New faculty member Dr. Madeline Mackie’s work at the La Prele Mammoth site is featured in this quarter’s American Archaeology magazine

New faculty member Dr. Madeline Mackie’s work at the La Prele Mammoth site is featured in this quarter’s American Archaeology magazine. The approximately 12,900-year-old site contains the remains of a butchered Columbian mammoth and at least four camp areas thought to be associated with the animal’s butchery. The presence of an associated camp is particularly notable as there are only two other proboscidean (mammoth and their kin) butchery sites in North America where camps have been identified. In addition to stone tools and animal remains, the site has produced a suite of artifacts including a bone bead and needles, some of the oldest south of the Pleistocene ice sheets, and a large stain of ocher, a natural red pigment. The site is helping archaeologists understand what life was like for the Ice Age residents of the continent.