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- All Subjects: Neolithic period
- All Subjects: Plio-Pleistocene
- Creators: Reed, Kaye E
- Creators: McGraw, Maggie
- Creators: Ullah, Isaac I. T., 1979-
Description
This dissertation research describes the hunting behavior of early modern humans through the analysis of vertebrate faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco. Contrebandiers Cave is located in the town of Témara and is roughly 250 meters from the current shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. The cave was excavated in the 1950s and 1970s by l’Abbé Roche, and again starting in 2007 by Dibble and El Hajraoui with total station plotting of finds. Contrebandiers Cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits dated to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5e, 5d and 5c, ~120,000 to ~96,000 years ago. The Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits are dated to MIS 2, ~20,000 years ago. The entirety of the ~12,000 vertebrate faunal remains from Dibble and El Hajraoui’s excavation were analyzed for taxonomic and taphonomic identification.
A total of 67 vertebrate taxa were identified and include ungulates, carnivores, lagomorphs, birds, tortoises, snakes and fish. The faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave preserve surface modification that indicates both humans and carnivores acted as agents of prey accumulation. Skeletal element representation and surface modification of ungulate remains suggest that humans had primary access to small, medium and large-bodied prey. In the MSA levels, carnivore skeletal remains preserve surface modification that is interpreted as being indicative of behavior associated with skinning for fur removal.
The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 5e and 5d indicate that humans were hunting grazers and mixed feeders from open habitats and suids from mixed habitats. The faunal remains from MIS 5c indicate that humans focused less on suids and more on mixed feeders from open habitats. The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 2 reveal humans hunting grazers from dry, open habitats. This research provides a description of human hunting behavior in North Africa, and contributes to our understanding of early modern human behavior prior to dispersal out of Africa.
A total of 67 vertebrate taxa were identified and include ungulates, carnivores, lagomorphs, birds, tortoises, snakes and fish. The faunal remains from Contrebandiers Cave preserve surface modification that indicates both humans and carnivores acted as agents of prey accumulation. Skeletal element representation and surface modification of ungulate remains suggest that humans had primary access to small, medium and large-bodied prey. In the MSA levels, carnivore skeletal remains preserve surface modification that is interpreted as being indicative of behavior associated with skinning for fur removal.
The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 5e and 5d indicate that humans were hunting grazers and mixed feeders from open habitats and suids from mixed habitats. The faunal remains from MIS 5c indicate that humans focused less on suids and more on mixed feeders from open habitats. The vertebrate faunal remains from MIS 2 reveal humans hunting grazers from dry, open habitats. This research provides a description of human hunting behavior in North Africa, and contributes to our understanding of early modern human behavior prior to dispersal out of Africa.
ContributorsHallett, Emily Yuko (Author) / Marean, Curtis W (Thesis advisor) / Reed, Kaye E (Committee member) / Dibble, Harold L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Climate and environmental forcing are widely accepted to be important drivers of evolutionary and ecological change in mammal communities over geologic time scales. This paradigm has been particularly influential in studies of the eastern African late Cenozoic fossil record, in which aridification, increasing seasonality, and C4 grassland expansion are seen as having shaped the major patterns of human and faunal evolution. Despite the ubiquity of studies linking climate and environmental forcing to evolutionary and ecological shifts in the mammalian fossil record, many central components of this paradigm remain untested or poorly developed. To fill this gap, this dissertation employs biogeographical and macroecological analyses of present-day African mammal communities as a lens for understanding how abiotic change may have shaped community turnover and structure in the eastern African Plio-Pleistocene. Three dissertation papers address: 1) the role of ecological niche breadth in shaping divergent patterns of macroevolutionary turnover across clades; 2) the effect of climatic and environmental gradients on community assembly; 3) the relative influence of paleo- versus present-day climates in structuring contemporary patterns of community diversity. Results of these papers call into question many tenets of current theory, particularly: 1) that niche breadth differences (and, by extension, their influence on allopatric speciation) are important drivers of macroevolution, 2) that climate is more important than biotic interactions in community assembly, and 3) that communities today are in equilibrium with present-day climates. These findings highlight the need to critically reevaluate the role and scale-dependence of climate in mammal evolution and community ecology and to carefully consider potential time lags and disequilibrium dynamics in the fossil record.
ContributorsRowan, John (Author) / Reed, Kaye E (Thesis advisor) / Campisano, Christopher J (Committee member) / Franklin, Janet (Committee member) / Marean, Curtis W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
ContributorsMcGraw, Maggie (Author) / Swantek, Laura Anne (Author)
Created2009
Description
Cercopithecid primates today occupy the greatest geographic and climatic range of any non-human primate group. Pliocene and Pleistocene cercopithecids are often found together in fossil deposits across East and South Africa, raising the question of how these species co-occurred with one another and survived in increasingly arid and seasonal environments. Aspects of shearing ability, molar enamel thickness, and relative incisor, premolar, and molar proportions were analyzed in principal component analysis and used to generate six potential models of the cercopithecid dental morphological niche. Resulting principal component axes distinguish between taxa with varying proportions of leaves, fruit, insects, and seeds in the diet, but lose some clarity when variable subsets are used that exclude poorly-preserved or wear-restricted variables. Resampling was used to reconstruct the aggregate dental morphological niches of cercopithecid communities (taxocenes) from Africa and Asia today and from the African Pliocene and Pleistocene. Modern Asian cercopithecid taxocenes occupy a more restricted niche than their counterparts in Africa, but in both regions variation in taxocene structure is linked with past and current climate factors related to precipitation, temperature, and seasonality. Fossil cercopithecids from the Turkana Basin occupy an expanded niche in comparison to modern African and Asian taxocenes. In contrast, South African fossil taxocenes occupy a more distinct and restricted niche, which may reflect a mix of paleoenvironmental and taphonomic factors. Overall these results are consistent with existing research on modern African and Asian primate taxocene diversity and highlight the utility of a dental metric model for examining community evolution among Plio-Pleistocene cercopithecids in Africa. Evidence for a possible niche expansion during the early Pleistocene coincides with a period of well-documented hominin co-occurrence at the same fossil sites, suggesting that these two primate groups were diversifying in response to shared environmental stimuli.
ContributorsSmail, Irene (Author) / Reed, Kaye E (Thesis advisor) / Campisano, Christopher J (Committee member) / Gilbert, Christopher C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
ContributorsUllah, Isaac I. T., 1979- (Author) / Barton, C. Michael (Author)
Created2007