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A Study of Fractured Proboscidean Bones in Recent and Fossil Assemblages

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Abstract

Reliable methods are needed to distinguish anthropogenic from non-anthropogenic causes of proboscidean limb bone breakage in fossil assemblages because of theoretical uncertainty about human-proboscidean relationships in the Pleistocene. This paper compares experimentally broken bones of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) and mammoths (Mammuthus spp.) after establishing that limb bone fracture dynamics are the same for those proboscidean taxa. We show that features thought exclusively diagnostic of percussive fracturing of green proboscidean long bones such as notched fracture edges, smooth fracture surfaces, and curvilinear fracture outlines also can be created on non-green bones and on bones affected by non-anthropogenic processes. The information reported here can be applied in analyses or re-analyses of fossil proboscidean bone assemblages and may either support or potentially alter current interpretations of hominin behavior.

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Data Availability

Data are reported in this paper. The materials were examined and photographed in the field.

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Acknowledgments

Experimental work with elephant bones in Zimbabwe was made possible by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, which provided research permits and generous assistance in the field. Taphonomic fieldwork by G.Haynes was supported by seven grants from the National Geographic Society (numbers 2456-82, 2645-83, 2844-84, 3018-85, 3245-85, 3654-87, 4488-91), two awards from the Leakey Foundation (in 1990 and 1993), a Sub-Saharan Africa Research Grant from the Fulbright Foundation (in 1993), and faculty awards from the University of Nevada – Reno. Participation by K.Krasinski was partially supported by grants to Haynes. Participation by P.Wojtal was supported by the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences and grants from the National Science Centre, Poland (grant decisions No. DEC-2011/01/B/ST10/06889 and UMO-2015/17/B/HS3/00165). Our studies of curated mammoth bone collections were facilitated by staff at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and the Museum Support Facility, the Vienna Museum of Natural History, the Polish State Geological Institute in Warsaw, the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City, the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks, the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Czech Moravské Zemské Muzeum in Brno and Budisova, and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Leningrad. We thank the reviewers for helpful comments.

Funding

To Gary Haynes: National Geographic Society, Leakey Foundation, Fulbright Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA

    Gary Haynes

  2. Department of Anthropology, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA

    Kathryn Krasinski

  3. Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland

    Piotr Wojtal

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Gary Haynes: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - original draft, review & editing. Kathryn Krasinski: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft, review & editing. Piotr Wojtal: Data curation, Investigation, Writing - review and editing

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Correspondence to Gary Haynes.

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Haynes, G., Krasinski, K. & Wojtal, P. A Study of Fractured Proboscidean Bones in Recent and Fossil Assemblages. J Archaeol Method Theory 28, 956–1025 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-020-09486-3

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