2023-05-09 09:34:22
Casts to analyze dental wear, with the aim of understanding the paleoenvironments exploited by Neanderthal populations. Aurora Diaz Obregon, CC-BY 4.0
The analysis of remains of prey found in the Dordogne suggests that Neanderthal hunters continued to favor hunting techniques in the open, even if it meant having to seek their prey further afield.
For several tens of thousands of years, Europe was the territory of Neanderthals. A cousin species of humans that ended up disappearing around 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival from Africa of the first A wise man. Throughout their existence, Neanderthals were confronted with many climatic changes with the alternation of glacial and interglacial phases. But a study published mid-January in Plos One suggests that these changes did not cause them to alter their hunting strategies.
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The study focuses on the dental remains of herbivores hunted by Neanderthals and discovered in the cave of Combe-Grenal, in Dordogne. “The site was occupied during the Middle Palaeolithic, 150,000 to 45,000 years ago”explains Émilie Berlioz, paleontologist at the CNRS and the University of Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès at the time of the study, and first author of this work. “We have a few human remains, but not enough to provide information on long-term dynamics. » On the other hand, the remains of herbivores are very numerous there and do not correspond to a natural deposit, but to animals transported into the cave. They therefore make it possible to understand the evolution of the diets of Neanderthals and to reconstruct their environment and the variations over time.
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There are notably bison, aurochs, red deer or reindeer. “These are the ideal species to replenish environments, as they are primary consumersexplains the scientist. In other words, since they consume vegetation, they directly reflect it, which is not the case with humans. We note here that the fauna varies according to the periods. This can be explained in particular by the great climatic variations. The landscapes oscillated between dominance of forests when the climate was milder and more open and arid environment of the steppe type when the climate was colder. » The last 100,000 years of Neanderthal life were marked by the last ice age, which led to changes in the environment, which impacted the abundance and ecology of hunted species.
Given the longevity of the Neanderthals, who occupied Europe for about 300,000 years, one might think that one of their strengths was to have been able to adapt to these climatic changes. Neanderthal knew how to progress: witness the site of Combe-Grenal, which is full of numerous stone tools testifying to several technological advances throughout the Neanderthal period. However, the work carried out by Émilie Berlioz and her collaborators suggests that despite these technological advances, the Neanderthal hunting strategy remained unchanged. “We relied on the analysis of dental micro-wear of hunted animalsexplains the scientist. Throughout our lives, our teeth are marked by our diet. Animals that live in forests will therefore have a different signature than those that live in open areas, grasslands or steppes. And we observe in the cave of Combe-Grenal a fairly constant pattern throughout the sequence studied. »
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The animals found in the cave mainly fed on plants growing in an open tundra-like environment. This analysis technique is particularly effective in defining the living environments of animals in their last days of life, precisely where they were hunted. For the authors, this means that Neanderthal hunters continued to favor hunting techniques in the open, even if it meant having to seek their prey further afield when their immediate living environment was made up of forests. They have not transitioned to hunting tactics suited to close encounters with their prey in forest settings.
“This approach is essential to better understand the influence of local environmental changes on subsistence strategies, technical innovations and human evolutionary history,” says Émilie Berlioz. However, we must be sure that this trend holds true at different times and in different regions. We now aim to study other prehistoric sites using the same approach. »
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