Hunting Of Large Mammals Research Articles

Stable isotope chemistry reveals plant-dominant diet among early foragers on the Andean Altiplano, 9.0-6.5 cal. ka.

Current models of early human subsistence economies suggest a focus on large mammal hunting. To evaluate this hypothesis, we examine human bone stable isotope chemistry of 24 individuals from the early Holocene sites of Wilamaya Patjxa (9.0-8.7 cal. ka) and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa (8.0-6.5 cal. ka) located at 3800 meters above sea level on the Andean Altiplano, Peru. Contrary to expectation, Bayesian mixing models based on the isotope chemistry reveal that plants dominated the diet, comprising 70-95% of the average diet. Paleoethnobotanical data further show that tubers may have been the most prominent subsistence resource. These findings update our understanding of earliest forager economies and the pathway to agricultural economies in the Andean highlands. The findings furthermore suggest that the initial subsistence economies of early human populations adapting to new landscapes may have been more plant oriented than current models suggest.

Lithic usewear confirms the function of Wilamaya Patjxa projectile points

Approximately 9000 years ago at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa, forager communities interred female and male individuals with projectile points, suggesting that large-mammal hunting may have been a gender neutral activity among that community. We report a lithic usewear analysis, which confirms that the ostensible projectile points were indeed used as projectile points. The data further reveal evidence of cutting and hide scraping consistent with animal processing activities. A new radiocarbon date shows that the female and male individuals were contemporaries, or nearly so, sometime between 9.0 and 8.7 cal. ka. These findings support a model of early subsistence practices in which both female and male individuals at Wilamaya Patjxa hunted large mammals.

The Role of Large Mammals as Vitamin C Sources for MIS 3 Hominins

The acquisition of large prey by hominins living during the Marine Isotope Stage 3, including Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans, had nutritional and bioenergetic implications: these contain high fat amounts, provide a high energy return, and the strategies and skills required to acquire small prey were different from those required to acquire the former. Vitamin C availability at several MIS 3 periods could have had a strong seasonal variability and would have been decisive for hominin groups’ survival. During the cold periods of the MIS 3, Paleolithic hominins had variable available amounts of vitamin C-containing plants only in the short summers, and for the remainder of the year, viscera would have been their best source of vitamin C. Meanwhile, the dependence on small mammals could have caused an erratic distribution of viscera to be consumed by such hominins, thus leading to chronic scurvy, and compromising their survival. Then, the hunting of large mammals would have helped to meet the daily vitamin C needs, besides an efficient energy supply. Therefore, the decline of large prey during the MIS 3 could have been critical for hominins survival, and thus the efficient exploitation of alternative vitamin C-rich food resources such as birds and aquatic animals could have favored the evolutionary success of hominin populations.

Forager mobility, landscape learning and the peopling of Late Pleistocene North America

The process(es) by which hunter-gatherers learned novel food resources as they dispersed across previously unknown landscapes, such as Late Pleistocene North America, are not known. A key trade-off in the process must have involved the decision, once high-ranked resources in a patch declined, to stay in place and learn about untried food resources or move to another patch to exploit familiar resources. Modelling the process suggests that learning a new resource will be more likely when the handling time for that resource by a novice forager is not too much higher than that for a practiced forager, and when patch residence times are long enough for within-patch resource depression to occur. The decision to move or stay would likely have varied depending on the richness and structure of the resources in different patches and habitats. The model further indicates it is not large mammal hunting per se that favors the most frequent residential moves by central place foragers, but rather the pursuit of the rate-maximizing suite of resources, whatever the composition of that suite may be. These findings imply, as previous empirical work has suggested, that the dispersal process likely played out in different ways across Late Pleistocene North America.

The technology and ecology of Lesotho's highland hunter-gatherers: A case study at Sehonghong rock shelter

Here we evaluate the hypothesis that during cold climatic phases, people and resources became increasingly packed along highland Lesotho's riverine corridors as the viability of palatable grasslands for large mammal hunting on the upland plateaus declined. These intensification efforts resulted in increased reliance on lower-ranked aquatic (fish) resources with knock-on effects for lithic technological organization. We compare data on the relative contribution of fishing to the diets of highland hunter-gatherers at Sehonghong rockshelter with a faunal proxy widely argued to correlate with subsistence intensification (faunal assemblage evenness). In addition, we compare these data with two measures of lithic technological intensification (cutting edge production and core reduction intensity) to test whether diet intensification tracks technological intensification. We show that at Sehonghong, aquatic resource exploitation is not always correlated with faunal assemblage evenness. We find that some layers (i.e. RF) show spikes in aquatic resource use irrespective of changes in faunal assemblage evenness. Other layers (i.e. RBL/CLBRF) were intensively occupied, but they do not have many fish. Our data also demonstrate that aquatic resource use is not correlated with lithic technological intensification. These results suggest that while aquatic resource exploitation was a ‘fallback’ option for some of Lesotho's highland hunter-gatherers, there is considerable variability. Our data show that multiple intensification dimensions were variably combined through the Late Pleistocene at Sehonghong as they were elsewhere in southern Africa.

