Kill site database: A unified dataset on human-megafauna interactions across time and space

Abstract

The database presented in this data article is related to the paper “Megafauna kill sites in South America: a critical review” [1]. It includes a list of 134 publications on human-megafauna interaction, with 69 archaeological sites showing human-megafauna interaction. From these sites, 44 present a minimum human-megafauna association, from which up to 17 megafauna kill sites were classified, with up to 15 exploited extinct megafauna taxa. It also provides a list of current taxonomic classifications of extinct megafauna that humans have exploited according to empirical evidence presented in the related paper. The megafauna kill sites were classified based on five restrictive criteria according to Grayson and Meltzer's (2015, 2002), Borrero's (2009) and Mothé et al.’s (2020) protocol. The kill sites database reflects the empirical evidence on megafauna exploitation by humans available in scientific literature and is useful to understand the human-megafauna interactions in the late Quaternary. Finally, we also provide our online repository (www.killsitedatabase.com), an initiative to unify the evidence on megafauna kill sites (and their related data) worldwide, starting in South America.

Specifications Table

Subject	Biological sciences
Specific subject area	Systematics, Ecology and Behavior
Type of data	Table
How the data were acquired	Systematic reviews of the literature on human-megafauna interactions. Online searching, followed by grey literature and requirements directly to researchers
Data format	Raw Analyzed Filtered
Description of data collection	Search in online databases, grey literature and requirement directly to authors
Data source location	Scientific repositories as Web of Science (www.wes.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Jstor (www.jstor.org), PubMed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) and Scielo (scielo.org)
Data accessibility	Repository name: Mendeley Data Data identification number: 10.17632/trvzsszcjk.1 Direct URL to data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/trvzsszcjk
Related research article	H. Bampi, M. Barberi, M.S. Lima-Ribeiro, Megafauna kill sites in South America: A critical review, Quat Sci Rev. 298 (2022) 107851. 10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2022.107851.

Value of the Data

• •These data provide a systematic review of literature about human-megafauna interactions, as well as a systematic classification of archaeological sites with a minimum human-megafauna association and megafauna kill sites found in the South American archaeological record.
• •Researchers who need information related to human-megafauna interactions in South America (e.g., archaeologists, ecologists, anthropologists, evolutionists and sociologists) are the main users of these data.
• •The information about human-megafauna interactions that we synthesized can be used directly by other researchers for various applications in micro or macro scales, such as human-megafauna interactions at a place or macroecological and biogeographic analyses.

1. Objective

South America presents robust archaeological evidence, but its literature is hidden from the international audience; it is usually written in Latin languages ​​and often published in local Latin American journals. Consequently, the South American evidence about megafauna exploitation by humans is often ignored by researchers around the world. Thus, we provide the kill site database to help researchers find and explore the human-megafauna interactions in South America. The data in brief will add value to publicize our online repository kill site database (www.killsitedatabase.com), an initiative to join evidence of human-megafauna interactions (with emphasis on kill/scavenge sites) in interactive access, starting in South America and upgrading to worldwide.

2. Data Description

Table A.1 describes 134 publications (from online databases, grey literature or required to experts) showing any human-megafauna interactions in South America. Table A.2 comprises 69 archaeological sites with human-megafauna interaction in South America and their traits. Table A.3 describes 44 archaeological sites excluded in the first level classification, while 25 sites presenting a minimum association between humans and megafauna are described in Table A.4. From these sites, 17 megafauna kill sites (MKS) and 15 exploited taxa are classified from Grayson and Meltzer's [2,3] protocol and are described in Table A.8, while 13 MKS and 10 exploited taxa are found through Borrero’ [4] protocol and are described in Table A.9; Mothé et al.’s [5] protocol yielded only one MKS where a juvenile of Notiomastodon showed an embedded artifact and fractures on his skull, described in Table A.10.

Table 1 lists the extinct megafauna taxa exploited by humans and their frequency of exploitations (per matching protocol) in South America.

Table 1.

