Straight from the horse's mouth: High-resolution proxies for the study of horse diet and its relation to the seasonal occupation patterns at Divnogor'ye 9 (Middle Don, Central Russia)

Rivals, Florent; Kitagawa, Keiko; Julien, Marie-Anne; Patou‐Mathis, Maryléne; Bessudnov, Alexander; Bessudnov, A.N.

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2018.01.008

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The flexibility of horses' diet and their ability to incorporate grass and browse in their feeding or rely exclusively on browse has already been shown in several Pleistocene populations, such as Schöningen (MIS 9) [16] and Taubach (MIS 5) [89] in Germany. In a landscape where both browse and grass are available, they seem to prefer to select the latter [52,116], but in the context of the mammoth-steppe landscape, their diet seems to be less exclusive than that of extant horses [115].…”

Section: Horse Dietary Traits At the End Of Middle Pleistocene And The Beginning Of Late Pleistocene In The South Of Francementioning

confidence: 98%

Middle Pleistocene Variations in the Diet of Equus in the South of France and Its Morphometric Adaptations to Local Environments

Uzunidis

2021

Quaternary

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Equus is a very sensitive genus which has expanded over a large area and lived in Europe despite the climatic instability of the Pleistocene. Its persistence and abundance are helpful in understanding and describing environmental and climatic regional parameters. In this study, we present the result of dental mesowear and microwear analysis and post-cranial skeleton biometry on Equus populations located in two regions in the South of France from ten sites, corresponding to twelve assemblages dated from MIS 12 to MIS 5. The areas refer to two major climatic zones: the oceanic or subcontinental climate for the South West of France, and the Mediterranean for the South East. The first objective of this study is to integrate and compare biometric data, dental wear, and other already-published environmental proxies. The goal is to discuss the validity of horse body shape adaptations on a small geographical scale. The second objective is to describe the impact of environmental features on the horse population through time in the two regions. We observe that the Equus diet was quite diverse, according to microwear analysis which shows adaptations according to seasonal variations. However, they remained mostly grazers over a long period of time. Estimated body mass of Equus in the localities studied here varies from a mean of 468 up to a mean of 570 kg, but these variations failed to be correlated with the diet, the climatic period, or the geographical position of the horse population, probably because of the sample size or the restricted time-span or geographical scale. However, the conformation of the metapodials and the width of the third phalanges may have been linked with environmental and behavioural parameters. The width of the third phalange may be correlated with the recurrence of the snow cover, while the robustness of the metapodial co-occurs with a humid climate. Also, diet may influence the conformation of the bones, since the tall and slender horses seem to be preferentially grazers all year long and seasonally browser horses are tall and robust. Seasonally mixed-feeder horses, all coming from the Mediterranean area, were found to be smaller, perhaps in relation to a less productive environment. The correspondence of the dietary and morphometrical data could suggest high pressure on the horse population, which caused rapid body adaptation. Thus, the combination of these different proxies allows us to suggest more accurate large mammal paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

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Section: Horse Dietary Traits At the End Of Middle Pleistocene And The Beginning Of Late Pleistocene In The South Of Francementioning

confidence: 98%

Middle Pleistocene Variations in the Diet of Equus in the South of France and Its Morphometric Adaptations to Local Environments

Uzunidis

2021

Quaternary

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“…As predictable, mixed feeders are characterized by the overlap of the two other patterns, since they switch seasonally (and/or regionally), between diets based either on browse or on grass. To better discriminate mixed feeders from browsers or grazers, we applied the well-established method developed by Semprebon and Rivals (2007) which gave significative results when applied both to extant and to fossil samples (e.g., Rivals et al 2018;Sánchez-Hernández et al 2019). Thus, we calculated the percentage of individuals in a population with scratch numbers that fall between 0 and 17 scratches in the 0.16 mm 2 area (i.e., the LSR, low scratch range): the browsers have LSR values that fall between 0 and 22.2%, browsers show values comprised in the range of 72.73-100%, and the mixed feeders overlap partially with the other two categories, being comprised between 20.93 and 70% (Solounias and Semprebon 2002; Semprebon and Rivals 2007; Rivals and Semprebon 2010).…”

Section: Tooth Microwearmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neanderthals’ hunting seasonality inferred from combined cementochronology, mesowear, and microwear analysis: case studies from the Alpine foreland in Italy

Livraghi

Rivals

Rendu

et al. 2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Herbivore teeth are a valuable source of information for inferring the hunting season of past hunter-gatherers, the spatial–temporal organization of their activities, their socio-economic organization, and their adaptation to the seasonal fluctuation of the resources. Numberless of studies have been conducted on Neanderthals across Eurasia, but only few of them rely on the application of cementochronology and tooth wear analyses combined to obtain information about the ungulate paleodiet, paleoenvironments, and the time range of the mortality events. In this study, we present the results achieved though the combination of these two high-resolution techniques applied to large and medium-sized herbivore teeth yielded by two Middle Paleolithic sites in the north-east of Italy. We combined the two methodologies with the aim to overcome any possible lack of information, due to the use of a single method. This study addressed to analyze the material coming from two caves in the Venetian region, De Nadale and San Bernardino, and to produce data supporting the interpretation of the origin of the two archaeofaunal assemblages as a result of seasonal hunting events that took place mainly in winter. In this specific geographic and environmental context, our data gain a better understanding of Neanderthal subsistence strategies and occupational patterns.

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“…The study of culture material is central in Archaeology and includes both inorganic and organic elements. Macromammal tooth microwear patterns at Divnogor'ye 9 in Central Russia were used as high-resolution proxies for estimating the seasonal hunting events of Late Glacial horse hunters (Rivals et al, 2018). Refitting analysis of stone artefacts is highly suitable to investigate taphonomy and site formation processes although it is not often applied in a systematic way in Palaeolithic studies.…”

Section: New Challenges: Multidisciplinary Approach In the Definition...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Time uncertainty, site formation processes, and human behaviours: New insights on old issues in High-Resolution Archaeology

Romagnoli

Nishiaki

Rivals

et al. 2018

Quaternary International

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Straight from the horse's mouth: High-resolution proxies for the study of horse diet and its relation to the seasonal occupation patterns at Divnogor'ye 9 (Middle Don, Central Russia)

Cited by 10 publications

References 41 publications

Middle Pleistocene Variations in the Diet of Equus in the South of France and Its Morphometric Adaptations to Local Environments

Middle Pleistocene Variations in the Diet of Equus in the South of France and Its Morphometric Adaptations to Local Environments

Neanderthals’ hunting seasonality inferred from combined cementochronology, mesowear, and microwear analysis: case studies from the Alpine foreland in Italy

Time uncertainty, site formation processes, and human behaviours: New insights on old issues in High-Resolution Archaeology

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