Zooarcheological evidence for the faunal exploitation behavior of Neandertals and early modern humans

Marean, Curtis W.; Assefa, Zelalem

doi:10.1002/(sici)1520-6505(1999)8:1<22::aid-evan7>3.0.co;2-f

Cited by 132 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This observation is consistent with accumulating evidence that Neandertals and early modern humans were capable of similar manipulative behaviors (53) and made similar types of artifacts, in both Middle Paleolithic and initial Upper Paleolithic contexts (54)(55)(56)(57). In addition, the archeological record for a number of localities in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East shows a behavioral continuum for many of the subsistence activities practiced by Middle and early Upper Paleolithic humans (58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Reciprocal evolution of the cerebellum and neocortex in fossil humans

Weaver

2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

177

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Human brain evolution involved both neurological reorganization and an increase in overall brain volume relative to body mass. It is generally difficult to draw functional inferences about the timing and nature of brain reorganization, given that superficial brain morphology recorded on fossil endocasts is functionally ambiguous. However, the cerebellum, housed in the clearly delineated posterior cranial fossa, is functionally and ontologically discrete. The cerebellum is reciprocally connected to each of 14 neocortical regions important to human cognitive evolution. Cerebellar volume varies significantly relative to overall brain volume among mammalian orders, as well as within the primate order. There is also significant diachronic variation among fossil human taxa. In the australopithecines and early members of the genus Homo, the cerebral hemispheres were large in proportion to the cerebellum, compared with other hominoids. This trend continued in Middle and Late Pleistocene humans, including Neandertals and CroMagnon 1, who have the largest cerebral hemispheres relative to cerebellum volume of any primates, including earlier and Holocene humans. In recent humans, however, the pattern is reversed; the cerebellum is larger with respect to the rest of the brain (and, conversely, the cerebral hemispheres are smaller with respect to the cerebellum) than in Late Pleistocene humans. The cerebellum and cerebral hemispheres appear to have evolved reciprocally. Cerebellar development in Holocene humans may have provided greater computational efficiency for coping with an increasingly complex cultural and conceptual environment.human evolution ͉ Plio-Pleistocene hominins ͉ Upper Paleolithic transition P aleoneurologists agree that increased encephalization is an important dynamic of human brain evolution. However, brain evolution involved more than brain expansion. It also involved reorganization to support specific, uniquely human cognitive tasks, including those involved in linguistic processing and a highly developed facility for manufacturing and manipulating tools. Nevertheless, despite more than a century of effort, there is little consensus about how and when such reorganization occurred.One approach to exploring functional reorganization of the brain in humans has been the analysis of impressions of the brain's surface convolutions (sulci and gyri) on the inner table of the endocranium. However, endocranial markings are notoriously difficult to identify reliably (1, 2). Even where the impressions are fairly clear, taphonomic processes may distort the evidence. In addition, the functional correlates of the brain's surface convolutions, especially in fossils, are literally superficial. Cognitive functions occur through internal connections among brain regions, as well as through the distribution of neuroreceptors that cannot be detected by examining the surface of the brain, let alone from endocranial markings. Therefore, functional inferences based on sulcal patterns are problematic.Another approach to endocran...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Reciprocal evolution of the cerebellum and neocortex in fossil humans

Weaver

2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

177

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“…Although the brain and marrow of both wild and domestic ruminants are infrequently eaten in modern, Westernized societies, there is substantial evidence from ethnographic observations in hunter-gatherers (Defleur et al, 1999;Harako, 1981;McArthur, 1960;Silberbauer, 1981;Stefansson, 1960) and from the ancestral, human fossil record (Binford, 1984;Bunn, 1986;Bunn & Kroll, 1986;Defleur et al, 1999;Marean & Assefa, 1999;Speth, 1983;Stiner, 1991;Stringer & Gamble, 1993) that these items were a preferred food that was frequently consumed. The present data shows that MUFA was the predominant FA in elk (67.0% of total FA), deer (65.9% of total FA) and antelope (59.3% of total FA) marrow.…”

