Why a Clovis bone needle is the most important artifact in North America. | The LaPrele Mammoth Site

In this episode of Ethnocynology, David highlights a recent paper published about a bone needle he helped excavate in the summer of 2022. While David wasn’t an author on the paper, he was there when it was excavated, recorded the moment, and recently conducted interviews with the two leading authors of the paper. David discusses how he read a comment on his post about the needle that made him stop to think about how important such a small item could be to ancient Americans on the ice age plains. David discusses how to read an academic paper, while conducting interviews with the researchers, weaving them into the podcast. ArchPodNet: https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/ethnocynology ______________________________________________ LINK TO THE PAPER IS HERE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0313610 Abstract: We report the first identifications of species and element used to produce Paleolithic bone needles. Archaeologists have used the tailored, fur-fringed garments of high latitude foragers as modern analogs for the clothes of Paleolithic foragers, arguing that the appearance of bone needles and fur bearer remains in archaeological sites c. 40,000 BP is indirect evidence for the advent of tailored garments at this time. These garments partially enabled modern human dispersal to northern latitudes and eventually enabled colonization of the Americas ca. 14,500 BP. Despite the importance of bone needles to explaining global modern human dispersal, archaeologists have never identified the materials used to produce them, thus limiting understanding of this important cultural innovation. We use Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) and Micro-CT scanning to establish that bone needles at the ca. 12,900 BP La Prele site (Wyoming, USA) were produced from the bones of canids, felids, and hares. We propose that these bones were used by the Early Paleoindian foragers at La Prele because they were scaled correctly for bone needle production and readily available within the campsite, having remained affixed to pelts sewn into complex garments. Combined with a review of comparable evidence from other North American Paleoindian sites, our results suggest that North American Early Paleoindians had direct access to fur-bearing predators, likely from trapping, and represent some of the most detailed evidence yet discovered for Paleoindian garments. ____________________________________________________________________ Website: https://www.Davidianhowe.com​ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/davidianhowe Store: https://www.davidianhowe.com/store Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ethnocynology Discord: https://discord.gg/WQSt39jHTg _________________________________________ Timecodes 0:00 Intro credits 0:58 Intro 2:24 The Paper 3:48 Paper Introduction/Wyoming Cold 6:50 Dr. Pelton on LaPrele 7:59 Paleolithic life in Wyoming 9:03 Thermoregulation research 10:44 Work in Mongolia 11:34 Thermoregulation / Clothing 12:24 Why is a bone needle so important 14:32 Oldest Bone Needle? 15:31 Why you need them 17:27 Neanderthal hibernation? 19:21 Intro Summary 20:34 Making bone needles with Donny Dust 26:17 Methods and Materials / McKenna’s role 27:40 ZooMs process 32:30 David summarizes zooms / results 36:04 What happened to the needle? 35:29 Paper Results 38:27 Dr. Mackie explains the excavations 41:00 David on the paper results 42:41 Paper Discussion 43:03 Dr. Pelton on the results / trapping animals 45:54 Trapping animals / diet / thermoregulation 47:28 McKenna tool utility vs. Indigenous perspectives 49:42 Dr. Pelton’s ideas on Paleoindian life 51:03 McKenna’s future research 52:20 Paper conclusion 53:43 David’s final wrap-up and thoughts