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Human-Elephant Interactions: from Past to Present

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TUEBINGEN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY BOOK SERIES – CONTRIBUTIONS IN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY 1 HUMAN-ELEPHANT INTERACTIONS: FROM PAST TO PRESENT EDITORS GEORGE E. KONIDARIS, RAN BARKAI, VANGELIS TOURLOUKIS AND KATERINA HARVATI TUEBINGEN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY BOOK SERIES – VOLUME CONTRIBUTIONS IN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY 01 Edited by Katerina Harvati Human-Elephant Interactions: from Past to Present George E. Konidaris, Ran Barkai, Vangelis Tourloukis and Katerina Harvati (eds.) Human-Elephant Interactions from Past to Present Te symposium and the volume „Human-elephant interactions: from past to present“ were funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Bibliografsche Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nation- albibliografe, detaillierte bibliografsche Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Dieses Werk ist unter einer Creative Commons Lizenz vom Typ Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International zugänglich. Um eine Kopie dieser Lizenz einzusehen, konsultieren Sie http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ oder wenden Sie sich briefich an Creative Commons, Postfach 1866, Mountain View, California, 94042, USA. Die Online-Version des vollständigen Manuskripts dieser Publikation ist auf dem Repositorium der Universität Tübingen verfügbar unter: http://hdl.handle.net/10900/114229 http://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-55604 Tübingen University Press 2021 Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen Wilhelmstr. 32 72074 Tübingen [email protected] www.tuebingen-university-press.de ISBN (Hardcover): 978-3-947251-33-9 ISBN (PDF): 978-3-947251-34-6 Satz und Umschlagsgestaltung: Susanne Schmid, Universität Tübingen Umschlagbild: Ein europäischer Waldelefant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) und ein Hominin aus dem Mittelpleistozän (Vorder- und Rückseitenabbildungen von Gleiver Prieto; Copyright Katerina Harvati, Universität Tübingen) Druck und Bindung: readbox unipress in der readbox publishing GmbH Printed in Germany CONTENTS Human-elephant interactions from past to present: an introduction George E. Konidaris, Ran Barkai, Vangelis Tourloukis, Katerina Harvati......................................13 1. An embarrassment of riches: the ontological aspect of meat and fat harvesting among subarctic hunters Adrian Tanner.......................................................................................23 1 The Palaeolithic record 2. Hominins, mammoths, saber-tooths and giant hyenas in the Early Pleistocene of the Baza Basin (SE Spain) M. Patrocinio Espigares, Bienvenido MartÍnez-Navarro, Sergio Ros-Montoya, José Manuel GarcÍa-Aguilar, Antonio Guerra-Merchán, Guillermo RodrÍguez-Gómez, Paul Palmqvist.....................................47 3. Proboscidea-Homo interactions in open-air localities during the Early and Middle Pleistocene of western Eurasia: a palaeontological and archaeolocigal perspective George E. Konidaris, Vangelis Tourloukis................................................................67 4. Human-elephant interactions during the Lower Palaeolithic: scrutinizing the role of environmental factors Maria Rita Palombo, Eugenio Cerilli ...................................................................105 5. Te essential elephant: northwest European hominin adaptations through the Middle–Late Pleistocene and Neanderthal extinction Francis Wenban-Smith ..............................................................................145 6. Elephants and humans in Iberia: a zooarchaeological approach Jordi Rosell, Ruth Blasco .............................................................................177 7. Upper Pleistocene hominins and wooly mammoths in the East European Plain Laëtitia Demay, Stéphane Péan, Mietje Germonpré, Theodor Obadă, Gary Haynes, Gennadyi A. Khlopachev, Marylène Patou-Mathis.......................................................201 2 A view of the evidence 8. Lower Palaeolithic small fakes and megafauna: the contribution of experimental approach and use-wear analysis to reveal the link Flavia Marinelli, Cristina Lemorini, Ran Barkai ..........................................................237 9. Investigating the spatio-temporal dimension of past human-elephant interactions: a spatial taphonomic approach Domenico Giusti....................................................................................261 10. Around an elephant carcass: Cimitero di Atella and Ficoncella in the behavioural variability during the early Middle Pleistocene in Italy Roxane Rocca, Francesco Boschin, Daniele Aureli .......................................................287 11. Te La Prele Mammoth Site, Converse County, Wyoming, USA Todd