Bison death assemblages and the interpretation of human hunting behaviour

Bison kill sites on the North American Plains are well-studied archaeological examples of human communal hunting and mass killing of large ungulates. Assemblages of bison bones from these sites are dominated by the remains of prime adults, and younger animals are not as well represented as expected. We propose that predation by large carnivores preferentially removed calves and yearlings from some herds prior to the preferred seasons for...