Observations Regarding the Cerutti Mastodon^*

* Review and acceptance of this manuscript was managed by Eileen Johnson, Museum of Texas Tech University.

ABSTRACT

It has been argued that the Cerutti Mastodon site in southern California contains evidence of human activity 130,000 years ago. A brief examination of the materials did not support the claim of cultural artifacts or of bone processed by hominins. The assemblage from the site can be much better explained as a natural deposit, likely disturbed by other mastodons soon after the death of their comrade. Given the brevity of our study, it is important that future studies examine the data, fossils, and lithics to test the initial hypothesis. Additional excavations are also recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerutti mastodon
• peopling of the Americas
• Paleoindians
• bone tool technology
• unknown hominin

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the comments and suggestions of R. Lee Lyman and Marvin Kay on a draft of this paper, as well the comments of anonymous reviewers and PaleoAmerica’s guest editor, Eileen Johnson.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mark Q. Sutton earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of California Riverside in 1987 and is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Bakersfield, where he also served as the Director of the Center for Archaeological Research. He now teaches at the University of San Diego and works for Statistical Research, Inc. Sutton’s research has focused on the archaeology of hunter-gatherers in California and the Great Basin and on Paleoindians. Among his books are Archaeological Laboratory Methods: An Introduction (2014, with Brooke Arkush), Paleonutrition (2010, with K. Sobolik and J. Gardner), A Prehistory of North America (2011), Introduction to Cultural Ecology (2013, with E. Anderson), and An Introduction to Native North America (2016).

Jennifer Parkinson is a zooarchaeologist and paleoanthropologist interested in the archaeological record related to human diet and evolution. Specifically, her work has examined the importance of meat in the diet of early genus Homo and taphonomic evidence related to butchery. She has over 15 years of experience conducting fieldwork on early hominin sites in East Africa and has conducted extensive experimental modeling of carnivore and hominin bone surface damage. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Diego, and also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. She has previously held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Martin D. Rosen earned his M.A. in Anthropology from UCLA in 1977. He worked as a CRM consultant before and after a 30-year stint as an archaeologist for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). His primary areas of research have focused on Southern California prehistory, hominin evolution, and peopling of the New World. He has published on faunal and lithic analyses, and shell bead manufacturing, trade, and exchange. He currently serves on the Boards of two local museums in San Diego, where he lives with his wife in a historically designated 1921 Craftsman Bungalow.

ORCID

Mark Q. Sutton http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2065-5157

Notes

* Review and acceptance of this manuscript was managed by Eileen Johnson, Museum of Texas Tech University.