Picture Credits: Creswell Heritage Trust
My research primarily relies on stone tool analysis within a broader behavioral ecological approach. I think that lithic assemblages are best defined as reflecting technological and economic strategies or choices influenced by (probably) more determining external/environmental factors, including behavioral aspects of the main prey species. I hence believe that new hypotheses attempting to clarify some of the changes we can observe during the Late Pleistocene need to integrate data from the analysis of faunal remains, as it is the most direct proxy for behavioral shifts in hunting strategies and/or environmental changes affecting faunal availability.
This relatively recent article on reindeer body parts representation by Faith (2007) is thus for me important. Faith looked at faunal assemblages from the French site of Grotte XVI that yielded assemblages belonging to each of the main techno-complexes of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in Western Europe (Mousterian, Chatelperronian, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian – a more specific determination could have been useful here but this is published elsewhere). This is of course an excellent case study to observe possible shifts at one single location (thus holding some environmental variables constant through time) throughout the Late Pleistocene and in particular during the so-called Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. His assumption was not however that a shift should be expected during that transition simply because we are dealing with different techno-complexes or even different hominid species. The main assumption of this study was that we can observe an overall increase of the reindeer population during this period in western France. An argument that I find very convincing: changes in body part representation do not primarily (only?) reflect technological/economic/cultural differences between techno-complexes but rather the increasing abundance of reindeers, a strictly external or environmental factor. The beauty of such hypothesis is that it can be easily tested.
Faith’s research is openly based on Central Place Foraging and Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT), which predict that hunter-gatherer groups will seek to maximize the return rate of their activities in any given environment. In this case, it is predicted that hunters-gatherers will make decisions regarding body part selection based on both its nutritional value and the energetic cost of transporting it. At Grotte XVI, Faith demonstrated that if reindeer body part representation is changing through time (and across the Middle-Upper Paleolithic divide), this variation was best explained by the overall increasing abundance of reindeers in western France. He observed a slow and significant increase in the representation of low utility body parts (crania and metatarsals in particular but also mandibles suggesting the entire skulls were brought back to the site) trough time reflecting less efficient transport strategies and limited carcass processing at the kill site. Faith further argued that “field processing decisions at reindeer kill sites were not guided by specific rules dictating which elements should be transported and which should left behind.” and that “transport decisions were highly flexible, if not highly variable.” (Faith 2007:2009).
What is striking here is that this global trend does not reflect a radical shift in subsistence strategies between the Mousterian/Chatelperronian (Neandertals) and Aurignacian (modern humans) faunal assemblages. Such conclusion is supported by previous studies at Grotte XVI (Grayson and Delpech 2003) and elsewhere. Based on OFT, the decrease in body part selection could reflect an increase in foraging efficiency, an increasing number of individuals/transporters (expected for later parts of the Upper Paleolithic) or increased encounter rates (due to larger local reindeer density). Faith seems to favor increased encounter rates and reindeer abundance as the main factors. Yet, we cannot rule out other internal factors such as increased population size, complexification of the social structure, increased mobility or more efficient hunting weapons/tools/strategies… factors that other studies have identified as playing a major role during later parts of the Upper Paleolithic.
Also, could a lack in body part selection (or the higher amount of specific body parts containing high amount of fat or protein such as crania containing brain, eyeballs, nose and marrow rich metapodials) reflect higher stress on the group (necessity to feed more people) and/or the exploitation of the every little bit of the carcass during difficult times and deteriorating climatic conditions (with decrease in mammal species diversity)?
REFERENCES
Faith, T. J. 2007 - Changes in reindeer body part representation at Grotte XVI, Dordogne, France - Journal of Archaeological Science 34 (2007): 2003-2011
Grayson, D. and F. Delpech 2003 - Ungulates and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition at Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France) - Journal of Archaeological Science 30 (2003) 1633–1648
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