Large mammal hunting and use of aquatic food resources in the Early Palaeolithic (finds from Early Acheulean sites in the southern Azov Sea region)

Food sources and techniques of food procurement in the Early Palaeolithic have long been of interest to researchers. However, this is a complex and debatable problem; its solution is complicated by a lack of relevant archaeological data. This article describes and interprets archaeological evidence from a time transgressive series of sites belonging to the Taman Early Acheulean industry (Tamanian) in the southern Azov Sea region (~2.0–1.0 Ma). Analysis of the finds leads to the conclusion that makers of the Tamanian industry were hunters of large mammals, mainly southern elephants (Archidiskodon meridionalis tamanensis) and Caucasian elasmotherium (Elasmotherium caucasicum). Active hunting of these mammals as a way to procure meat emerged thanks to the particular environmental conditions of the southern Azov region in the Lower Pleistocene and the cognitive capabilities of prehistoric people. A specific strategy was devised and applied, i.e. hunting inside calderas of mud volcanoes that were present in numbers across the region. People took into consideration the behaviour of elephants and elasmotherium which came to calderas in order to drink or ‘take a bath’ in volcanic muds. It allowed prehistoric people to effortlessly hunt animals, which were immobilized in spongy mud, and to procure substantial meat supplies. Alongside hunting of large mammals, the makers of the Tamanian industry engaged extensively in a special form of gathering, i.e. beach gathering of high-protein food like shellfish, carcasses of sea animals, and fish. This reliable source of nutrition likely was one of the main reasons why the Tamanian sites were located on beaches adjacent to coastal lagoons and estuaries.

Illegal hunting in Jordan: using social media to assess impacts on wildlife

AbstractThis study is the first to provide data on the extent of illegal hunting practices in Jordan using posts on social media. During January 2015–January 2016 photographs from seven hunter groups on Facebook recorded the killing of 4,707 native animals of 59 species, of which birds constituted the majority, followed by mammals and reptiles. Flouting of Jordanian laws was widespread, with daily bag limits exceeded on many occasions, and in the case of chukar partridgeAlectoris chukar, the most popular quarry, some hunters exceeded the limit by 3,000%. Of even greater concern, a total of 34 species with special protection under Jordanian law were killed, and the hunting of large mammals, especially ibexCapra nubianaand gazelles (Gazellaspp.), with already depleted populations, was particularly excessive. It also appeared that a significant number of gazelles were shot by unlicensed hunters from Arabian Gulf countries. Overall, the survey indicates an alarming picture of overhunting of threatened species and ineffective enforcement of hunting laws, despite the efforts of key government and voluntary agencies. We recommend urgent action to address the causes of the problem and to improve the management of hunting through better collaboration, mobilization of resources and awareness raising.

Zoon Politikon

We provide the most up-to-date evidence available in various behavioral fields in support of the hypothesis that the emergence of bipedalism and cooperative breeding in the hominin line—together with environmental developments that made a diet of meat from large animals adaptive as well as cultural innovation in the form of fire and cooking—created a niche for hominins in which there was a high return for coordinated, cooperative scavenging and hunting of large mammals. This was accompanied by an increasing use of wooden spears and lithic points as lethal hunting weapons that transformed human sociopolitical life. The combination of social interdependence and the availability of such weapons in early hominin society undermined the standard social dominance hierarchy of multimale/multifemale primate groups. The successful sociopolitical structure that ultimately replaced the ancestral social dominance hierarchy was an egalitarian political system in which lethal weapons made possible group control of leaders, and group success depended on the ability of leaders to persuade and of followers to contribute to a consensual decision process. The heightened social value of nonauthoritarian leadership entailed enhanced biological fitness for such leadership traits as linguistic facility, ability to form and influence coalitions, and, indeed, hypercognition in general.

