DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSES AND TAPHONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS OF CULTURALLY-MODIFIED MAMMOTHS EXCAVATED AT THE GRAVEL-PIT, NEAR CLOVIS, NEW-MEXICO IN 1936

The vertebrate fossil collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia includes the remains of Mammoth 1 and Mammoth 2 (ANSP 14 361, ANSP 14360) recovered in 1936 by Dr. John L. Cotter and party. Th ese mammoths were found in association with the type Clovis Fluted pro jectile points at Blackwater Locality No. 1, near Clovis, in Roosevelt County, New Mexico. This material includes the superbly preserved fos sils upon which the concept of mammoth hunting in North America was es tablished more than 50 years ago and is for that reason widely recogni zed by North American paleontologists and archaeologists. This paper p resents the first reported descriptive analyses and taphonomical obser vations of the Cotter material. The right M3 of Mammoth 2 comprises 18 plates as in typical Mammuthus columbi (Falconer 1857), to which both mammoths are assigned. Mammoth 2 was 35 years of age at death, based on dental eruption scheduling and wear in modem African elephants and was female on the basis of fused epiphyses. On the basis of slight you thfulness of the right M2 of Mammoth 1 relative to the M2's of Mammoth 2, Mammoth 1 was 34 years of age at death and was a male on the basis of fusing epiphyses. Cultural modification to joint areas on limbs an d on ribs is heavy, consistent with stiffened carcasses and scavenging by Clovis foragers. These modifications include marks resulting from dismemberment of the feet, where bone foreshafts recovered by Cotter a re shown to have been employed as wedges or levers and where a coopera tive dismemberment operation involving two processors is reconstructed from replicas refit to superimposed damage patterns.