Estimating age and season of death of pronghorn antelope (<i>Antilocapra americana</i> Ord) by means of tooth eruption and wear

Abstract Age and season of death information for prey animals at archaeological sites can address issues such as season of site occupation and prey hunting or harvesting strategies. Unfortunately, adequate reference information for estimating age and season is lacking for many wild species, including pronghorn antelope. To address this problem, new methods of scoring tooth eruption and wear have been developed and have been applied to a sample of over 500 pronghorn mandibles to obtain improved eruption and wear schedules. One implication of this study is that ‘age class discreteness’ is an unreliable method for demonstrating mass mortality of prey. This study provides a much larger comparative sample than previously available, although larger known‐age mandible samples are still needed for pronghorn and many other wild species. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.