Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa; UMR 7194, HNHP, MNHN/CNRS/UPVD, Alliance Sorbonne Université, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris, France.
UMR 7194, HNHP, MNHN/CNRS/UPVD, Alliance Sorbonne Université, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris, France.
J Hum Evol. 2022 Jan;162:103116. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.103116. Epub 2021 Dec 13.
Evidence of the consumption of meat through hunting or scavenging by Early Pleistocene hominins is scarce, particularly in South Africa. Moreover, the interpretations of taphonomic evidence are subject to an important discussion commonly called the 'hunting-vs-scavenging debate.' Until today, only the Swartkrans Members 1-3 site has yielded a butchered bone assemblage large enough to permit reconstruction of carcass acquisition strategies by Early Pleistocene hominins in South Africa. This leaves an information gap between 1.4 and 1.0 Ma. Here, we provide the first evidence of meat consumption by hominins during this gap, based on the zooarchaeological study of the large mammal bone assemblage recovered from the Cooper's D site, South Africa. Based on skeletal part representation, our results show density-mediated attrition of bovid bones due to predepositional and postdepositional destruction. We argue that this attrition is the result of both abiotic (i.e., decalcification) and biotic (i.e., carnivore ravaging) processes. Bovid mortality profiles point out the involvement of ambush predators such as large felids. Bone surface modifications also indicate that the assemblage has been accumulated mostly by carnivores but with some hominin involvement as well. We observe all the stages of animal carcass processing (skinning, disarticulation, defleshing, marrow extraction) as well as the exploitation of a diversity of prey size classes at both Swartkrans Members 1-3 and Cooper's D. Thus, our study shows the importance of the Cooper's D bone assemblage for understanding Early Pleistocene hominin subsistence behaviors. Moreover, this article highlights the need for including long bone flake specimens in the analysis of large bone assemblages from South African caves to better understand the Early Pleistocene hominin bone damage record.
早期人类通过狩猎或食腐来获取肉类的证据很少，尤其是在南非。此外，对埋藏学证据的解释受到通常被称为“狩猎与食腐之争”的重要讨论的影响。直到今天，只有斯瓦特克朗斯成员 1-3 地点产生了足够大的被屠宰的骨骼组合，使我们能够重建早期人类在南非获取猎物的策略。这使得在 140-100 万年前之间存在一个信息空白。在这里，我们基于从南非库珀斯洞出土的大型哺乳动物骨骼组合的考古学研究，提供了这一空白期间人类食用肉类的第一个证据。根据骨骼部分的代表性，我们的研究结果表明，由于预沉积和后沉积破坏，牛科动物骨骼因密度而发生磨损。我们认为，这种磨损是生物和非生物因素（即脱钙和食腐动物的破坏）共同作用的结果。牛科动物的死亡率表明，伏击捕食者（如大型猫科动物）参与其中。骨骼表面的修饰也表明，该组合主要是由食肉动物积累的，但也有人类的参与。我们观察到动物尸体处理的所有阶段（剥皮、解体、去肉、骨髓提取），以及在斯瓦特克朗斯成员 1-3 和库珀斯洞都利用了不同大小的猎物。因此，我们的研究表明，库珀斯洞骨骼组合对于理解早期人类的生存行为非常重要。此外，本文强调了在分析南非洞穴中的大型骨骼组合时需要包括长骨碎片标本，以更好地理解早期人类的骨骼损伤记录。
