The large mammals of Roc de Combe (Lot, France): The Châtelperronian and Aurignacian assemblages

Abstract

Roc de Combe is a small cave that has played a large role in debates over the nature of the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in southwestern Europe. Recent work [Bordes, J.-G., 2002. Les interstratifications Châtelperronien/Aurignacien du Roc-de-Combe et du Piage (Lot, France). Thèse présentée à l’Université Bordeaux I, no. 2614.] has shown that securely interleaved Châtelperronian and Aurignacian deposits do not exist here and has also allowed archaeological material from stratigraphically secure contexts within the site to be distinguished from stratigraphically insecure ones. Here, we reanalyze the large mammal fauna from Roc de Combe to examine differences that might have existed in faunal use during Roc de Combe’s Châtelperronian and Aurignacian occupations. The results suggest little if any dietary difference between the Châtelperronian and earliest Aurignacian assemblages, insofar as such differences can be inferred from zooarchaeological data, agreeing with recent analyses conducted at Grotte XVI [Grayson, D.K., Delpech, F., 2005. Pleistocene reindeer and global warming. Conservation Biology 19, 557–562.] and St. Césaire [Morin, E., 2004. Late Pleistocene population interaction in western Europe and modern human origins: new insights based on the faunal remains from Saint-Césaire, southwestern France. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.]. If we assume that all Châtelperronian industries were manufactured by Neandertals and all Aurignacian ones by moderns, then these results support the conclusion that Neandertal and early modern human diets did not differ in any important ways, at least as regards the large mammal component of that diet.