A. Surovell, Spencer R. Pelton, Madeline E. Mackie, Chase M. Mahan, Matthew J. O’Brien, Robert L. Kelly, C. Vance Haynes, Jr, George C. Frison ....................................................303 3 Elephants in past human nutrition 12. Supersize does matter: the importance of large prey in Palaeolithic subsistence and a method for measuring its signifcance in zooarchaeological assemblages Miki Ben-Dor, Ran Barkai ............................................................................323 13. Isotopic insights on ecological interactions between humans and woolly mammoths during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in Europe Hervé Bocherens, Dorothée G. Drucker ................................................................349 14. From tortoises to elephants: the impact of elephants in the broad spectrum diet at Bolomor Cave (MIS 9–5 Spain) Ruth Blasco, Josep Fernández Peris ...................................................................363 15. Seasonality at Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites based on the presence and wear of deciduous premolars from nursing mammoth calves Mietje Germonpré, Hervé Bocherens, Alexander Bessudnov, Martina Lázničková-Galetová, Natasha Reynolds, Mikhail Sablin, Christoph Wißing ....................................................387 16. Underwater carcass storage and processing of marrow, brains, and dental pulp: Evidence for the role of proboscideans in human subsistence Daniel C. Fisher.....................................................................................407 4 Ethnology – Human-elephant interactions in recent Africa 17. Bayaka elephant hunting in Congo: the importance of ritual and technique Jerome Lewis ......................................................................................439 18. Elephant hunting by the Mbuti hunter-gatherers in the eastern Congo Basin Mitsuo Ichikawa....................................................................................455 19. Sharing elephant meat and the ontology of hunting among the Baka hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin rainforest Hirokazu Yasuoka ..................................................................................469 HUMAN-ELEPHANT INTERACTIONS FROM PAST TO PRESENT: AN INTRODUCTION George E. Konidaris1, Ran Barkai2, Vangelis Tourloukis1, Katerina Harvati1 1Palaeoanthropology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Rümelinstr. 23, 72070 Tübingen, Germany 2Department of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B 39040, Tel Aviv, Israel, 6997801 https://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-55603 Today, the thriving human lineage occupies all Palaeolithic times until recently in both the Old continents of the world, whereas the members of and New World, while in Asia and Africa, the the proboscidean lineage (order Proboscidea) — human-elephant interactions carry on until to- the African savanna and forest elephants Loxodon- day, following a legacy of hundreds of thousands ta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis, respectively, and of years. In recent decades, a signifcant number the Asian elephant Elephas maximus— are all lo- of Pleistocene (ca. 2.6 million years–10,000 years cally restricted and considered as threatened by ex- ago) open-air and cave sites yielding elephant tinction. Te extant elephants are relics of a group bones in spatial association with lithic artifacts that was once extremely diversifed and widely have been discovered. Many of them show strong distributed on all continents (apart from Antarc- and direct evidence of acquisition and processing tica and Australia), especially during Miocene and of elephant carcasses by early humans, leading ar- Plio-Pleistocene times (Shoshani and Tassy, 1996: chaeologists to interpret them as “butchering sites”. fgs. 34.2, 34.3). Proboscideans are some of the Indeed, elephant exploitation by humans has been largest mammals that ever walked on earth, and proposed to have played a signifcant role in the the largest ones from the Miocene to recent times. diet and culture of early humans. Humans and elephants1 shared habitats from Te nature and degree of interactions between humans and elephants is an important feld in 1 For the sake of clarity, we would like to stress that although we use the term “Human-elephant interactions”, we actually re- fer to all members of the order Proboscidea that have been or et al., 2007), the genus persisted in Africa until the late Early potentially could have been exploited by humans (or perhaps Pleistocene; the gomphothere Anancus survived also in Africa other hominins). Apart from Loxodonta, Elephas, Palaeoloxodon until close to the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary (Sanders et al., and Mammuthus, which are classifed within the family Ele- 2010). In North America the mastodon Mammut (family Mam- phantidae, exploitation of Stegodon (family Stegodontidae)
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