A new snapshot of a camp on a central Chile lake reveals a picture of a band of hunter-gatherers who paused to butcher, then feast upon, an extinct relative of the elephant about 12,450 years ago.
The narrative the archeologists are trying to construct based on artifacts found there includes seasonal stops at Tagua Tagua Lake and the periodic banding together of multiple groups, according to a study in PLOS ONE.
The dominant feature of the site is the fossil remains of a gomphothere, an extinct relative of the elephant. The bones show signs of butchering, and nearby stone tools — including one probably used to scrape the hide — supports that.
The site also features other signs of food processing — including the charred remains of plants and small animals, as well as fossilized cactus seeds. The archeologists then used those artifacts to make several inferences.
First, they suspect ...
