Marín Juan, Saladié Palmira, Rodríguez-Hidalgo Antonio, Carbonell Eudald
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Institut de Paléontologie Humaine (IPH), 1 rue René Panhard, Paris, France.
Equipo de Investigación Primeros Pobladores de Extremadura. Casa de la Cultura Rodríguez Moñino, Avd. Cervantes s/n, Cáceres, Spain.
PLoS One. 2017 Nov 22;12(11):e0186970. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186970. eCollection 2017.
Ungulate mortality profiles are commonly used to study Neanderthal subsistence strategies. To assess the hunting strategies used by Neanderthals, we studied the ages at death of the cervids and equids found in levels E, H, I, Ja, Jb, K, L and M of the Abric Romaní sequence. These levels date between 43.2 ± 1.1 ka BP (14C AMS) and 54.5 ± 1.7 ka BP (U-series). The degree of eruption and development of the teeth and their wear stages were used to determine the ages of these animals at death, and mortality profiles were constructed using these data. The equids display prime dominated profiles in all of the analyzed levels, whereas the cervids display variable profiles. These results suggest that the Neanderthals of Abric Romaní employed both selective and non-selective hunting strategies. The selective strategy focused on the hunting of prime adults and generated prime dominated profiles. On the other hand, non-selective strategies, involved the consumption of animals of variable ages, resulting in catastrophic profiles. It is likely that in the selective hunting events were conducted using selective ambushes in which it was possible to select specific prey animals. On the other hand, encounter hunting or non-selective ambush hunting may have also been used at times, based on the abundances of prey animals and encounter rates. Specific hunting strategies would have been developed accordance with the taxa and the age of the individual to be hunted. The hunting groups most likely employed cooperative hunting techniques, especially in the capture of large animals. Thus, it is not possible to uniquely associate a single mortality profile with the predation tactics of Neanderthals at Abric Romaní.
有蹄类动物的死亡情况通常被用于研究尼安德特人的生存策略。为了评估尼安德特人所采用的狩猎策略，我们研究了在阿布里·罗马尼遗址序列的E、H、I、Ja、Jb、K、L和M层中发现的鹿类和马类动物的死亡年龄。这些地层的年代在43.2 ± 1.1 千年前（14C AMS）至54.5 ± 1.7 千年前（铀系）之间。通过牙齿的萌出程度、发育情况及其磨损阶段来确定这些动物的死亡年龄，并利用这些数据构建死亡情况分布图。在所有分析的地层中，马类动物呈现出以壮年个体为主的分布图，而鹿类动物的分布图则各不相同。这些结果表明，阿布里·罗马尼的尼安德特人采用了选择性和非选择性两种狩猎策略。选择性策略侧重于猎杀壮年成年个体，从而产生以壮年个体为主的分布图。另一方面，非选择性策略涉及食用不同年龄的动物，导致出现灾难性的分布图。在选择性狩猎活动中，很可能采用了选择性伏击的方式，以便能够挑选特定的猎物。另一方面，根据猎物的数量和相遇率，有时也可能会采用偶遇狩猎或非选择性伏击狩猎。具体的狩猎策略会根据要猎杀的物种和个体年龄而制定。狩猎群体很可能采用了合作狩猎技术，尤其是在捕获大型动物时。因此，不可能将单一的死亡情况分布图与阿布里·罗马尼的尼安德特人的捕食策略唯一地联系起来。
