The zooarchaeology and paleoecology of early hominin scavenging

Abstract

Questions about the timing, frequency, resource yield, and behavioral and biological implications of large animal carcass acquisition by early hominins have been a part of the “hunting‐scavenging debate” for decades. This article presents a brief outline of this debate, reviews the zooarchaeological and modern ecological evidence for a possible scavenging niche among the earliest animal tissue‐consuming hominins (pre‐2.0 Ma), revisits some of the questions that this debate has generated, and outlines some ways to explore answers to those questions with evidence from the archaeological record.

Did Human Culture Emerge in a Cultural Evolutionary Transition in Individuality?

“…But how would the social protocell get us from a Panlike early hominin state to simple institutions? The australopithecine ancestors of Homo are believed to have gradually moved from facultative hunting of small animals (similar to Pan) toward obligate large game predation, presumably via facultative scavenging (for recent reviews see Thompson et al 2019;Pobiner 2020). Although details are contested, most agree that this path involved ascending a gradient in risk and task complexity-driven by the benefits of accessing large packages of high-quality food, but facing a range of persistent hurdles, such as a need for processing and an increased exposure to predators and pathogens.…”

Seasonality and Oldowan behavioral variability in East Africa

“…At Kanjera South, small bovid hunting focused on the exploitation of young individuals (Ferraro et al, 2013), perhaps through the location and pursuit of newborn calves in the longer grasses (Oliver et al, 2019). On the basis of small bovid ecology, we argue that such a hunting strategy is more likely to have been undertaken primarily during the wet season, since most births tend to take place just prior to the onset of the rains (Sinclair et al, 2000;Kingdon, 2015: 571-572;Pobiner, 2020). As such, this strategy would not have been as readily available to hominins at FLK-Zinj during the dry season.…”

“…Nonetheless, meat is still a relatively marginal dietary component in bonobos (Pan paniscus; Oelze et al 2011), while chimpanzees only rarely approach even the lowest levels of meat consumption seen in tropical hunter-gatherer societies (Watts 2020). Therefore, it is likely that several shifts towards greater emphasis on animal consumption took place during the course of hominin evolution (Speth, 1989;Foley, 2001;Bunn, 2007;Domínguez-Rodrigo and Pickering, 2017;Thompson et al, 2019;Pobiner, 2020). This increasing reliance on higher-quality resources may have driven brain growth and physiological development (cf.…”

Using niche construction theory to generate testable foraging hypotheses at Liang Bua

“…Understanding the evolutionary outcomes of hominin dietary and foraging behavior is central to paleoanthropological research. [1][2][3][4] Decades of zooarchaeological analyses suggests that~2-3 million years ago our hominin ancestors began to rely on consuming fatty and calorically dense nutrients from hunting and/or scavenging big game using advanced cognitive, social, and technical abilities. 1,[4][5][6] Theoretical frameworks such as middle range theory [7][8][9] and optimal foraging theory (OFT) [10][11][12][13] have refined our interpretations of hominin-butchery assemblages by guiding inferences for hominin foraging processes (accumulating food) from their static derivatives (cut marked bone).…”

“…Understanding the evolutionary outcomes of hominin dietary and foraging behavior is central to paleoanthropological research 1–4 . Decades of zooarchaeological analyses suggests that ~2–3 million years ago our hominin ancestors began to rely on consuming fatty and calorically dense nutrients from hunting and/or scavenging big game using advanced cognitive, social, and technical abilities 1,4–6 .…”