Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off

Illustration Credits

Bill Reid (Haida artist, 1920–1998), The Raven and the First Men, 1978–1980, wood sculpture depicting the origin myth of the Haida tribe (Queen Charlotte Islands, off British Columbia, Canada); yellow cedar, 188.75 cm length x 192.6 cm diameter
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Canada, photo Nb1.481; in online exhibition Haida Spirits and the Sea, Virtual Museum of Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

Beringia (map)
Repository: Courtesy Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, National Park Service (Geologic Resources Division). Digital image courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin (Maps of United States National Parks and Monuments). National Park Service: map library

SLIDESHOW: Pleistocene Age mammals (6 images)

IMAGE 1: Glyptodon. Artist’s impression of Glyptodon (meaning “carved tooth”), an ancient armadillo found in Argentina during the Pleistocene
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1527

IMAGE 2: Giant paleo bison. Artist’s impression of Bison latifrons, a giant bison found in the southeastern United States during the Pleistocene
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1556

IMAGE 3: American mastodon. Artist’s impression of Mammut americanum, found on the American continent from Alaska to Mexico during the Pliocene (5.3 to 1.8 mya [million years ago]) and Pleistocene (1.8 mya to 10,000 years ago)
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1517

IMAGE 4: Smilodon. Artist’s impression of Smilodon (meaning “knife tooth”), sabre-toothed tiger, a Pleistocene mammal abundant in the Rancho La Brea tar pits of California, USA
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1491

IMAGE 5: Toxodon. Artist’s impression of Toxodon, a rhinoceros-like mammal found in the Pampean of Argentina during the Pleistocene
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1524

IMAGE 6: Cave bear. Artist’s impression of Ursus spelaeus, abundant during the Pleistocene (1.8 mya to 10,000 yrs), and believed to be the first animal to become extinct due to human activities
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1484

Remains of seven mammoths killed by Paleoindian Clovis hunters app. 14,000 years ago, Colby Mammoth Kill Site, north central Wyoming, ca. 1975
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Prof. George C. Frison, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Wyoming

Archaeological site in Alberta, Canada, dated to 11,000–13,000 B.P. (before present), with bones of an extinct horse that reveal marks of human butchering, 2001; in “Spearhead discovery puts horse on prehistoric menu,” 2 May 2001

LEFT PHOTO: Paul McNeil, a University of Calgary geology Ph.D. student, points out the remains of a mammoth footprint. In the background, on the left, fourth year Univ. of Calgary archaeology student Alan Youell and archaeologist Dr. Brian Kooyman.

RIGHT PHOTO: Dr. Len Hills, professor emeritus and paleontologist with the University of Calgary, holds the skull of an 11,300-year-old horse, found by University of Calgary researchers at St. Mary Reservoir in southern Alberta. The white material encasing the specimen is burlap and paper towelling soaked in plaster of Paris, which provides protection in handling and transport.
Repository: Reproduced by permission of University Communications, University of Calgary, Canada

Clovis fluted spear points, ca. 11,600 B.P., found in association with Columbian mammoth remains at the Lehner and Naco kill sites in the Upper San Pedro River Valley, Cochise County, Arizona; materials—andesite, chert, quartz, quartzite, rhyolite
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Arizona State Museum, The University of Arizona; Helga Teiwes, Photographer. Image #C-19210

Preserved spruce forest discovered buried in sand in northern Michigan, 10,000 years after late-Pleistocene warming caused spruce forests in the region to be replaced with pine forests; core samples taken to study tree-ring data; 1999
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Michigan Technological Institute, School of Forestry and Wood Products

SLIDESHOW: Ocean Drilling Project (3 images)

Ocean drilling project, 2003, which provided evidence to support the hypothesis that a massive release of methane from the ocean 55 million years ago caused extreme global warming and the extinction of many plankton organisms

IMAGE 1: Ship. JOIDES Resolution was converted in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in the fall of 1984. She was built in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1978 and had previously sailed the world as a top-class oil-exploration vessel.

IMAGE 2: Reentry cone: Reentry cones are used to reenter an existing hole and are positioned using either sonar or an underwater television system.