European Neanderthal stone hunting weapons reveal complex behaviour long before the appearance of modern humans

Stone weapon points constitute a major innovation appearing at the end of the Middle Pleistocene in Europe, Africa and the Near East; that is, among both sapiens and Neanderthal populations. The microscopic analysis of the stone weapons used by Neanderthal groups in Atlantic southern Europe suggests that this technology was widespread and became a recurrent behaviour within organised strategies developed by these societies. In this southern region of Europe, stone weapon hunting technology appears at an early time (about 150 ka, OIS 6) and is associated with the hunting of large mammals. This behaviour can be recognised in a geomorphologically complex region and at a time of great environmental change (OIS 6–5–4). The fact that these innovations were used by European Neanderthals long before the spread of anatomically modern humans in the area is of great evolutionary significance.

The Nihewan Basin of North China in the Early Pleistocene: Continuous and flourishing, or discontinuous, infrequent and ephemeral occupation?

The prevailing interpretation of the evidence for Early Pleistocene hominin occupation of the Nihewan Basin, North China is that it indicates continuous settlement by hominins that were able to adapt to a wide variety of environmental conditions, ranging from full interglacial to full glacial. It has further been suggested that they were able to do so by the routine hunting of large mammals. This paper argues that there is no evidence that hominins inhabited the Nihewan Basin year-round or under cold conditions, and no evidence that they hunted. Instead, it is suggested that hominins are likely to have visited Nihewan during the summer months, and probably avoided it when conditions were significantly colder than today. This scenario is consistent with what is known of the climatic sensitivity of the earliest hominin occupation of other regions in Eurasia at comparable latitudes (such as the Chinese Loess Plateau, Tajikistan, the Caucasus and Spain), and in similar strongly-seasonal environments with sub-freezing winters, such as Britain. Overall, hominin settlement in the Nihewan Basin was likely discontinuous, infrequent and ephemeral.

The hunting of large mammals in the upper palaeolithic of southern Italy: A diachronic case study from Grotta del Romito

The results of the study of faunal remains from the Upper Pleistocene levels of the cave site of Grotta del Romito in Calabria, southern Italy, are presented in this work. The present study mainly focuses on the comparison of results from Gravettian (units I-H-G) and Epigravettian levels (units F-E-D-C) of the site, in order to assess similarities and differences in the relationship between animals and hunter-gatherer human communities in the Upper Palaeolithic of the area. The aim of the study is to understand faunal associations and species hunted in relation to the climatic and environmental context of the Late Glacial in southern Italy and the human subsistence, economy and society in these two Upper Palaeolithic cultural phases. The study highlighted an animal economy mainly based on the hunting of ibex, wild boar, chamois and red deer, as well as changes in the choice of hunted species between the Gravettian, characterised by a ibex-dominated hunting, and the Epigravettian period, when wild boar, alongside ibex, became a particularly important resource for the economy of the local human groups. The evidence provided by the taphonomic analysis of modifications and damage on the bone surface revealed an intense anthropic exploitation of the carcasses, aimed at the consumption of meat and the extraction of marrow and fat from the bones.

Early Paleoindian big-game hunting in North America: Provisioning or Politics?

We question several common elements of conventional descriptions of Early Paleoindian adaptations. Specifically, we examine the presumed scales of residential mobility, the role of high-quality lithics in these movements, and the extent to which First Americans hunted large game as a fundamental part of their food-getting activities. We compare the Early Paleoindian data to relevant information on hunting, mobility, and weaponry documented ethnohistorically and ethnographically. We then construct an alternative explanation for the Early Paleoindian record based on the premise that the hunting of large mammals, presumably by men, may have been motivated more by social and political factors than by the need to regularly and reliably provision a family or band with food. By proposing a plausible alternative explanation for the available data, we suggest that there is good reason to think critically about several of the basic components of the conventional view of Early Paleoindian adaptations.

Exploratory Models of Intersite Variability in Mid to Late Holocene Central Alaska

IInterrelated aspects of technology, site structure, and subsistence patterns in central Alaska are synthesized using a comprehensive database of radiocarbon-dated components. Microblade technology is examined with respect to broad patterns of technology, settlement, and subsistence. Striking changes in the archaeological record during the Late Holocene (~1000 cal BP), including the loss of microblades, are explored through three general models: technological and economic change within existing populations, population replacement or assimilation, and taphonomic bias. The evidence most strongly supports the first: a shift from multiseasonal large mammal hunting strategies with associated high residential mobility to exploitation of seasonally overabundant resources (caribou, fish) and increased logistical mobility and reliance on storage.

