Early Americans relied heavily on mammoth meat for their survival, which suggests they were skilled at hunting the prehistoric beasts, according to a new study. It is the first direct evidence of mammoths and other megafauna in their diets.

In the study, the remains of a 12,800-year-old toddler from the Paleoindian Clovis culture were analyzed. Previously, information about the Clovis people's diet had only been gleaned from indirect evidence, such as stone tools or prey animals. They were thought to be primarily foragers that ate plants and small creatures.

The latest findings show that the Clovis people were experts at hunting mammoths and other large animals, which made up the main part of their diets.

The Clovis people were prehistoric Native Americans who lived in North America roughly 13,000 years ago, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch.

The culture was known for its sharp, pointed stone tools. It is named after the Clovis archaeological site in Mexico and is regarded as the ancestors of modern Native Americans.

A research team examined data extracted from the skeletal remains of an 18-month-old boy called Anzick-1. The remains are nearly complete and were found in 1968 at a Clovis burial site located in Wilsall, Montana. So far, just three sets of remains have ever been determined to be possible members of the Clovis culture.

Anzick-1 stands out from the rest because the toddler's remains are the only ones that researchers have been able to conduct an isotopic analysis on.

"Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer's diet and can be compared with those from potential diet items to estimate the proportional contribution of different diet items," said Matthew Wooller, a co-author of the study and director of the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

From the toddler, the researchers pieced together his mother's diet, providing a glimpse into what the ancient group ate.

Sign up for Chip Chick's newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.

The analysis revealed that the toddler's mother consumed a diet that was rich in mammoth meat. It represented about 40 percent of everything she ate.

Other large animals, including bison, elk, and a now-extinct type of camel, made up the rest of her diet. Small mammals and plants were only a small portion of her diet.

The researchers also compared the mother's diet with carnivorous and omnivorous creatures that lived during the same time period, such as American lions, bears, and wolves. They discovered it was most similar to the extinct scimitar cat, which most likely hunted mammoths.

Overall, the research suggests that the Clovis people were focused on hunting megafauna, primarily mammoths, and were not regular consumers of smaller herbivores.

"This study reshapes our understanding of how Indigenous people across America thrived by hunting one of the most dangerous and dominant animals of the day, the mammoth," said Shane Doyle, the executive director of Yellowstone Peoples.