Age profiles in elephant and mammoth bone assemblages

Auteur :
HAYNES, G.

Description :
Age profiles of modern African elephant populations are significantly affected by drought conditions that cause local die-offs. Subadult animals die in proportions that may be nearly twice what is recorded in live populations. Such biasing of death sample age profiles might also have occurre during late Pleistocene die-offs of Mammuthus. This comparative study of modern and fossil proboscidean age structures supports a tentative interpretation that late Pleistocene extinction of Mammuthus (at least in the southwestern United States) resulted from severe drought conditions, in which Clovis hunters were witnesses, but not necessarily frequent participants.


Type de document :
Article de périodique

Source :
Quaternary research New York, 1985, vol. 24, n°. 3, p. 333-345, Références bibliographiques : 36 réf.

Date :
1985