Mousterian Large-Mammal Remains from Kobeh Cave Behavioral Implications for Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans

Bibliographic Data

ID2192013
AuthorsC W Marean (0000-0002-2670-5733, Stony Brook University), Soo Yeun Kim (Stony Brook University)
Year1998
Volume39
IssueS1
PagesS79-S114
Publication date1998-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/204691
OpenAlexW2074052235
LanguageEN
Citations received205

Researchers have argued that Neanderthals and/or early modern humans scavenged the majority of the larger mammals represented in Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age faunal assem-blages at Combe Grenal, Grotte Vaufrey, Grotta Guattari, Grotta dei Moscerini, and Klasies River Mouth. If this is true, then these hominids practiced a pattern of faunal exploitation undocu-mented among modern hunter-gatherers. The evidence for this scavenging rests upon the presence of a head-dominated or headand-foot-dominated skeletal-element pattern. These are skeletal parts with little flesh. However, the sites where this pattern is found are either biased assemblages, shaft fragments having been discarded by the excavators, or unbiased ones in which shaft ments were not included in the zooarchaeologist's analysis. An analysis of the Mousterian fauna from Kobeh Cave, Iran, in which the mid-shaft fragments of long bones typically considered nonidentifiable were refitted, identified, and entered into the mates of element abundance produced a skeletal-element profile dominated by limb bones of the highest meat utility. If we remove these mid-shaft fragments we create a profile of the headand-foot variety. This suggests that the ubiquitous head-and-foot-dominated or head-dominated pattern is a methodological arti-fact resulting from ignoring shaft fragments and that there is evidence that Neanderthals or early modern humans procured large mammals primarily from scavenging. Analysis of surface modification (cut marks, hammerstone percussion marks, and carnivore tooth marks) further substantiates a pattern of hunting by the Middle Paleolithic hominids that inhabited Kobeh Cave

Archaeology · Biology · Cave · Fauna · Geography · Middle Paleolithic · Mousterian · Neanderthal · Upper Paleolithic · Ecology · Evolution and Paleontology Studies · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Geology · Paleontology · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology