On Thursday, January 21, the meeting of the Huron Valley Chapter of the Michigan Archaeological Society will include a lecture by Daniel Fisher, paleontologist at the University of Michigan. Dr. Fisher will discuss underwater carcass storage and the evidence for the role of proboscideans in subsistence practices of Pleistocene humans. He will address the question of why their bones are usually found in wetlands.

The fossil record of late Pleistocene proboscideans (mastodons and mammoths) in eastern North America has often been understood as consisting of animals that died of natural causes and were preserved in wetland settings with little or no evidence of human association. However, close inspection of many of these sites reveals patterns of bone processing that suggest instead that proboscidean carcass parts were brought to pond or bog settings by humans and were stored underwater to protect them from scavenging and preserve them for human consumption in times of food shortage. These sites thus shed new light on human subsistence and early history in North America.

7:30 p.m. on Zoom. For details on how to join the meeting, contact one of the organizers:
Ann Zinn - annczinn@umich.edu
John Farmer - ajf-jlf@sbcglobal.net
Grant Faber - gfaber@umich.edu