Mammoth (Mammuthus spp.) and American mastodont (Mammut americanum) bonesites: what do the differences mean?

Based on dental anatomy, bone geochemistry, pollen analyses, and paleoecological studies of fossil bonesites, it seems clear that mastodonts did segregate from mammoths in habitat choices and diets. But based on analogical studies of modern elephant (Loxodonta africana) biology, behavior, and bonesites, there is no strong reason to believe that mastodont social behavior differed from that of mammoths in significant ways. The distribution of modern elephant bonesites reflects both habitat features (such as the distribution of water and forage) as well as features of elephant behavior. Mastodont and mammoth bonesites also probably reflect the same kinds of features. Allowing for differences in habitats between the North American Pleistocene contexts and the recent African contexts, it is possible to use observations and principles derived from the modern elephant studies to reconstruct important characteristics of extinct mammoth and mastodont life. The death processes affecting mastodonts were not necessarily distinct from the processes affecting mammoths.