Assessing evidence for human megafaunal hunting at Lynford

(UK).

Geoff M Smith

Institute of Archaeology, UCL

The World of Mammoths: Vth International Conference on Mammoths and their Relatives

Lynford- Site Location

Stratigraphy and Dating

• Chalk overlain by series of palaeochannels

• Lynford palaeochannel- Oxbow lake– Occasional inputs of higher energy flow

• Areas of bank collapse and sediment gravity flows

• MIS 3- Devensian Cold Stage

Palaeochannel: Bank collapse

Stratigraphy and Dating

• Chalk overlain by series of palaeochannels

• Lynford palaeochannel- Oxbow lake– Occasional inputs of higher energy flow

• Areas of bank collapse and sediment gravity flows

• MIS 4/3- Devensian Cold Stage

Palaeoenvironmental evidence

• Plant macrofossils and pollen

• Fish

• Frogs

• Beetles

• Temperature estimates– Summer= 13°C– Winter= -10°C

Vertebrate Assemblage

%NISP = 66.9% (2341)

%NISP = 0.2% (7)

%NISP = 0%NISP = 1.3% (46)

%NISP = 0.1% (4)

%NISP = 2.9% (101)

Faunal Long Axis Orientation

Bank Collapse

Bone weathering

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Mammoth: Skeletal Rep.

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Carnivore Modifications 1

Carnivore Modifications 2

Carnivore Modification 3

Human Modifications

• No evidence for direct exploitation of mammoth remains.

Mammoth hunters?

• Schreve (2006)– Absence of long bones – No cut marks- not necessarily evidence of absence– High incidence of healed lesions and truama

• BUT Smith (2008):– Long bones not absent- highly fragmented– carnivore and hominin modifications– Pathologies could be have natural cause

Lynford- A ‘Natural Freezer?’

• Focal point• Accumulation of material

– Mammoth not single homogenous assemblage– Mammoth age structure

• Predator Scavengers– Scavenging though some evidence for primary

access– Antler- summer?

• Hominins• Migration?• Natural freezer

Human-Proboscidian Intearactions

• Such interactions still the source of fascination and interest.

• No definitive evidence from Middle Pal– Lynford- seasonal-scavenging?– La Cotte de St Brelade

• evidence for social structured subsistence behaviour?

• It is possible that Neanderthals hunted such megafauna- no evidence at Lynford.

?