Reconsidering G. Haynes’ (2023) Speculation about the Hebior Mammoth Site: A Correction

A photograph in the Milwaukee Public Museum shows an excavated lithic artifact at the Hebior site lying on light-colored sediment, below a near-white mammoth bone. The sediment under the lithic appears to be the same pale color as the fluidized sand that had been injected into darker sediment elsewhere in the Hebior site. In a PaleoAmerica article (Haynes, G. 2022. “Sites in the Americas with Possible or Probable Evidence for the Butchering of Proboscideans.” PaleoAmerica 8 (3): 187–214), and based on the Museum photograph, Haynes speculated that the artifact might have been injected into the Hebior bonebed along with the fluidized sand during a geological event, potentially related to seismic activity. However, the photograph in the Museum is either badly exposed, badly printed, bleached from the display lighting, or had been manipulated to make the bone and the artifact easier to discern. A record photograph of the materials in situ shows the sediment around, above, and beneath the lithic artifact is uniformly darker in color, and the bone above the artifact is not white. The speculation that the artifact was injected with sand is not supported.