Investigating Contemporary Evolution via Size-Selective Harvest

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Evolution is commonly taught as a slow process that changes gene frequencies over long time periods. These genotypes are changed through natural selection on phenotypes with the fittest individuals spreading more genes into the environment than less-fit phenotypes. What is now well known to science, but still under- emphasized in textbooks and classroom lessons, is that humans can be one of the strongest selection agents on an organism's phenotype through several different pathways. Humans have perhaps the longest history of affecting organism phenotypes through size-selective harvest, or collection of the largest organism. This activity was designed to supplement traditional evolution units and allow students to discover that evolution can occur in relatively short time-periods and be directed by human action. After completing this activity, students will be able to: * predict the consequences of selective harvesting * understand how evolution and natural selection affect genotypes and phenotypes * design and critique experimental design * collect and analyze data * make conclusions based on research results. Students are likely most familiar with size-selective harvest in trophy hunting of large mammals, such as deer. However, marine fisheries are probably the most common arena for size-selective harvest based upon common industry practices. For centuries, fishermen have used large nets pulled through schools of fish to maximize their catch-per-unit effort. In modern times, large commercial fishing fleets use sophisticated technology, including global positioning satellites and sonar, in conjunction with traditional knowledge about behavior and biology to locate the largest concentrations of fish. Nets are still used to haul in the fish and require fish to be of a certain size to be captured. Even with smaller mesh sizes, some fish will escape, but this is less so in the modern era of commercial fisheries. Fish often mature at a genetically-determined size and/or age, which in turn is structured by environmental conditions. These types of traits are called Life History Traits. Growth is highly correlated with age, and older individuals are usually larger. Generally speaking, the larger the mother, the more offspring she will have with each reproductive event. If she is sufficiently large, her offspring will also be larger. These larger offspring often have higher survival rates than small offspring. Darwinian fitness is related to the proportion of the parents' genes in the next generation; fitness is generically the number of offspring you have that live to reproduce. Larger female fish have higher fitness than smaller female fish. Darwin (2004) used changes seen with selective breeding of animals as evidence of natural selection. Selective breeding is common in today's commercial agriculture and food animal production, but is seldom discussed with relevancy to evolutionary processes. Humans can also inadvertently affect the evolution of species. Using the marine fisheries example, fish that escape fishing nets to reproduce are often smaller and thus pass on genes that allow maturity at smaller sizes. If the harvest is strong enough, or repeated over many generations, this selection can result in fish being smaller at maturity (Figure 1). This has fitness consequences and reduces biomass in commercial harvests (Conover & Munch, 2002; Hutchings, 2005). Contemporary evolution is defined as heritable trait evolution observed in contemporary time (i.e., less then a few hundred years) (Stockwell et al., 2003). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] A simple laboratory exercise using inexpensive and nonperishable materials can demonstrate contemporary evolution. The following activity will allow students to discover how humans can interfere with the natural selection of organisms and do so in relatively little time. …

Tanged points, microblades and Late Palaeolithic hunting in Korea

AbstractThe present study examines the stone weapons available in Late Palaeolithic Korea, showing how the change in lithics signals a change in hunting strategy. In advance of the Late Glacial Maximum, a tanged spear tip flourished, reflecting the hunting of large mammals associated with the colder climate. In the more variable climate that followed, the prevalence of microliths suggests lightweight composite hunting weapons mostly used in pursuit of small game and diverse food resources. These weapons eventually included bow and arrows in the final Pleistocene.

Explaining variability in Early Paleoindian foraging

We have argued elsewhere [Cannon, M.D., Meltzer, D.J., 2004. Early Paleoindian foraging: examining the faunal evidence for large mammal specialization and regional variability in prey choice. Quaternary Science Reviews 23, 1955–1987] that the North American archaeofaunal record provides little support for the notion that Early Paleoindians across the continent practiced a uniform subsistence strategy focused on the specialized hunting of large mammals; rather, there is some evidence for regional variability in human subsistence during the Early Paleoindian period (ca. 11,500–10,800 14C yr BP). Here, we further explore the archaeofaunal evidence for regional variability in subsistence behavior, focusing in particular on diet breadth and on the degree to which diets were dominated by large-bodied mammals. We also show how geographic variability in Early Paleoindian foraging can be understood in relation to environmental variability by employing a foraging theory model of patch choice in fractal environments [Ritchie, M.E., 1998. Scale-dependent foraging and patch choice in fractal environments. Evolutionary Ecology 12, 309–330]. Broad-scale patterns of regional variability in Early Paleoindian prey choice are consistent with the explanation—derived from the fractal patch choice model in conjunction with paleoenvironmental data on the “grain-size” of terminal Pleistocene environments—that the subsistence strategies of early Americans were sensitive to the tradeoff between searching for and foraging in resource patches in a patchy environment, and that those strategies varied in response to the heterogeneity of the environments that different early American groups inhabited. We conclude by briefly critiquing the use of foraging theory in Early Paleoindian research and by presenting suggestions for future improvements in our understanding of Early Paleoindian subsistence.

