Britt M. Starkovich

Hallan Çemi Tepesi: high-ranked game exploitation alongside intensive seed processing at the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic transition in southeastern Turkey

Starkovich B.M. & Stiner M.C. 2009. — Hallan Cemi Tepesi: High-ranked Game Exploitation alongside Intensive Seed Processing at the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic Transition in Southeastern Turkey. Anthropozoologica 44(1): 41-61. ABSTRACTS Faunal evidence from Hallan Çemi Tepesi in southeastern Turkey reveals important similarities and differences in subsistence patterns when compared to the Levant at the time of the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic transition. Possible diet breadth expansion is examined at Hallan Çemi based on prey species and biomass composition, body part analysis, age profiles, and carcass processing patterns. The occupants of Hallan Çemi hunted a wide range of animals, including wild sheep and goats, pigs, red deer, and tortoises. Low-ranked, fast-moving small game animals such as hares and avian fauna are comparatively rare. Small game use at Hallan Çemi resembles patterns observed in some late Natufian sites, but there is focused exploitation of ungulates at Hallan Çemi. The site presents a seemingly contradictory pairing of a meat diet composed of high-ranked animal resources and intensive plant seed processing. Also supporting the overall picture of high-ranked animal exploitation are transport biases that favored the meatiest portions of ungulate carcasses, particularly the upper front limb region. Potential explanations for the contrasting meat and plant diet patterns must consider expanding diet breadth in response to demographic packing (expressed mainly in terms of plant exploitation) and display behaviors that emphasized large game but not other parts of the food supply.

The European saber-toothed cat (Homotherium latidens) found in the “Spear Horizon” at Schöningen (Germany)

The 300,000 year old Lower Paleolithic site Schöningen 13 II-4 became world famous with the discovery of the oldest well-preserved and complete wooden spears. Through ongoing excavations, new archaeological discoveries of scientific importance are still being made from the same archaeological layer where the spears were found. In this context, remains of a rare carnivore species, the European saber-toothed cat (Homotherium latidens), were recovered. Here we present five teeth and one humerus fragment that are unambiguously from two individual saber-toothed cats. The humerus is a unique specimen; it shows evidence of hominin impacts and use as a percussor. The Homotherium remains from Schöningen are the best documented finds of this species in an archaeological setting and they are amongst the youngest specimens of Homotherium in Europe. The presence of this species as a carnivore competitor would certainly have impacted the lives of late Middle Pleistocene hominins. The discovery illustrates the possible day-to-day challenges that the Schöningen hominins would have faced and suggests that the wooden spears were not necessarily only used for hunting, but possibly also as a weapon for self-defense.

Resilience at the Transition to Agriculture: The Long-Term Landscape and Resource Development at the Aceramic Neolithic Tell Site of Chogha Golan (Iran)

The evidence for the slow development from gathering and cultivation of wild species to the use of domesticates in the Near East, deriving from a number of Epipalaeolithic and aceramic Neolithic sites with short occupational stratigraphies, cannot explain the reasons for the protracted development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. The botanical and faunal remains from the long stratigraphic sequence of Chogha Golan, indicate local changes in environmental conditions and subsistence practices that characterize a site-specific pathway into emerging agriculture. Our multidisciplinary approach demonstrates a long-term subsistence strategy of several hundred years on wild cereals and pulses as well as on hunting a variety of faunal species that were based on relatively favorable and stable environmental conditions. Fluctuations in the availability of resources after around 10.200 cal BP may have been caused by small-scale climatic fluctuations. The temporary depletion of resources was managed through a shift to other species which required minor technological changes to make these resources accessible and by intensification of barley cultivation which approached its domestication. After roughly 200 years, emmer domestication is apparent, accompanied by higher contribution of cattle in the diet, suggesting long-term intensification of resource management.

Paleolithic subsistence strategies and changes in site use at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece)

Klissoura Cave 1 in southern Greece preserves a long archaeological sequence that spans roughly 90,000 years and includes Middle Paleolithic, Uluzzian, Upper Paleolithic, and Mesolithic deposits. The site provides a unique opportunity to examine diachronic change and shifts in the intensity of site use across the Late Pleistocene. There is an overall picture of the intensified use of faunal resources at the site, evidenced by a shift from large to small game, and to small fast-moving taxa in particular. This trend is independent of climatic change and fluctuations in site use, and most likely reflects a broader, regional growth of hominin populations. At the same time, multiple lines of evidence (e.g., input of artifacts and features, sedimentation mechanisms, and intensification of faunal resources) indicate that the intensity of site use changed, with a sharp increase from the Middle Paleolithic to Aurignacian. This allows us to address a fundamental issue in the study of human evolution: differences in population size and site use between Neandertals and modern humans. At Klissoura Cave 1, the increase in occupation intensity might be related to population growth or larger group size, but it might also be due to changes in season of site use, more favorable environmental conditions at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, and/or changes in the composition of people occupying the site. These explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and indeed the data support a combination of factors. Ascribing the increase in occupation intensity to larger Upper Paleolithic populations more broadly is difficult, particularly because there is little consensus on this topic elsewhere in Eurasia. The data are complicated and vary greatly between sites and regions. This makes Klissoura Cave 1, as the only currently available case study in southeastern Europe, a critical example in understanding the range of variation in demography and site use across the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.

A noble diet at the Hof van Leugenhaeghe (Steendorp, Belgium): pig skulls as a fourteenth–fifteenth century delicacy?

The animal remains found at the fourteenth–fifteenth century Hof van Leugenhaeghe are crucial to reconstruct the life of the noble inhabitants, as all buildings were destroyed with the construction of a later estate on the property called the Blauwhof. The diet confirms the high social status of this nobility with the suspected consumption of pig skulls, a possible sign of wealth in late-medieval Flanders. Other signs of a noble diet are found as well: juvenile cattle, a diverse spectrum of game, partridge and grey heron. The observed pattern of a wealthy diet is consistent with the zooarchaeological assemblages found at other noble sites in late-medieval Flanders.