravettian in Central Europe

“…The lack of a larger number of cut marks located on mammoth bones is a result of the rather large dimensions of the mammoth body and bones and does not indicate that hunters had not killed and dismembered these animals. Cutmarks were not made easily on mammoth bones because of the thickness of the periosteal tissue and the cartilage, which stone tools may not often have penetrated during the skinning, dismembering, and filleting processes (Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015). Contemporary ethnographic investigations show that a skilful hunter is able to skin and divide an elephant's body without leaving many or even any visible signs on the animal's bones (Frison and Todd, 1986;Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015).…”

“…Cutmarks were not made easily on mammoth bones because of the thickness of the periosteal tissue and the cartilage, which stone tools may not often have penetrated during the skinning, dismembering, and filleting processes (Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015). Contemporary ethnographic investigations show that a skilful hunter is able to skin and divide an elephant's body without leaving many or even any visible signs on the animal's bones (Frison and Todd, 1986;Haynes and Klimowicz, 2015). Haynes and Klimowicz (2015) propose two interpretations for the scarcity of cutmarks on mammoth femora.…”