List of extinct megafauna taxa exploited and their frequency of exploitations (per matching protocol) by humans in South America. The taxonomy of the extinct megafauna was based on Koch and Barnosky ([6]: Table S1), except for recently revised taxa.

Order	Family	Genus	Frequency of exploitation per matching protocol
			Grayson and Meltzer [2,3]	Borrero [4]	Mothé et al. [5]
Xenarthra	Glyptodontidaea	Doedicurus	1	0	0
		Glyptodon	1	0	0
	Megatheriidae	Eremotherium	1	1	0
		Megatherium	2	1	0
	Mylodontidae	Glossotherium	3	0	0
		Mylodon	3	1	0
	Ursidae	Arctodus	1	0	0
Proboscidea	Gomphotheriidaeb	Cuvieronius	2	1	0
		Notiomastodon	6	4	1
Perissodactyla	Equidae	Equus	6	3	0
		Hippidion	5	3	0
Artiodactyla	Camelidae	Hemiauchenia	1	1	0
		Paleolama	1	1	0
		Lama	3	1	0
	Cervidae	Antifer	1	0	0
		Total	37	17	1

^aChlamydotherium and Heteroglyptodon were excluded because they are considered a synonym of Glyptodon by Zurita et al. [7]. ^bStegomastodon and Haplomastodon were excluded because they are considered a synonymy of Notiomastodon (= Notiomastodon platensis) by Mothé et al. [8,9].

3. Experimental Design, Materials and Methods

3.1. Data Selection

We performed a systematic review of the literature on human-megafauna interactions in South America. We searched papers available in online databases such as ISI Web of Science, Scopus, Jstor, PubMed and Scielo, with the following search terms present in the title, abstract and keywords: “kill site”, “killing site”, “exploitation site”, “scavenge site”, “megafauna killing”, “megafauna hunting”, “megafauna exploitation”, “human-megafauna interaction”, “human hunting”, “human exploitation”, “South American megafauna hunting”, “South American archeology”, and “late Quaternary extinction”. Then, we read and selected articles describing archaeological sites with any information on human-megafauna interactions. We also accessed publications from grey literature (e.g., articles from local journals, books, meetings, Master's and Ph.D. theses, research reports and technical notes) and requesting directly to researchers. We accessed publications written in english and Latin languages (Portuguese, Spanish and France).

We used the Grayson and Meltzer's [2,3] protocol for classifying the kill sites from human-megafauna interactions through that is based on two steps: i) searching a minimum of human-megafauna association, and ii) classifying megafauna kill sites. The minimum of human-megafauna association.

3.2. Archaeological Sites with a Minimum Human-Megafauna Association

Archaeological sites with a minimum human-megafauna association 1) presented insufficient data (when researchers did not find sufficient evidence to show clear association between humans and megafauna); 2) revealed mere bone tools (bones that have been secondarily modified by humans and used as tools, not denoting human-megafauna interaction); and 3) exposed questionable archaeological status unable to show evidence of human-megafauna interaction (when geological or stratigraphic contexts have been disturbed, doubtful/questionable or absent, not allowing the clear primary relationship between human tools and the remains of extinct mammals, or showing a secondary association between them) (Grayson and Meltzer, [2]: Table III).

3.3. Megafauna Kill Sites

Megafauna kill sites were classified according to three protocols (liberal-conservative): (a) Grayson and Meltzer [2,3], which does not distinguish killing of scavenge actions and considers stratigraphic association among humans and megafauna remains as exploitation evidence; (b) Borrero [4] considers only behavioral associations (evidence other than stratigraphic association) as exploitation evidence; and (c) Mothé et al. [5] accept only the embedded artifact as killing. All MKSs present no radiometric contradiction and no bone anomaly, as required by Haynes and Stanford [10] and Haynes [11].

Ethics Statements

Not applicable. These data do not include data from experiments with any human subjects, animal experiments, or social media platforms.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Hugo Bampi: Conceptualization, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Maira Barberi: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Supervision. Matheus S. Lima-Ribeiro: Conceptualization, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data Availability

• Kill site database: a unified dataset on human-megafauna interactions across time and space (Reference data) (Mendeley Data)