Archaeologists report that Neanderthals, our vanished cousins who once occupied much of Europe, may have been more versatile hunters than once supposed.
Neanderthals (or Neandertals) have long been seen as homebodies who stuck to hunting near their caves, but a Journal of Archaeological Science review of their tools and butchery sites in southwestern France suggests they got around when it came to hunting reindeer and bison starting about 75,000 years ago.
"Do Neandertal technologies relate to distinct mobility patterns? How do they vary in time? Do they differ significantly from the strategies developed by early Anatomically Modern Humans," asks Anne Delagnes and William Rendu of France's Universite Bordeaux in the review. Neanderthals disappeared from the archaeological record about 30,000 years ago, about the time modern humans moved into Europe. (A 2010 Science study of Neanderthals genes suggested 1% - 4% of most people of Eurasian descent carry some Neanderthal in them.)
From roughly 350,000 to 80,000 years ago, the stone blade technology associated with Neanderthal sites belong to dual-faced butchering tools intended for single use, surrounded by remains suggesting hunters moved around chasing non-migratory species such as red deer and roe deer.
About 75,000 years ago however, the Neanderthal toolkit expanded, with reused blade flakes predominating at specific kill sites used to target migratory species such as reindeer and bison, the study authors find:
"...the repeated use of a specific site at a precise time of the year for the exploitation of a particular taxon is evidence of hunting activities that were scheduled according to a year-round pattern for the exploitation of gregarious and migratory prey. The specific hunting locations would have acted as satellites of the principal living sites, to which high utility resources (meat, grease, marrow and skin) were transported. Meat procurement was embedded in a mobility strategy that directly echoed the structure of the technological system. It is also indicative of the emergence of specialized and seasonally scheduled subsistence strategies."
Why the change? Perhaps climate shifts altered the woodland home of the deer to plains, friendlier homes for bison and reindeer. "During the cold periods of the Upper Pleistocene, a greater dependence on meat consumption and an increased ungulate biomass associated with a proliferation of large migrating herbivore herds, particularly reindeer and bison, likely favored the emergence of new hunting strategies."
Not so dumb after all, those Neanderthals.
Author: Dan Vergano | Source: USA Today [June 14, 2011]
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| Neanderthals moved to kill sites to hunt migrating bison and reindeer some 75-35,000 years ago [Credit: JAS/Elsevier] |
"Do Neandertal technologies relate to distinct mobility patterns? How do they vary in time? Do they differ significantly from the strategies developed by early Anatomically Modern Humans," asks Anne Delagnes and William Rendu of France's Universite Bordeaux in the review. Neanderthals disappeared from the archaeological record about 30,000 years ago, about the time modern humans moved into Europe. (A 2010 Science study of Neanderthals genes suggested 1% - 4% of most people of Eurasian descent carry some Neanderthal in them.)
From roughly 350,000 to 80,000 years ago, the stone blade technology associated with Neanderthal sites belong to dual-faced butchering tools intended for single use, surrounded by remains suggesting hunters moved around chasing non-migratory species such as red deer and roe deer.
About 75,000 years ago however, the Neanderthal toolkit expanded, with reused blade flakes predominating at specific kill sites used to target migratory species such as reindeer and bison, the study authors find:
"...the repeated use of a specific site at a precise time of the year for the exploitation of a particular taxon is evidence of hunting activities that were scheduled according to a year-round pattern for the exploitation of gregarious and migratory prey. The specific hunting locations would have acted as satellites of the principal living sites, to which high utility resources (meat, grease, marrow and skin) were transported. Meat procurement was embedded in a mobility strategy that directly echoed the structure of the technological system. It is also indicative of the emergence of specialized and seasonally scheduled subsistence strategies."
Why the change? Perhaps climate shifts altered the woodland home of the deer to plains, friendlier homes for bison and reindeer. "During the cold periods of the Upper Pleistocene, a greater dependence on meat consumption and an increased ungulate biomass associated with a proliferation of large migrating herbivore herds, particularly reindeer and bison, likely favored the emergence of new hunting strategies."
Not so dumb after all, those Neanderthals.
Author: Dan Vergano | Source: USA Today [June 14, 2011]
