Early humans were 'big game hunters' with mammoth appetites, new research shows

New research examining the eating habits of the people who lived in North America during the Ice Age suggests they were skilled hunters with meaty, mammoth appetites.

A study published in the journal Science Advances provides new insight on the diet of the Clovis people — an ancient culture of early humans who spread rapidly across the continent around 13,000 years ago.

The peer-reviewed research suggests these early groups of highly transient hunter-gatherers were carnivores who ate a diet consisting mostly of mammoth meat, followed by other "megafauna" including elk and bison. 

The new insights came from a chemical analysis of the bones of a Clovis child, the only human remains of the period to survive, and a cache of Ice Age animal fossils unearthed from Alberta and sites across the northwestern Great Plains.

Archeologist James Chatters of McMaster University, who co-led the research, said the study shows the Clovis were "super carnivores" who took advantage of the abundance of giant animals on the landscape. 

"The result came out strongly supporting the idea that Clovis people, at least in the western part of the continent, were predominantly big game hunters," Chatters said in an interview with CBC. 

"If you are the first people on the landscape, it makes the most economic sense to go after the largest food packages."

Mammoth meat made up around 40 per cent of the Clovis diet, followed by elk at around 15 per cent. Bison, camel and wild horses were on the menu but contributed far less.

Small animals made up only four per cent of their diet, the study suggests. 

Chatters said seeing such a high result for mammoth meat was an "aha moment" that bolstered the Clovis people's reputation as skilled hunters — not foragers.

"That was a real major reward," he said. "It's direct evidence of their way of life." 

Known for their distinctive stone tools, the Clovis people emerged toward the end of the last Ice Age, when much of the globe was cloaked in ice and the areas of North America untouched by glaciers remained a frigid, arid grassland. 

The only human remains surviving from the period belong to a child, known as Anzick-1, who died at 18 months. His remains were found in 1968 in western Montana, alongside a cache of tools and elk antlers.

Researchers created a profile of the Clovis diet by analyzing isotopic data of the child's remains.