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Date: December 06, 2022 11:27AM
Horses and camels originated in the Americas, but died out due climate change at the end of last Ice Age (grasslands became forests or deserts) and hunting pressure from newly arrived humans.
https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2012/11/29/why-did-horses-die-out-in-north-america/While the genus adapted to life outside North America, the “home bodies” did not fare so well. Their extinction came quickly, as it did for many other large mammals on the continent.
They faced a changing climate, altering vegetation — and the arrival of man.
Biochemical analysis showed that some of the 13,000-year-old implements were used to butcher ice-age camels and horses.
The University of Colorado study was the first to identify protein residue from extinct camels on North American stone tools and only the second to identify horse protein residue on a Clovis-age tool. A third tool tested positive for sheep and a fourth for bear.
All 83 artifacts were shipped to anthropology professor Robert Yohe, of the Laboratory of Archaeological Science at California State, Bakersfield, for the protein residue tests.
“I was somewhat surprised to find mammal protein residues on these tools, in part because we initially suspected that the cache might be ritualistic rather than utilitarian,” Yohe said.
“There are so few Clovis-age tool caches that have been discovered that we really don’t know very much about them.”
Anthropology professor Douglas Bamforth, who led the study, said the discovery of horse and camel protein on the tools was the clincher for him that the tools were of Clovis origin.
“We haven’t had camels or horses around here since the late Pleistocene.”
The artifacts that showed animal protein residues were each tested three times to ensure accuracy.
Artifacts from the first Americans, known as the Clovis, cast some light on the relationship of these people with the horse.