Jakarta, Indonesia Sentinel — A new study suggests that ancient Native Americans were highly dependent on mammoth meat for survival, highlighting their expertise in hunting large animals. For the first time, direct evidence shows that ancient Americans, specifically the Clovis people, relied heavily on mammoth for food.
The findings, published Wednesday, December 4. in the journal Science Advances, are based on a chemical analysis of the bones of an 18-month-old boy, named Anzick-1, who lived nearly 13,000 years ago in what is now Montana.
The child was likely still breastfeeding, but the study reveals that his mother’s diet closely resembled that of a Sabertooth predator—indicating a specialization in mammoth consumption.
To investigate the mother’s diet, researchers examined stable isotopes in the child’s bones. This technique measures the abundance of specific isotopes, which can help reconstruct the diets of ancient humans.
The researchers concluded that the isotopic signatures in the boy’s remains were likely inherited from his mother, suggesting that mammoth was a key food source for the entire family group. This discovery indicates that people from the Western Clovis culture, to which the child belonged, regularly hunted mammoths.
The isotopic fingerprint revealed that mammoths made up around 40% of the diet of the Clovis mother. They also eat on other large animals such as elk (Cervus canadensis), bison (Bison bison and the extinct B. antiquus), and an extinct genus of camel (Camelops).
Megafauna Hunter
According to Earth.com, the study also revealed an interesting link between Clovis technology and their diet.
“What’s striking to me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites. For example, the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna, and the projectile points are large, affixed to darts, which were efficient distance weapons,” said Ben Potter, co-lead author and archaeology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
This hunting technology was critical to the Clovis lifestyle, enabling them to target massive, dangerous animals like mammoths from a safe distance.
The findings strongly suggest that the Clovis people specialized in hunting large mammals, and challenge earlier theories that suggested Clovis people primarily hunted smaller animal or plants.
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According to Live Science, the study provides direct evidence of the diet of Western Clovis people around 12,800 years ago, showing a preference for mammoth meat—particularly Mammuthus columbi—over other available food sources.
“These data suggest that Western Clovis people focused more on larger-bodied megafaunal grazers, particularly Mammuthus [mammoths], rather than being generalists regularly consuming smaller-bodied herbivores,” the researchers wrote.
The study reshapes our understanding of how Indigenous peoples in ancient America thrived by hunting one of the most formidable and dominant animals of their time—the mammoth.
It underscores the exceptional adaptability and hunting expertise of the Clovis people while emphasizing the importance of engaging Indigenous communities in research involving their ancestors.
The findings provide deeper insights into how early humans interacted with their environment and their potential role in the extinction of iconic Ice Age megafauna.
(Raidi/Agung)
