Sandrine Costamagno

Bone Grease Rendering in Mousterian Contexts: The Case of Noisetier Cave (Fréchet-Aure, Hautes-Pyrénées, France)

Fat is essential for hunter-gatherers with a diet relying heavily on meat. It is particularly valued in temperate and subarctic environments during seasons when ungulates are fat-depleted. Techniques for extracting marrow from the medullae of limb bones were used early on by Plio-Pleistocene hominids, while techniques to mobilize the fat contained in cancellous bones may have emerged in the Upper Paleolithic. Analyses of the Mousterian archaeofauna of Noisetier Cave indicate that bone fat extraction could have already existed in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3.

Diet breadth and mortality patterns from Laoya Cave: A primary profile of MIS 3/2 hunting strategies in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, southwest China

Laoya Cave is a long-term occupation site of Late Paleolithic humans in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, southwest China, where abundant lithic, bone materials were recovered. Dating by the AMS technique showed a significant depositional process during marine isotope stage (MIS) 3/2. In this study, the species spectrum was presented from the perspective of zooarchaeology and the mortality profile of large Cervidae was examined to help increase our understanding of the subsistence strategy of local people dealing with climate and environmental changes. The main part of the diet was focused on large Cervidae, and the dominance of Ungulates indicates effective management of the cave and local fauna. On the other hand, the mortality profiles of large Cervidae varied correspondingly with climate change. The evidence indicates a specialized hunting strategy that was also flexible, depending on the prevailing climate and environment.

Programmes expérimentaux en taphonomie

Nous tenons a remercier le comite de redaction des Nouvelles de l’archeologie qui nous a propose de coordonner ce dossier thematique. Merci a Veronique Laroulandie de nous avoir autorisees a utiliser une figure issue de sa these et a Celine Thiebaut, Marie-Pierre Coumont et Aline Averbouh de nous avoir permis de prendre connaissance de la version sous presse de leur papier introductif a la table ronde « Mise en commun des approches en taphonomie ». Selon la definition princeps d’I. A. Efremov...