IMAGE 3: Core sampling. Core sectioning and capping: on the Core Deck.
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc. (see JOIDES Office, University of Miami, FL) of the international Ocean Drilling Program (ODP)

Pelvic and leg bones of a moa (Dinornis) held by paleontologists Jim Eyles, Roger Duff, and Ron Scarlett, Pyramid Valley, New Zealand, March 1949 (detail of photograph)
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the Canterbury Museum, New Zealand. Norman France Photograph #9212. Permission of the Canterbury Museum must be obtained before any re-use of this image

Skeleton and egg of an extinct elephant bird, Madagascar, 1913. From DigiMorph: The adult skeleton of Aepyornis is well described (Monnier, 1913; Wiman, 1935; Andrews, 1894; 1896; Lowe, 1930) and represents that of a very stout, robust bird, much more robust than that of the ostrich or even the moas. Aepyornis is most likely suited to stomping through dense forests rather than the cursorial lifestyle of the ostrich. The bones of Aepyornis commonly are found in peat deposits along the coast of Madagascar, occasionally in conjunction with hippopotamus bones (Wiman, 1935).
Repository: Reproduced by permission of DigiMorph: Digital Morphology, A National Science Foundation Digital Library at the University of Texas at Austin

Three-foot mammoth tusk discovered on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia (the last known site of mammoth habitation), during a 1998 research expedition to pursue a new hypothesis of the Pleistocene extinctions
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the American Museum of Natural History; in online exhibition Siberian Expedition: Wrangel Island

Cover, Seattle Weekly, 2 July 1998
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Seattle Weekly, Seattle, Washington

SLIDESHOW: Controversies pertaining to the New World prior to the arrival of Europeans (8 images)

IMAGE 1: Rock painting, ca. 15,000 B.P., Brazil
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Fundação Museu do Homem Americano, Brazil. Digital image courtesy Athena Review.

IMAGE 2: Excavation of oldest human remains discovered in North America, Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, British Columbia, August 1999; Kwaday Dän Sinchi remains dated to ca. A.D. 1500 (detail of photograph)
Repository: Permission pending

IMAGE 3: Flaked spearpoint of the Clovis paleoindian culture, Virginia
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources

IMAGE 4: Excavation of earliest known paleoindian "buffalo jump" site, ca. 12,000 B.P., Bonfire Shelter, Texas
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Texas Beyond History, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory. Photo by Steve Black.

IMAGE 5: Clay model based on skull of 10,600-year-old mummy, Nevada
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Reno Gazette-Journal, Reno, Nevada. Photograph by Marilyn Newton.

IMAGE 6: Bones of Kennewick Man.
Top: old break in a distal humeral shaft fragment showing secondary caliche deposit on fracture surface
Middle: left rib showing recent cracking
Bottom: left rib fragment; in ch. 5 of Report on the DNA Testing Results of the Kennewick Human Remains from Columbia Park, Kennewick, Washington, 2000
Repository: Courtesy National Park Service, Archeology and Ethnology Program

IMAGE 7: Giant ground sloth (artist’s impression of Paramylodon), found in Patagonia, Argentina, during the Pleistocene era
Repository: Reproduced by permission of The Natural History Museum, London (UK), #1484

IMAGE 8: Coprolite (fossil dung) from an early mammal, 3¾ in., 45 million years old, Eocene, Cowlitz Formation, Washington
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Jerry and Sandy Sherman, PaleoWorld Connection

SLIDESHOW: Environmental Reports (5 images)

IMAGE 1: Cover, Humans and Other Catastrophes: Perspectives on Extinction, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, 1999
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History. Cover artist: James Lui.

IMAGE 2: Cover, Global Environment Outlook 3, United Nations Environment Programme, 2003
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the United Nations Environment Programme

IMAGE 3: Cover, China’s Biodiversity: A Country Study, Environmental Protection Administration of China, 1998
Repository: Environmental Protection Admn. of China

IMAGE 4: Cover, Feeling the Heat in Florida: Global Warming on the Local Level, 2001
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the National Research Defense Council

IMAGE 5: Cover, Flirting with Disaster, U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, 2001
Repository: Permission pending

Depressions in bed of Paluxy River, Glen Rose, Texas, 1996
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Ira Walters and The National Center for Science Education

Dr. Carl Baugh, director of the Creation Evidence Museum, studying a depression in the bed of the Paluxy River, Glen Rose, Texas
Repository: Reproduced by permission of Carl E. Baugh, Ph.D., Director, Creation Evidence Museum

Home page, Humans and Other Catastrophes, online exhibition, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY
Repository: Reproduced by permission of the American Museum of Natural History

Tribal seal of the Weymontachie Band, Atikamekw Nation, Québec, Canada
Repository: Permission pending

Tribal seal of the Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma
Repository: Permission pending

Tribal seal of the Elwha Klallam Tribe, Washington
Repository: Permission pending

Tribal seal of the Coushatta Tribe, Louisiana
Repository: Permission pending