Abstract

Human and animal hair appears to be an important source of information that is routinely overlooked at some archaeological and paleontological sites. Hair has the potential to make contributions to our understanding of paleoecology, paleontology, and human prehistory. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the techniques and values of hair recovery by using a case study from the Mammoth Meadow site, southwestern Montana. Archaeological research conducted at the Mammoth Meadow site (24BE559) has led to the discovery of a deeply stratified workshop-habitation site with a Holocene and late Pleistocene archaeological record, which contains numerous flaked stone artifacts, animal bones, and features that date from the time of white contact to the end of the Pleistocene. A human and animal hair record occurs below a tephra lens that has been identified as Glacier Peak volcanic ash that is dated 11,000 yrs B.P. at a number of localities in the western United States. Hair and other organic remains including plant debris, fish scales, and feathers, occur in anaerobic silt and clay deposits at and below the water table. By using a process of pre-soaking sediments in sodium hexametaphosphate, it has been possible to disaggregate the hair from silts and clays and to use screen washing and flotation techniques to routinely collect human and animal hair. At the Center for the Study of the First Americans a series of related studies have been initiated. R. Ervin Taylor, U.C. Riverside is attempting to date hair keratin by AMS C-14 method. Drawing on Oregon State University Fish and Wildlife Department study skin collection, which contains over 8,000 specimens, Kate Rendich is: (1) developing comparative control samples of hair mounted on slides; (2) mounting hairs from, Mammoth Meadow; (3) using a video-digital imagery system to compare the known samples with unknown specimens. AdditionaIly, Walt Rearn, Agricultural Chemistry and Katherine Field, Microbiology, are attempting to determine if DNA can routinely be extracted from ancient hair. Results of these related projects will be reported at the conference.