Whatever the specific method, it involved skill, planning, and knowledge of the animal’s anatomy.

The rib is not the easiest target — it requires a weapon to penetrate the tough outer cortex before reaching the intercostal space or the internal organs.

A hunter aiming for the rib — or accepting a hit on the rib as an acceptable result of an attempt to penetrate the chest cavity — knew what they were doing.

What The Site Did Not Contain

In addition to the mastodon skeleton and the rib with its embedded bone fragments, the Manis site contained other materials that are worth briefly describing — not because they dramatically change the interpretation, but because understanding what was and was not found at the site helps calibrate what the evidence actually demonstrates.