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Evidence for a 15N positive excursion in terrestrial foodwebs at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in South-western France : implication for early modern human palaeodiet and palaeoenvironment
- Source :
- Journal of Human Evolution, Journal of Human Evolution, Elsevier, 2014, 69, pp.31-43
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- HAL CCSD, 2014.
-
Abstract
- The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition around 35,000 years ago coincides with the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans in Europe. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain this replacement, one of them being the ability of anatomically modern humans to broaden their dietary spectrum beyond the large ungulate prey that Neanderthals consumed exclusively. This scenario is notably based on higher nitrogen-15 amounts in early Upper Palaeolithic anatomically modern human bone collagen compared with late Neanderthals. In this paper, we document a clear increase of nitrogen-15 in bone collagen of terrestrial herbivores during the early Aurignacian associated with anatomically modern humans compared with the stratigraphically older Châtelperronian and late Mousterian fauna associated with Neanderthals. Carnivores such as wolves also exhibit a significant increase in nitrogen-15, which is similar to that documented for early anatomically modern humans compared with Neanderthals in Europe. A shift in nitrogen-15 at the base of the terrestrial foodweb is responsible for such a pattern, with a preserved foodweb structure before and after the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in south-western France. Such an isotopic shift in the terrestrial ecosystem may be due to an increase in aridity during the time of deposition of the early Aurignacian layers. If it occurred across Europe, such a shift in nitrogen-15 in terrestrial foodwebs would be enough to explain the observed isotopic trend between late Neanderthals and early anatomically modern humans, without any significant change in the diet composition at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.
- Subjects :
- 010506 paleontology
Food Chain
Ungulate
[SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory
Climate
Fauna
Environment
01 natural sciences
Bone and Bones
Paleontology
préhistoire
Animals
Humans
0601 history and archaeology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS
Neanderthals
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Mammals
Herbivore
[SHS.ARCHEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory
060101 anthropology
Nitrogen Isotopes
biology
Ecology
Mousterian
06 humanities and the arts
biology.organism_classification
Diet
Geography
Archaeology
Anthropology
Châtelperronian
Anatomically modern human
Terrestrial ecosystem
Collagen
France
Aurignacian
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00472484 and 10958606
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Human Evolution, Journal of Human Evolution, Elsevier, 2014, 69, pp.31-43
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....2f7c61380b0a19e87bb6051e1a3dd54b