In other cases, right shoulder blades were lined up together, while left shoulder blades were not collected, possibly indicating a different connotation about the right sides versus left sides of animals. Some shoulder blades and tusks were aligned artistically around the skull of an animal. But humans also appear to have honored the animals, as shown by the arrangement of some of the bones.
Humans sharpened rib bones to use as knives to cut the mammoth meat and they polished other bones to help remove fat from the skin.Researchers envision groups of between 20 and 30 hunters chasing the animals into the pits, where they were trapped for slaughter for meat and tools.This evidence that early humans intentionally dug mammoth traps changes our fundamental understanding of their social organization.More than 820 bones have been found in the two pits near Tultepec. Credit: Edith Camacho/INAH The two pits discovered so far are 5.5 ft deep (1.7 m) and 82 ft (25 m) in diameter and contain 824 bones, with eight mammoths found in the southern pit and six found in the northern pit.The large excavation (120 ft × 300 ft × 24 ft, or 40 m × 100 m × 8 m) into the flat-lying sediments of ancient Lake Xaltocan revealed pits with vertical walls that appear to have been dug by humans to trap the great herbivores.Centuries later, interglacial flooding filled the pits with lake sediments, which solidified. About 15,000 years ago, the area was a dried-up lakebed during the climatic instability of the Pleistocene Epoch.The ash was dated at around 14,700 years old and documents about 500 years of volcanic activity.Ī woolly mammoth skull and tusks. Credit: Edith Camacho/INAH Ash layers from Popocatépetl, a nearby volcano, were found above and interlayered with the mammoth remains.Researchers had previously found evidence of at least five mammoth herds in the region that lived alongside herds of prehistoric camels and horses.The Tultepec II excavation site is now considered one of the world’s “mammoth megasites” (sites where numerous mammoth bones are found).Ten months later, the researchers had unearthed prehistoric pits filled with the remains of woolly mammoths-more than 800 bones from at least 14 animals.In early 2019, while excavating for a landfill at the site of a future airport near the town of Tultepec, north of Mexico City, crews discovered some huge bones and called upon scientists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to investigate.But recent finds show that as many as 14,700 years ago, hunter-gatherer bands of humans deliberately trapped woolly mammoths in hand-dug pits and may have used the same pits repeatedly for more than 500 years. Synopsis: Researchers appear to have underestimated the hunting prowess of prehistoric humans, assuming they could only hunt the huge megafauna of the Pleistocene if the animals were already compromised or injured. When they finally abandoned the pits, they left the mammoth bones artfully arranged inside, with tusks and shoulder blades encircling skulls, perhaps in tribute to the animals that fed and clothed them for centuries. It also appeared that many generations of humans hunted mammoths here, using this site for more than 500 years.
Like the Plains Indians, these hunters were resourceful with the animals, turning bones into knives and scrapers, which they used in butchering. It appeared that early tribes had driven the giant beasts into them, trapping them for slaughter. They were also able to determine, based on sediment layers deposited within the pits and tool marks on their walls, that humans had dug them 15,000 years ago, by hand. There were herds that lived in the area long ago.
They realized the 800 bones within the pits had come from woolly mammoths. When constructing a new airport north of Mexico City, workers unearthed enormous bones and called in scientists, who discovered two massive pits 80 feet in diameter. Scientists thought that humans practiced communal hunting drives like this as far back as 5,000 years ago. One of the ways they hunted them was by stampeding them over cliffs. Plains Indians depended on buffalo for everything: meat for food, hide for clothing, horns and bones for weapons and tools. Researchers unearthed the remains of 14 mammoths inside human-made traps in Mexico. Credit: Edith Camacho/INAH
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