What can be learned from hair? A hair record from the Mammoth Meadow locus, southwestern Montana

Abstract

Abstract What can be learned from hair? This is a question that archaeologists usually do not ask, yet much can be learned about the past through the study of human and animal hair that is preserved in archaeological and paleontological records. Small numbers of hairs have occasionally been found at archaeological sites. These include dry cave deposits at Smith Creek Cave and Hand Print Cave of Nevada (A. L. Bryan, personal communication 1992), and Bechan Cave of south ern Utah (Davis et al. 1984); a wet cave site, False Cougar Cave (Bolen 1983; Bonnichsen eta/. 1986); peat deposits (Sawtelle 1991), and in permafrost (R. D. Guthrie, personal communication 1992). The hair record at Mammoth Meadow locus of the South Fork of Everson Creek site (24CB559) in southwestern Mon tana appears to be the first reported from an open-air site. Apparently hair occurs in different depositional contexts and may occur more frequently in archaeologi cal deposits than has been commonly recognized. Work reported here suggests that appropriate methodology has potential to increase hair recovery from archaeological sites by several orders of magnitude.