Oh Deer: A Zooarchaeological Approach to Understanding Hominin Behavior during the Last Interglacial

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our understanding of hominin subsistence behavior during the Last Interglacial is limited. Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP), a cave in Southern France in the foothills of the Alps, can provide a closer look into subsistence behavior as most of its layers are dated to the Last Interglacial. It has been suggested that hominins living around GAP during deposition of its Layer Alpha were intentionally hunting prime-aged cervid individuals (red and roe deer), potentially as part of some kind of rite of passage. In order to rigorously test this hypothesis, zooarchaeological analyses on all cervid remains from all of the site’s layers were performed, including calculation of NISPs, MNEs, MNIs, mortality profiles, and cutmark versus carnivore mark placement patterns. The results help determine if cervids were acquired and treated differently than other species throughout the sequence and answer questions about hominin behavior during the Last Interglacial.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37251.0