Modeling the Potential Effects of Cooking on Neanderthal Hunting Efficiency

Summary

It is an enormous challenge to reconstruct the complex and dynamic interactions between Prehistoric human groups, their resources, and their landscape from the archaeological record. This poster presents a unique model for exploring the relationship between Neanderthals and reindeer during glacial phases of the Middle Paleolithic in southwestern France, using data from zooarchaeological assemblages and experimental values for Neanderthal metabolic rates.

I have developed a set of calculations that test the effect of cooked versus raw meat on Neanderthal hunting efficiency in terms of available energy from a single kill. These calculations translate potential energy increases from cooked meat into hunting range distance and time spent in a single landscape patch. Initial tests indicate that cooking lean meat increases its caloric value sufficiently to offset up to 3.7 days’ worth of locomotion, or 12 kills per year, thus extending the carrying capacity of a landscape patch, particularly during periods of resource scarcity.

Ultimately, I will develop differential equations for modeling Neanderthal, early modern human, and ungulate populations. These equations will provide an innovative framework for addressing landscape patch viability, mobility patterns, and adaptive differences in subsistence behaviors between Neanderthal and early modern human populations.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage