The zooarchaeology of complexity and specialization during the Upper Palaeolithic in Western Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
Structural Specialization ◽  
Reindeer Hunting

Over the last twenty years attempts have been made to determine the nature of Upper Palaeolithic hunting specialization. This chapter traces assemblage structural ‘specialization’, where faunal assemblages are dominated by a single species, vs ‘diversity’, in which all recorded species are well represented, between 45,000 and 10,000 bp (Châtelperronian to Azilian), and demonstrates regularity in the archaeozoological record. It moves away from the assumption that assemblages with at least 90% of bones attributable to a single species result from specialized hunting strategies, and seeks explanations for patterns of diversification. The study also deals with the Late Glacial Maximum with its narrowing resource base and the Magdalenian of southwest France, when specialized reindeer hunting is traditionally considered of paramount importance. The chapter uses measures of diversity and evenness to quantify variation observed through time, highlighting a peak in single-species exploitation during the Middle Upper Palaeolithic. Finally, interpretations are offered for future consideration.

On Bovid Assemblages and their Consequences for the Knowledge of Subsistence Patterns in the Middle Palaeolithic

1996 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 19-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Gaudzinski
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Distinct Mode ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
Enormous Variation ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Age And Sex

A comparative study of four Late Pleistocene sites — Il'skaja (Russia), La Borde and Mauran (France), and Wallertheim (Germany) — was undertaken. The sites are considered to be kill and/or habitation sites, showing bovid dominated faunal assemblages which have already independently been described as resulting from hominid hunting activities. In this synthetic paper it is discussed whether these archaeological records reflect a distinct mode of procurement. Focusing on the faunal remains, similarities and differences are demonstrated between the varying bovid assemblages in terms of the body profiles, and age and sex structures, and evidence of hominid bovid carcass exploitation is examined. Physical, taphonomical, and hominid behavioural implications of the different variables compared are treated in a problem-oriented discussion. The results indicate focussed and selective hunting strategies in parts of Europe during the Middle Palaeolithic, emphasising that during the period an enormous variation of subsistence options existed, some of them quite similar to those of the Upper Palaeolithic.

Palaeolithic Art in Isolation: The Case of Sicily and Sardinia

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margherita Mussi
Keyword(s):  
Cervus Elaphus ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Oxygen Isotope Stage ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Intermittent Connection ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Palaeolithic Art

The archaeological record of Italy is long and complex, suggesting continuous peopling since the Middle Pleistocene (Mussi 2001; Mussi et al. in press). The evidence of Palaeolithic art, however, is rather restricted: Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) art is close to nil, including just a few notched implements; the Middle Upper Palaeolithic (MUP), admittedly, is much richer, with some twenty Gravettian Wgurines, the largest such sample in Western Europe (Mussi et al. 2000; Mussi 2004); parietal art is also documented at Grotta Paglicci, where painted horses and positive handprints were discovered (Boscato and Palma di Cesnola 2000; Zorzi 1962); when Late Upper Palaeolithic (LUP) lithic industries were produced which belong to the Epigravettian, portable and parietal art is known at a number of sites. In the late 1980s, Zampetti (1987) reviewed twenty-one Epigravettian cave sites, and a single open-air site, all of them with zoomorphic art. Three more have been discovered since: Riparo Dalmeri, Riparo di Villabruna, and Grotta di Settecannelle. I will examine below the artistic record of Sicily and Sardinia, both of them at the periphery of Italy, which, in turn, is secluded from Europe by the Alps. My aim is to contrast the effects of geographic isolation, with the circulation of people and ideas, if any, as documented by portable and cave art. Sicily, currently an island of 25; 700km<sup>2</sup> and the largest in the Mediterranean, lies 140 km from Africa, and a few kilometres off southern Italy. The strait of Messina is 3 to 25 km wide, but is far from easy to cross, because of violent tidal currents, and whirlpool, also known as ‘Charybdis’ by Greeks and Romans. The depth is just 72 m at the Sill of Peloro. Because of intense neotectonic activity, however, any palaeogeographic reconstruction is highly speculative. Analysis of the faunal assemblages, which during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 2 include a limited number of species, none of which is endemic, suggests that intermittent connection with the mainland possibly existed around the Last Glacial Maximum (Mussi et al. in press). The large mammals, found in varying percentages, are the deer, Cervus elaphus, the aurochs, Bos primigenius, the small steppe horse, Equus hydruntinus, and Sus scrofa, the wild boar.

