Neandertal Foraging Adaptations in Southwestern France: Implications of Mousterian Faunal Remains at Gatzarria Cave
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Neandertal Foraging Adaptations in Southwestern France: Implications of Mousterian Faunal Remains at Gatzarria Cave A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright by Elspeth Ready 2010 Anthropology ?.?. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ¦+¦ Canada Abstract Neandertal Foraging Adaptations in Southwestern France: Implications of Mousterian Faunal Remains at Gatzarria Cave Elspeth Ready This study describes Neandertal foraging adaptations at Gatzarria, a Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition site in southwestern France, through an analysis of faunal remains from level Cj. Stratigraphie problems relating to the division of the Mousterian level Cj and Upper Palaeolithic industries at Gatzarria were encountered during this research. However, a new study of lithic index fossils indicated sufficient stratigraphie separation of the artifacts to permit the selection of a secure sample of Mousterian faunal remains. This sample suggests that red deer were by far the main species encountered near Gatzarria. However, even the lowest-ranked ungulate species, roe deer and chamois, were sometimes included in the maximum diet breadth. No small game component is in evidence. The long bone assemblage suggests less stringent culling decisions at kill sites relative to other late Mousterian sites. Utilization of marrow was intensive. The Gatzarria data conform with general patterns of resource use during the Mousterian in western France. Keywords: Zooarchaeology, subsistence, foraging theory, Neandertals, Mousterian, Middle Palaeolithic, Gatzarria Cave, Atlantic Pyrenees 11 Acknowledgements To begin, I would like to thank my supervisor Eugène Morin for his guidance and instruction over the past two years. Above all, I must express my gratitude to Eugène for knowing that only by continually pushing my limits would I continually improve my skills as a researcher and writer—and for being willing to invest the time and effort required to nurture my progress. Secondly, my committee members, James Conolly and Susan Jamieson, provided helpful comments, direction, and encouragement as my research developed. Besides supplying the maps in Chapters 3 and 7, James also provided a steady flow of interesting questions about zooarchaeological sampling and statistics that encouraged me to think more deeply about my treatment of faunal data. Dr. R. Lee Lyman, from the University of Missouri, graciously accepted to serve as my external examiner and provided a number of helpful suggestions that have been incorporated into this final draft. My friends and colleagues here at Trent University, including, among many others, Chelsee Arbour, Kimberly Jankuta, Cat Robertson, Melissa Wallace, and Kristine Williams also deserve thanks for their support—both academic and social. In particular, however, I am indebted to Miranda Brunton, who has been my steadfast companion during long hours in the office over the past two years, and, outside of work, a genuinely considerate friend, and confidante; as well as Celise Chilcote, with whom I shared not only an apartment wall but also many frustrations and successes. Further away, in Edmonton, I would like to thank Elizabeth Sawchuk and Benjamin Flanagan for stimulating conversations about anthropology (and other things), and Elizabeth a second time for scrupulously editing scholarship proposals and more. in Rob Losey, at the University of Alberta, was instrumental in getting me interested and involved in zooarchaeological research. Carleen, Mom, and Dad—thank you for your emotional support, for keeping me company, for listening to me talk endlessly about archaeology, and (especially Carleen) for making me laugh. As for my summer in France, I would like to thank everyone who was part of the productive and enriching experience I spent in Les Eyzies. Eugène once again deserves thanks for his help and support, especially for a trip across France during a stratigraphie crisis. Everyone at the Musée National de Préhistoire was welcoming and extremely helpful to me. I would like to thank Jean-Jacques Cleyet-Merle for the permission to work with the collections; Stéphane Madeleine for his assistance with many identifications; André Morala for his contribution to the study of the lithic material (and for his patience with the bones scattered all over the lab during the summer); Nicolas Audebert for his help washing the bones; and Bernard Nicolas and Peggy Jacquement for their logistical support. I also greatly appreciated and learned much from my discussions with the researchers and students who spent time at the museum and at "la Maison Bordes" over the summer. Laura Eizenberg kindly contributed her data on the Proto- Aurignacian lithic industry at Gatzarria, and Marie-Cécile Soulier shared her insights regarding the fauna of the Pyrenean Middle Palaeolithic sites. Finally, I am grateful to Julien Alibert, Marie Fibule, Yann Goasguen, Nicolas Hecht, and Thibault Morala who warmly welcomed me in Dordogne and with whom I shared an unforgettable summer. This study would not have been possible without financial support from a number of sources. My research was funded by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master's) iv to myself, and a SSHRC Standard Research Grant to Eugène Morin. I would also like to thank Trent University and Sandi Carr for the scholarships I received during my time at Trent. ? Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents vi List of Tables ix List of Figures xii Chapter 1 : Introduction 1 Overview of the research objectives 2 Outline of the study 3 Chapter 2 : Neandertal Ecology and Formulation of the 4 Research Problem Hunting versus scavenging and the history of Neandertal subsistence 4 research Neandertal diet breadth 8 A Neandertal niche? 14 Ecology and the replacement or continuity debate 17 The research problem 18 Chapter 3 : Gatzarria Cave—Description and Previous 20 Research Geographic context 20 Excavation history and method 22 Stratigraphy 25 Geological stratigraphy 26 Archaeological stratigraphy 28 Stratigraphie problems 3 1 Previous archaeological research 33 Lithic industries 33 Bone industry and ornaments 34 Human remains 36 Palaeontological work 36 vi Ecological context 40 Palaeoenvironment 40 Ecology of the ungulate species at Gatzarria 42 Summary 52 Chapter 4: Theory and Method 53 Theoretical approach 53 The diet breadth model 54 The marginal value theorem 56 The central place forager prey choice model 59 Critiques of foraging theory 6 1 Application of foraging theory in this study 64 Defining resource patches 65 Prey rankings 66 Methodology 71 Quantification techniques and identification procedures 71 Bone modification and taphonomy 8 1 Summary 90 Chapter 5 : Sample Selection and Taphonomy 92 Sample selection 92 Stratigraphie integrity of Mousterian remains from Ej 93 Sample selection procedures 97 Stratigraphie integrity: Refit analysis 100 Overview of the Cj Mousterian faunal sample 102 Taphonomy 105 How did recovery methods affect the sample composition? 106 Density 112 The impact ofbone burning on sample composition 114 Post-depositional destruction 117 Biological agents of accumulation and destruction 119 Bone surface preservation 125 Intra-taxonomic identification bias 128 Inter-taxonomic identification bias 133 Summary 137 Chapter 6 : Ungulate Resource Exploitation at Gatzarria 139 Cave VIl Taxonomic abundances 139 Skeletal part