Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Wear stages and crown heights in prehistoric bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) lower molars in eastern Washington state, U.S.A. R.Lee Lyman Department of Anthropology, 112 Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Bighorn sheep Mandibular molars Molar crown heights Molar crown widths Molar wear stages Ovis canadensis ABSTRACT Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) remains are often found in western North American archaeological sites. Determination of ontogenetic age of zooarchaeological individuals would allow assessment of season of pro- curement, herd demography at the time of procurement, and perhaps differential processing. The known dental eruption schedule for bighorn is imprecise for purposes of estimating season of death, and all teeth are erupted when an individual is ~ 42 months old, precluding detailed analysis of herd demography. The tooth wear se- quence established by Sebastian Payne for Old World domestic sheep (Ovis aries) extends to near the end of an individual's lifespan and is applicable to New World bighorn based on a zooarchaeological sample of 105 mandibular molars. Crown heights and crown widths of the zooarchaeological bighorn molars correlate with one another and with wear stages, suggesting study of a modern sample of bighorn mandibular dentitions from individuals of known ontogenetic age would repay the effort. 1. Introduction Paleozoologists have long examined teeth because dentitions com- prise one of the most taxonomically diagnostic skeletal parts and also because teeth tend to preserve well in the fossil record (Hillson, 2005). Further, teeth often reveal details about the ecology (e.g., Fortelius and Solounias, 2000; Rivals et al., 2007) and demography (e.g., Kurtén, 1983) of the represented species. Zooarchaeologists, those who study animal remains recovered from archaeological deposits, have found, like wildlife scientists, that knowing the relationship between the dental eruption schedule or stage of tooth wear and reproductive season of a species will indicate the season when prehistoric people hunted (and killed) a species (e.g., Stiner, 1991; Todd et al., 1990, 1996). In North America, a great deal of the latter kind of research has involved bison (Bison spp.), a taxon the remains of which are common in many archaeological deposits, particularly those in the Plains states and provinces where locations known as kill sites contain remains of tens and sometimes hundreds of individual bison (e.g., Frison, 1973, 1974; Reher and Frison, 1980; Speth, 1983; Wilson, 1988). Kill sites often produce large samples of dentitions conducive to detailed study of numerous attributes of teeth (e.g., Todd et al., 1996). The remains of non-bison ungulates are also often found in ar- chaeological deposits across North America (e.g., Frison, 2004). Species represented by zooarchaeological remains include deer (Odocoileus virginianus, O. hemionus), elk or wapiti (Cervus canadensis), pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), and bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis). Archaeological dentitions of these species have not been as intensively and extensively studied as those of bison, though some work with pronghorn dentitions has proven archaeologically informative (e.g., Lubinski, 2001; Lubinski and O'Brien, 2001). The relative rarity of studies of non-bison ungulate dentitions likely results from the rarity of kill site-related bone concentrations; pronghorn kill sites are known, for instance (e.g., Fenner, 2009), but I am unaware of, on one hand, deer kill sites. Bighorn sheep kill sites or closely related deposits such as camp sites where remains from one or more kills of (multiple?) in- dividual bighorn have been accumulated and deposited are, on the other hand, known (e.g., Driver, 1982; Fisher and Valentine, 2013; Frison, 1985; Grayson, 1988; Hughes, 2004; Rapson, 1990; Thomas and Mayer, 1983). Detailed studies of zooarchaeological bighorn sheep dentitions may be rare because little is known about tooth eruption schedules and wear patterns for this taxon and its North American congeners (e.g., Deming, 1952; Hemming, 1969). Detailed study of Holocene (last 11,700 years) bison dentitions recovered from North American archaeological deposits has revealed much about tooth de- velopment, eruption, and wear in this taxon that was not previously known among wildlife biologists (see Todd et al. (1996) for a brief history). This suggests similarly detailed study of prehistoric remains of other ungulate species may be equally revealing. In this paper I describe age-related dental phenomena observed in a large collection of prehistoric bighorn sheep teeth recovered from a deposit in eastern Washington state. Although the collection is in some ways less than ideal, the same could be said for the first collections of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.07.003 Received 26 May 2017; Accepted 5 July 2017 E-mail address: lymanr@missouri.edu. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 15 (2017) 40–47 2352-409X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK