Middle Paleolithic Behavioral Organization: 1993 Excavation of Tor Faraj, Southern Jordan

Henry, Donald O.; Hall, Stephen A.; Hietala, Harold J.; Demidenko, Yuri E.; Usik, Vitaly I.; Rosen, Aaron; Thomas, Patricia A.

doi:10.1179/009346996791974034

Cited by 32 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Charred seeds have been found in the Mousterian levels of Kebara (Lev et al, 2005) and Gorham's Cave (Barton et al, 1999). Phytoliths from edible plants have been recovered from sediments in several Near Eastern Neanderthal sites (Henry et al, 1996(Henry et al, , 2004Albert et al, 1999Albert et al, , 2000Rosen, 2003). More direct evidence for Neanderthal use of plants comes from studies of residues on stone tools from several sites in France (Hardy and Moncel, 2011;Hardy et al, 2013), and from the study of residues in dental calculus from El Sidron, Spain (Hardy et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans

Henry

Brooks

Piperno

2014

Journal of Human Evolution

200

135

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans

Henry

Brooks

Piperno

2014

Journal of Human Evolution

200

135

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“…Macrobotanical analysis at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Kebara (Israel) identified the charred remains of seeds preserved in hearths and found evidence for use of legumes, acorns and pistachio nuts (Lev et al, 2005). Studies of plant microremains preserved in soils (Henry et al, 1996(Henry et al, , 2004Albert et al, 1999Albert et al, , 2000Rosen, 2003) and dental calculus (Henry et al, 2011) from Near Eastern sites suggest that Neanderthals may have consumed a variety of plant foods such as date palms and grains. In cold northern European environments, the study of phytoliths and starch grains in dental calculus from Spy Cave (Belgium) indicated that grass seeds and underground storage organisms were part of Neanderthal diet (Henry et al, 2011).…”

Section: Evidence Of Neanderthal Plant Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia

Salazar‐García

Power

Serra³

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

116

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a b s t r a c tDuring recent decades, Neanderthal diet has been a major research topic in palaeoanthropology. This has been accelerated by the maturation of different techniques, which have produced a plethora of new information. However, this proliferation of data has led to confusing and contradictory results. Furthermore, most of the ecological dietary studies have been carried out on specimens drawn from different time periods and regions, almost exclusively those characterized by cold, open environmental conditions. Subsistence models based on these fragmentary data have been applied to Neanderthals living in a variety of different regions and environments, even though their dietary strategies may have been as variable as regions they inhabited. In this paper we integrate different dietary approaches (studies of the zooarchaeology, stable isotopes and plant remains) from the central and southeastern Mediterranean coast of Iberia in order to develop a broader and more complex picture of Neanderthal diet in different Mediterranean environmental conditions. Our results suggest that there may have been some minor dietary variation due to climatic or environmental differences, but that Neanderthal diet focussed on large terrestrial game, supplemented by plant foods when these were available.Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Neanderthal dietary ecologyThe dietary behaviours of Neanderthals and the relationship between their diet and their social organization, technological abilities, and even their eventual disappearance, have been hotly debated in the anthropological literature. Examining the diets of Neanderthals requires the synthesis of data that have been collected by numerous researchers over the last 150 years. In many cases, the differences between Neanderthal and early modern human diets have been emphasized, at the expense of cogent discussion of the variation within each group. Early modern humans lived in a wide variety of environmental contexts and likely pursued a variety of behaviours throughout this range of environments. The exclusively Eurasian distribution of Neanderthals did not include as many environments, but neither was it the exclusively cold Arctic climate that many have supposed it to be. A more detailed examination of the Neanderthal range and the effects of shifting global climates reveals that this group would have been exposed to a diverse range of environments (Hoffecker, 2009;MacDonald et al., 2009). Just as modern human dietary behaviour likely varied with environments, so, too, can we predict that Neanderthals had different diets in different environments.Our understanding of the diets of Neanderthals comes from three main lines of evidence. The first is the study of the human remains themselves, including the isotope signal recorded in their bones, the microwear on their teeth, and how factors of their lifehistory are related to diet. The second line of evidence includes the study of the remains of their food, in the form of animal and plant remains preserved ...

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“…The Levant serves as a suitable study area to explore this interaction; since prehistoric time and up until the early 20th century, the frequent distribution of nāri in this region has made it an integral material in the everyday life of humans. This is well evident in both prehistorical and historical sites in areas where nāri outcrops are prevalent (Shiloh and Horowitz, 1975;Kloner, 1993;Henry et al, 1996;Goren and Goring-Morris, 2008;Abu-Jaber et al, 2009;Tsatskin and Zaidner, 2013;Ackermann et al, 2014). Still, compared to studies on natural calcretisation (Wright and Tucker, 1991;Alonso-Zarza and Wright, 2010), the impact of anthropogenic activities on the formation of calcrete cement has not yet been studied in detail.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%