Eels, Beavers, and Horses: Human Niche Construction in the European Late Upper Palaeolithic

Abstract

This paper examines interactions between co-occupants of riverine niches in North West

Human-beaver cohabitation in the Early and Mid-Holocene of Northern Europe: Re-visiting Mesolithic material culture and ecology through a multispecies lens

“…Notably, beavers might have played a currently underappreciated role in the sustenance and lifeworlds of at least some interglacial Neanderthals (Hérisson et al, 2015;Kindler, personal communication;Müller and Pasda, 2011). Brown et al (2017) have drawn attention to a possible autoecological entanglement of beavers, eels, and horses underpinning mobiliary art-making in some European Late Upper Palaeolithic contexts, and beavers have been considered as potential high-value prey items for some Late Glacial, especially Allerød, foragers in Northern Europe (Baales and Street, 1996;Charles, 1997;Weber et al, 2011). Mills (2022: 391) has pointed out that beavers were likely important agents of driftwood procurement within the extensive catchment of the Terminal Pleistocene Channel system.…”

Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology

“…But there is more: the actions of beavers have also long since attracted humans to those very same habitats (Coles 2006). Indeed, Tolksdorf et al (2017) have recently demonstrated the close cohabitation of Late Palaeolithic foragers and beavers in the same habitat, and Brown et al (2017) have further compiled faunal evidence as well as indications Fig. 17.2 A schematic of how a regular phenotype at t becomes an extended phenotype in t + 1 and then transforms into the constructed niche of a new generation of beaver pups at t + 2 born into the phenotypic extension of the previous generation.…”

“…At the same time, the ecological knowledge and the know-how used to manufacture the relevant tools for hunting are part of the ecological (R i ) and cultural inheritance of these Late Palaeolithic groups. Their ecological footprint and hence the ecological inheritance (R p ) at the landscape scale were still ephemeral at this time, although their ability to modify landscapes may hitherto, as Brown et al (2017) point out, been underestimated.…”

Introduction — Human-environment interfaces: Assessing the use of palaeoenvironmental information in Mediterranean landscape archaeology

“…Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 2007) produces a reductionist and functionalist approach to past human societies based on a false analogy with human metabolism. Alternatively we can consider the development of persistent artificial niches (Laland and O'Brien, 2010;McClure, 2015;Odling-Smee et al, 2013;Brown et al, 2017) which can have selective advantage and so be related to eco-cultural change. If justification for the full integration of archaeological-historical-social evidence with palaeoenvironmental data is still required, we should remember that resilience wains as societies apply notionally optimal management strategies to a landscapes.…”