Models of faunal processing and economy in Early Holocene interior Alaska

This study represents the first detailed published analysis of a relatively large archaeologically derived faunal assemblage in eastern Beringia for the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene. The faunal remains, dated to 10,100 cal. BP, are well preserved and have highly resolved spatial association with lithics and hearth features. Factors in the formation of the assemblage are assessed through analyses of weathering, presence/absence of carnivore damage, fragmentation patterns, bone density, and economic utility. Taphonomic analyses indicate that human transport and processing decisions were the major agents responsible for assemblage formation. A spatial model of wapiti and bison carcass processing at this site is proposed detailing faunal trajectories from the kill sites, introduction on site in a central staging area to peripheral marrow extraction areas associated with hearths and lithic items. Data from mortality profiles, spatial analysis, and economic analysis are used to interpret general economy and site function within this period in Interior Alaska. These data and intersite comparisons demonstrate that considerable economic variability existed during the Early Holocene, from broad spectrum foraging to efficient, specialized terrestrial large mammal hunting.

Hunting of large mammals and pheasants in the Indian western Himalaya

We conducted a survey in the western Himalaya of India to assess animal extraction patterns. Data on animal species and their extraction patterns, their importance to the respondents, and reasons and methods of hunting were collected using structured questionnaires. Twenty-three species of large mammals and Galliformes were present in the area, 18 of which were hunted around at least one village. Of special concern were several threatened species that were hunted around most villages were they occurred, although the impact of removal on wild populations is not clear. The main reason for hunting was to supplement animal protein, although some animals were also killed for sale of meat and their parts. The establishment of community-managed forests has not had an impact on extraction rates. Assessment of the impact of hunting on the threatened species in particular is urgently required.

Archaeology and cognitive evolution.

Archaeology can provide two bodies of information relevant to the understanding of the evolution of human cognition--the timing of developments, and the evolutionary context of these developments. The challenge is methodological. Archaeology must document attributes that have direct implications for underlying cognitive mechanisms. One example of such a cognitive archaeology is found in spatial cognition. The archaeological record documents an evolutionary sequence that begins with ape-equivalent spatial abilities 2.5 million years ago and ends with the appearance of modern abilities in the still remote past of 400,000 years ago. The timing of these developments reveals two major episodes in the evolution in spatial ability, one, 1.5 million years ago and the other, one million years later. The two episodes of development in spatial cognition had very different evolutionary contexts. The first was associated with the shift to an open country adaptive niche that occurred early in the time range of Homo erectus. The second was associated with no clear adaptive shift, though it does appear to have coincided with the invasion of more hostile environments and the appearance of systematic hunting of large mammals. Neither, however, occurred in a context of modern hunting and gathering.

Social Change and Hunting during the Pueblo III to Pueblo IV Transition, East-Central Arizona

The transition from the Pueblo III to the Pueblo IV period (A.D. 1100–1400) in the American Southwest involved marked population aggregation. Diverse economic, political, and religious factors must have played a role in the integration of these populations. Bailey Ruin, Bryant Ranch, and Pottery Hill, three sites in the Silver Creek drainage of east-central Arizona, show increased hunting of large mammals during this transition. This trend has elsewhere been attributed to hunting specialization due to local resource depletion and perhaps the need for a seasonal supplement to maize-based diets, but these factors do not adequately explain the data here. In fact, the regional reliance on rabbit protein suggests that hunting larger game was not necessary to meet dietary needs in an environment where small game is a reliable food source and artiodactyls are rare. Rather, the increased proportion of large mammals in the Silver Creek area faunal assemblages seems to reflect larger issues of social reorganization. Rituals aimed at community integration and individual attempts to gain authority and prestige were focused on communal hunts, feasts, and the production of ritual paraphernalia through large-game hunting.