Unexpected palaeoecological features of the Middle and Late Pleistocene large herbivores in southwestern Germany revealed by stable isotopic abundances in tooth enamel

2014 ◽  
Vol 339-340 ◽  
pp. 164-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Pushkina ◽  
Hervé Bocherens ◽  
Reinhard Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Tooth Enamel ◽  
Large Herbivores ◽  
Stable Isotopic ◽  
Isotopic Abundances ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene human paleoecology in the highland savanna ecosystem of mainland Southeast Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kantapon Suraprasit ◽  
Rasmi Shoocongdej ◽  
Kanoknart Chintakanon ◽  
Hervé Bocherens
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Tooth Enamel ◽  
Stable Carbon Isotope ◽  
Lower Latitude ◽  
Stable Carbon ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Carbon And Oxygen Isotope ◽  
Northwestern Thailand ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia

AbstractThe late Pleistocene settlement of highland settings in mainland Southeast Asia by Homo sapiens has challenged our species’s ability to occupy mountainous landscapes that acted as physical barriers to the expansion into lower-latitude Sunda islands during sea-level lowstands. Tham Lod Rockshelter in highland Pang Mapha (northwestern Thailand), dated between 34,000 and 12,000 years ago, has yielded evidence of Hoabinhian lithic assemblages and natural resource use by hunter-gatherer societies. To understand the process of early settlements of highland areas, we measured stable carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of Tham Lod human and faunal tooth enamel. Our assessment of the stable carbon isotope results suggests long-term opportunistic behavior among hunter-gatherers in foraging on a variety of food items in a mosaic environment and/or inhabiting an open forest edge during the terminal Pleistocene. This study reinforces the higher-latitude and -altitude extension of a forest-grassland mosaic ecosystem or savanna corridor (farther north into northwestern Thailand), which facilitated the dispersal of hunter-gatherers across mountainous areas and possibly allowed for consistency in a human subsistence strategy and Hoabinhian technology in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia over a 20,000-year span near the end of the Pleistocene.

Pleistocene ungulates from the Bow River gravels at Cochrane, Alberta

1968 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 1467-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Churcher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Rangifer Tarandus ◽  
Ovis Canadensis ◽  
Southern United States ◽  
Rangifer Tarandus Caribou ◽  
Cervus Canadensis ◽  
North Bank ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene

Five ungulates are reported from gravels comprising the second major terrace above the Bow River's north bank at Cochrane, Alberta. These ungulates are Cervus canadensis (wapiti), Rangifer tarandus (caribou), Ovis canadensis (mountain sheep), Bison occidentalis (extinct western bison), and Equus conversidens (extinct Mexican ass). E. conversidens was previously known from middle and late Pleistocene beds of the southern United States and Mexico and is here reported from the post-Wisconsin Pleistocene of Alberta and possibly Saskatchewan. Radiocarbon analysis of Bison bones from the gravels yielded two dates that averaged 11 065 B.P.

New Source of Dietary Data for Extinct Herbivores

1988 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Akersten ◽  
Theresea M. Foppe ◽  
George T. Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Bison Bison ◽  
Large Herbivores ◽  
Usual Assumption ◽  
Microhistological Analysis ◽  
Rancho La Brea ◽  
Very High ◽  
Control Study ◽  
Dietary Data

The teeth of many large herbivores contain “pockets” (fossettes, fossettids, etc.) which entrap impacted samples of food (dental boluses) during mastication. These do not preserve well in most fossil deposits, but at Rancho La Brea, paleobotanical remains survive essentially intact and dental boluses from late Pleistocene forms are amenable to microhistological analysis. Of the identifiable bolus contents, those from Bison antiquus averaged 87% nonmonocotyledons; from Camelops hesternus, 90% nonmonocotyledons; and from Equus occidentalis (one specimen), 56% nonmonocotyledons. A control study on modern Bison bison shows that the boluses contain somewhat lower percentages of monocotyledons than do alimentary samples from the same individuals. However, this accounts for only a part of the very high percentage of nonmonocotyledons in the boluses of the extinct Bison. We conclude that the populations of B. antiquus and C. hesternus represented at Rancho La Brea probably fed little on grasses and that there is enough indirect evidence to suggest that the same may be true for other populations of these taxa. The Equus data are not sufficient to do more than question the usual assumption that Pleistocene horses were always obligate grass eaters.

scholarly journals Reconstructing Late Pleistocene paleoclimate at the scale of human behavior: an example from the Neandertal occupation of La Ferrassie (France)

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Pederzani ◽  
Vera Aldeias ◽  
Harold L. Dibble ◽  
Paul Goldberg ◽  
Jean-Jacques Hublin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Tooth Enamel ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Human Scale ◽  
Winter Temperatures ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Climatic Records

AbstractExploring the role of changing climates in human evolution is currently impeded by a scarcity of climatic information at the same temporal scale as the human behaviors documented in archaeological sites. This is mainly caused by high uncertainties in the chronometric dates used to correlate long-term climatic records with archaeological deposits. One solution is to generate climatic data directly from archaeological materials representing human behavior. Here we use oxygen isotope measurements of Bos/Bison tooth enamel to reconstruct summer and winter temperatures in the Late Pleistocene when Neandertals were using the site of La Ferrassie. Our results indicate that, despite the generally cold conditions of the broader period and despite direct evidence for cold features in certain sediments at the site, Neandertals used the site predominantly when climatic conditions were mild, similar to conditions in modern day France. We suggest that due to millennial scale climate variability, the periods of human activity and their climatic characteristics may not be representative of average conditions inferred from chronological correlations with long-term climatic records. These results highlight the importance of using direct routes, such as the high-resolution archives in tooth enamel from anthropogenically accumulated faunal assemblages, to establish climatic conditions at a human scale.

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