The Reindeer Hunting Tribes of Northern Europe

Antiquity ◽  
1938 ◽  
Vol 12 (46) ◽  
pp. 154-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. D. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Advanced Stage ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
The World ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Reindeer Hunting ◽  
The Great War ◽  
British People

There is some truth in the assertion that the greatness of Britain, as displayed to the world at the Great Exhibition of 1851, should be ascribed as much to the favourable juxtaposition of iron and oal as to any qualities inherent in the British people : it can hardly be disputed that the re-eminence in Prehistoric Archaeology once enjoyed by France was due in large measure to the rchaeological richness of the caves and rock-shelters of the Dordogne and the Pyrenees. But, if we must deplore the backwardness of France in fields where other countrie are as richly endowed by history, it is only fair to acknowledge that her archaeologists succeeded in systematizing. the cultures of Upper Palaeolithic man in western Europe, at a time when the Neolithic was still chaotic in many countries and a ' hiatus ' separated the two epochs. The exploration of the French caves began in the sixties of the last century and may be said to have already reached its culminating point by 1912, when Breuil put forward his famous classification at the Geneva Congress (Breuil, 1912). It is eloquent of the advanced stage reached by Upper Palaeolithic cave research in western Europe before the Great War that, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, Breuil has felt able (in 1937) to re-print his original lecture with only minor alterations.

Late Glacial prehistory of central and southern Portugal

Antiquity ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 67 (257) ◽  
pp. 761-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Ferreira Bicho
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Southern Portugal ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial

Very little is known of the Upper Palaeolithic of Portugal, although it has been assumed to have the same general characteristics as elsewhere in southwestern Europe. New evidence suggests clear technological distinctions between Portugal and other areas of southwestern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum, c. 18,000 (uncalibrated) years ago, and allows an initial synthesis for Portuguese Late Glacial prehistory, 16,000-8500 b.p.

The Palaeolithic of Klithi in its wider context

1992 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Stone Tool ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Late Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Village ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
Palaeolithic Archaeology

Klithi is a rockshelter in the lower reaches of the Voidomatis gorge, near the village of Klithonia in Epirus. Excavations in progress since 1983 have revealed evidence of a late Upper Palaeolithic occupation dated between 16,000 BP and 10,000 BP, with rich microlithic stone tool industries and faunal assemblages dominated by chamois and ibex. The excavations have been accompanied by wider investigations of the local and regional palaeoenvironment and reexamination of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites excavated by Eric Higgs in the 1960s, notably Kokkinopilos, Asprochaliko, and Kastritsa. This paper presents some of the detailed results of the Klithi excavations and sets the results within the wider context of the global issues which inform the study of Palaeolithic archaeology, the Palaeolithic of Greece as a whole, and the regional picture of Palaeolithic settlement in Epirus.

Neotypification of the Linnaean name Iris aphylla (Iridaceae)

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 273 (2) ◽  
pp. 141 ◽  
Author(s):  
EUGENY V. BOLTENKOV
Keyword(s):  
Chromosome Number ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
European Russia ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Forest Edges ◽  
Variable Species ◽  
Open Forests

Iris aphylla Linnaeus (1753: 38) (Iridaceae) is a highly variable species from the morphological point of view, especially in the height of stem, stem branching, size of leaves, and color of flowers. Moreover, it can be found in different habitats. In the Middle-Russian Upland, this plant is mostly associated with meadow steppes on slopes and, rarely, with edges of shrub thickets; also occurs along forest edges and in open forests, where blooming plants are rare (Kazakova et al. 2015). It is native to Central, Eastern, and some parts of Western Europe. The species is widespread in the Ukraine and mainly in the south of middle European Russia, while in the European countries its populations are sparser. Iris aphylla is of autotetraploid origin (Mitra 1956); plants with the chromosome number 2n = 48 are found more frequently in Europe (Wróblewska et al. 2010). Its numerous synonyms, including four subspecies, indicate the variability of this species. The genetic data confirm the conclusion that the subspecies of I. aphylla should be regarded as a single species (Wróblewska et al. 2010). According to my best knowledge (see also Jarvis 2007) the name I. aphylla is still lacking typification.

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