Pelletier Maxime, Royer Aurélien, Holliday Trenton W, Discamps Emmanuel, Madelaine Stéphane, Maureille Bruno
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Minist Culture & Com, LAMPEA, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, CNRS, EPHE, PSL Research University, Biogéosciences, UMR 6282, 21000, Dijon, France.
J Hum Evol. 2017 Sep;110:1-17. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.04.001. Epub 2017 Jul 1.
The understanding of Neanderthal societies, both with regard to their funerary behaviors and their subsistence activities, is hotly debated. Old excavations and a lack of taphonomic context are often factors that limit our ability to address these questions. To better appreciate the exact nature of what is potentially the oldest burial in Western Europe, Regourdou (Montignac-sur-Vézère, Dordogne), and to better understand the taphonomy of this site excavated more than 50 years ago, we report in this contribution a study of the most abundant animals throughout its stratigraphy: the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). In addition to questions surrounding the potential bioturbation of the site's stratigraphy, analysis of the Regourdou rabbits could provide new information on Neandertal subsistence behavior. The mortality profile, skeletal-part representation, breakage patterns, surface modification, and comparison with modern reference collections supports the hypothesis that the Regourdou rabbit remains were primarily accumulated due to natural (attritional) mortality. Radiocarbon dates performed directly on the rabbit remains give ages ranging within the second half of Marine Isotope Stage 3, notably younger than the regional Mousterian period. We posit that rabbits dug their burrows within Regourdou's sedimentological filling, likely inhabiting the site after it was filled. The impact of rabbit activity now brings into question both the reliability of the archaeostratigraphy of the site and the paleoenvironmental reconstructions previously proposed for it, and suggests rabbits may have played a role in the distribution of the Neandertal skeletal remains.
关于尼安德特社会，无论是其丧葬行为还是生存活动，都存在激烈的争论。旧的发掘以及缺乏埋藏学背景常常是限制我们解决这些问题能力的因素。为了更好地认识西欧可能最古老墓葬（多尔多涅省韦泽尔河畔蒙蒂尼亚克的雷古尔杜）的确切性质，并更好地理解这个50多年前发掘的遗址的埋藏学，我们在本论文中报告了一项对该遗址地层中数量最多的动物——欧洲野兔（穴兔）的研究。除了围绕该遗址地层可能遭受生物扰动的问题外，对雷古尔杜野兔的分析还可为尼安德特人的生存行为提供新信息。死亡率概况、骨骼部分的呈现、破损模式、表面变化以及与现代参考标本的比较，都支持了雷古尔杜野兔遗骸主要是由于自然（损耗性）死亡而堆积的假说。直接对野兔遗骸进行的放射性碳测年得出的年代在海洋同位素阶段3的后半期范围内，明显比该地区的莫斯特期要晚。我们推测野兔在雷古尔杜的沉积填充物中挖掘洞穴，很可能是在该遗址被填满后栖息于此。野兔活动的影响现在使该遗址考古地层学的可靠性以及先前为其提出的古环境重建都受到质疑，并表明野兔可能在尼安德特人骨骼遗骸的分布中起到了作用。
