Annual Banquet speaker - Dr David Overstreet

Human Adaptation to Late Pleistocene Landscapes - A View from Southeastern Wisconsin

Study of mammoth bone piles in Kenosha County Wisconsin has provided evidence of human-mammoth interaction between 13,500-12,500 radiocarbon years before present.  Chipped stone tools in association with two of the bone piles and micro-wear analyses support the thesis that the carcasses were butchered. Bone modification analyses also support this conclusion.  Whether or not the mammoth remains represent active or moribund prey is open to debate and thus the results do not speak to the role of human predation in Late Pleistocene extinctions

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