Mammoth Meat Powered Ice Age Humans, Study Finds

Have you ever wondered what prehistoric humans ate 13,000 years ago? Researchers in the United States and Canada have presented evidence suggesting that some of the earliest inhabitants of North America preferred their steak large—like, mammoth-sized large.

A team of scientists, led by James C. Chatters of McMaster University and Ben A. Potter from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has presented the first direct evidence that Clovis people consumed large animals, such as mammoths, for food. Their findings, detailed in a December 4 study published in the journal Science Advances, could help explain early humans’ rapid expansion throughout the continent and shed light on their possible role in the extinction of large mammals at the end of the last ice age.

Location of the Anzick child discovery, study faunal samples (circles), and important Clovis sites (triangles). The white is the glacial ice around 12,800 years ago. © Chatters et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadr3814 (2024)

Clovis refers to a prehistoric culture in North America, known for its distinctive stone tools, that emerged toward the end of the last Ice Age. Clovis people are widely considered to be the ancestors of today’s Indigenous people of the Americas, but their diets have become a contentious topic among experts. While some scholars argue that Clovis people thrived on foraging and small game, others claim they were “megafaunal specialists,” the researchers wrote in the study, meaning big-game hunters. The results of the study confirm the latter theory.

The team analyzed isotopic data, measuring atoms in samples to uncover their origins and ancient eating habits. They studied pre-existing isotopic data from the 13,000-year-old remains of a Clovis infant previously discovered in Montana, and reconstructed his mother’s diet. They then compared that inferred diet to the isotopic data of foods that would have been available to her in that region. 

“Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer’s diet and can be compared with those from potential diet items to estimate the proportional contribution of different diet items,” Mat Wooller of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who participated in the study, said in a university statement. In other words, Wooller and his colleagues were able to estimate the proportions of different food sources within the woman’s diet. 

According to the study, 40% of the Clovis woman’s food came from mammoths. Most of the remainder came from other large animals such as elk and bison, with only a small fraction coming from small mammals. This is the first direct evidence of Clovis people’s preferred meals—previous research had only inferred this via secondary evidence including stone tools or animal remains. 

The scientists then compared these results to the diet of other omnivores and carnivores from the same period, and found that the woman’s diet was most similar to the scimitar cat—a big cat that notoriously preyed on mammoths. Coincidence? The researchers (and Edna Mode) would think not. 

“What’s striking to me is that this confirms a lot of data from other sites. For example, the animal parts left at Clovis sites are dominated by megafauna [large animals], and the projectile points are large, affixed to darts, which were efficient distance weapons,” Potter said. 

The megafauna theory is also consistent with several other elements. Since animals like mammoths existed across the Americas, they would have been a reliable source of fatty protein for migrating people—such as the Clovis—in a way that smaller regional animals could not. 

“The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years,” Chatters said. The Clovis people’s preference for big game could have also had a hand in the extinction of large animals that took place at the end of the last ice age.

“If the climate is changing in a way that reduces the suitable habitat for some of these megafauna, then it makes them potentially more susceptible to human predation. These people were very effective hunters,” Potter said. Indeed, as the last ice age waned and vast tundras transformed into dense forests, the mammoths were already struggling—and humans hit them while they were down. 

“This study reshapes our understanding of how Indigenous people across America thrived by hunting one of the most dangerous and dominant animals of the day, the mammoth,” said Shane Doyle, executive director of Yellowstone Peoples. The team reached out to Native American tribal governments in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to involve them in the study of their ancestors.

Considering the mammoth’s ultimate extinction and early humans’ potential role in it, Manny’s sympathy for the human child he returned to its father in Blue Sky Studios’ Ice Age feels increasingly unrealistic.