Section: Nutritional and Health Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is likely that human dietary lipid requirements are genetically determined (Eaton, 1992;Eaton et al, 1998), and that the evolutionary, nutritional selective pressures that have acted upon the ancestral human lineage over the past 2.4 million years since the emergence of our genus (Homo), may provide important insight into optimal, present day, lipid intakes (Eaton, 1992;Eaton et al, 1998;Simopoulos, 1999;Simopoulos et al, 1999). There is substantial evidence from both the archaeological and ethnographic literature to show that consumption of wild animal tissues played a predominant role in the diet of early humans (Marean & Assefa, 1999;Milton, 1999;Stanford & Bunn, 1999) as well as in historically studied hunter-gatherers (Cordain et al, 2000). Recent mean estimates of the plant-to-animal subsistence ratios in 229 hunter-gatherer societies, the best surrogates of Stone Age humans, demonstrated that meat and other animalderived foods would have provided on average 68% of the total energy, and the remaining 32% of the average daily energy would have come from plant sources (Cordain et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Neither fowl nor fish became common dietary constituents until about 20 000 y ago (Eaton, 1992), so the main nutritional adaptation over most of humanity's 2.4 million y existence was to the tissues of mammals (Eaton, 1992), particularly ruminants (Defleur et al, 1999;Marean & Assefa, 1999;Stanford & Bunn, 1999) that were either scavenged or hunted (Marean & Assefa 1999;Stanford & Bunn, 1999). Anthropological and ethnographic data indicate that modern day hunter-gatherers, as well as Stone Age humans, consumed not just muscle tissue, but relished certain fatty portions of the carcass including brain, marrow and depot fat (Defleur et al, 1999;Harako, 1981;McArthur, 1960;Silberbauer, 1981;Stefansson, 1960).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fatty acid analysis of wild ruminant tissues: evolutionary implications for reducing diet-related chronic disease

et al. 2002

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“…Analysis of the points from Sibudu Cave (Lombard, 2005a;Villa et al, 2009b), Blombos Cave (Lombard, 2007a), Rose Cottage Cave (Villa and Lenoir, 2006), and Kathu Pan 1 (Wilkins et al, 2012) have emphasized the use of points as hunting implements. A piece of stone embedded in a cervical Pelorovis vertebra at KRM from Cave 1 MSA levels would seem to support such an interpretation (Milo, 1998), although Marean and Assefa (1999) (Clark, 1977b;Lombard and Phillipson, 2010;Brown et al, 2012). Abundant, large-bodied fauna from MSA archaeological sites implicate humans as the primary accumulator (Marean et al, 2000a;Thompson and Henshilwood, 2011), including many so-called 'dangerous' animals (Faith, 2008).…”

Section: Technology and Modern Human Originsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Schoville

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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This study explores how early modern humans used stone tool technology to adapt to changing climates and coastlines in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. The MSA is associated with the earliest fossil evidence for modern humans and complex cultural behaviors during a time period of dramatic climate change. Human culture allows for the creation, use, and transmission of technological knowledge that can evolve with changing environmental conditions. Understanding the interactions between technology and the environment is essential to illuminating the role of culture during the origin of our species. This study is focused on understanding ancient tool use from the study of lithic edge damage patterns at archaeological assemblages in southern Africa by using image-based quantitative methods for analyzing stone tools. An extensive experimental program using replicated stone tools provides the comparative linkages between the archaeological artifacts and the tasks for which they were used. MSA foragers structured their tool use and discard behaviors on the landscape in several ways -by using and discarding hunting tools more frequently in the field rather than in caves/rockshelters, but similarly in coastal and interior contexts. This study provides evidence that during a significant microlithic technological shift seen in southern Africa at ~75,000 years ago, new technologies were developed alongside rather than replacing existing technologies. These results are compared with aspects of the European archaeological record at this time to identify features of early human technological behavior that may be unique to the evolutionary history of our species.ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Zooarcheological evidence for the faunal exploitation behavior of Neandertals and early modern humans

Cited by 132 publications

References 60 publications

Reciprocal evolution of the cerebellum and neocortex in fossil humans

Reciprocal evolution of the cerebellum and neocortex in fossil humans

Fatty acid analysis of wild ruminant tissues: evolutionary implications for reducing diet-related chronic disease

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

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