The role of foxes in the Palaeolithic economies of the Swabian Jura (Germany)

Chris Baumann,Susanne C Münzel,Nicholas J Conard,Gillian L Wong,Britt M Starkovich

doi:10.1007/s12520-020-01173-4

Abstract

In this study, we examine the role of foxes in Palaeolithic economies, focusing on sites of the Middle Palaeolithic, Aurignacian, Gravettian and Magdalenian of the Swabian Jura. For this purpose, we used published faunal data from 26 assemblages from the region, including new information from the Magdalenian layers of Langmahdhalde. We explore how the abundance of foxes changes over time, how they were used by humans, and how they were deposited at the sites, with a special focus on fox hunting methods. To evaluate these hunting methods, we use the prey choice model of optimal foraging theory (OFT) and simulate possible hunting scenarios, which we test based on the published faunal assemblages. Our research indicates that foxes were hunted since the early Upper Palaeolithic for their meat, fur and teeth, possibly with traps. We find that the abundance of fox remains in the archaeological record of the region increased continuously starting in the Aurignacian, which cannot be explained by taphonomic factors. The trend of foxes to adapt to human-influenced environments with commensal behavior may also have contributed to them being hunted more often.

Highlights

The transition from the Middle Palaeolithic, which was dominated by Neanderthals, to the Upper Palaeolithic, which isThis article is part of the topical collection on Do good things come in small packages?Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 208 Page 2 of 17Archaeol Anthropol Sci (2020) 12:2082000; Stiner et al 1999), the use of foxes for both fur and meat is less strongly supported but is likely to have occurred (Camarós et al 2016; Conard et al 2013; Yeshurun et al 2009)
In the second and third topics that deal with population structures and hunting methods, we will compare our results with modern behavioral studies of foxes and consider the prey choice model from optimal foraging theory (OFT) to explain human hunting behavior
We have established that the abundance of foxes at sites in the Swabian Jura changed from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Magdalenian

Summary

Introduction

In modern hunter-gatherer cultures, such as some Inuit tribes of the eastern Arctic (Eber 1989), it is common to consume foxes regularly only in times when no other food is available. This makes the presence of fox remains an important indicator for over-hunting of main prey and human population growth, following the hypothesis of Stiner et al (1999). Our study focuses on the human use of foxes from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Magdalenian in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany, a region with some of the most wellresearched Palaeolithic sites in Europe. In the Swabian Jura, the Upper Palaeolithic is represented by the Aurignacian (42,000– 34,000 cal BP (Conard and Bolus 2003; Conard and Bolus 2008; Hahn 1982; Higham et al 2012)), Gravettian (34,000– 24,000 cal BP (Conard and Bolus 2008; Housley et al 1997; Taller and Conard 2019)), and after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Magdalenian (16,300 to approximately 12,700 cal BP (Gaudzinski and Street 2003; Hahn 1995; Housley et al 1997; Kind 2003; Taller et al 2014))

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion