Discovery of mastodon blood on ice-age tools first of its kind in Ontario

Archeologist Dr. Ron Williamson can picture in his mind a likely scene from 13,000 years ago.

There is a small group of people up on that escarpment ... to watch caribou herds coming from the basin, maybe coming up the valley onto the tablelands," he said of a location on the brow adjacent to what is now the Red Hill Valley Parkway. But in this instance, they saw a mastodon ... down in the lower basin, and then they hunted it."

Williamson's Toronto-based firm, Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), announced last week blood residue from two animals - mastodon and dog - was found on tools uncovered years earlier during excavation prior to the development of land for the multi-lane highway.

Though anthropologists have always known these extinct megafauna, a term to describe the planet's largest mammals, existed in the province, a recent discovery is the first evidence of human interaction with them.

We have direct scientific evidence of people butchering a mastodon or mammoth," he said. We've never had that before in Ontario."

A three-spurred graver, a stone tool with sharp edges used during the Paleo-Indian period, tested positive against Asian elephant antiserum, used to identify ice-age giants. A small spear and a wedge, also made of stone, tested positive against dog antiserum.

We're obviously pretty excited," Williamson said.

The tools were tested in a last-ditch effort to extract information before they were donated, along with other stone objects found decades ago at the Mt. Albion West archeological site on the Niagara Escarpment, to the National Museum of History in Gatineau.

At the time, fellow author Andrea Carnavale suggested that, before releasing the tools, they do an analysis of the tool edges to see if any blood residue might have been hidden in the cracks of the tools." They sent them to a lab in Oregon for testing and, months later, received the results.

The findings, published by a team of researchers in a recently released article in the Journal of Archaeological Science, also show an early relationship between humans and domestic dogs in some kind of ritual context," Williamson said.

The discovery is also a reminder that Western science is completely in agreement with Indigenous science."

As long as it has been possible to live in Ontario, people have been here," Williamson said. This is really, really distant ancestors of the people who are here today."

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com