A tool for determining duration of mortality events in archaeological assemblages using extant ungulate microwear

The seasonality of human occupations in archaeological sites is highly significant for the study of hominin behavioural ecology, in particular the hunting strategies for their main prey-ungulates. We propose a new tool to quantify such seasonality from tooth microwear patterns in a dataset of ten la...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-11, Vol.5 (1), p.17330-17330, Article 17330
Main Authors: Rivals, Florent, Prignano, Luce, Semprebon, Gina M., Lozano, Sergi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/181/27
631/181/414
Animals
Archaeology
Fossils
Geography
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
multidisciplinary
Science
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Summary:The seasonality of human occupations in archaeological sites is highly significant for the study of hominin behavioural ecology, in particular the hunting strategies for their main prey-ungulates. We propose a new tool to quantify such seasonality from tooth microwear patterns in a dataset of ten large samples of extant ungulates resulting from well-known mass mortality events. The tool is based on the combination of two measures of variability of scratch density, namely standard deviation and coefficient of variation. The integration of these two measurements of variability permits the classification of each case into one of the following three categories: (1) short events, (2) long-continued event and (3) two separated short events. The tool is tested on a selection of eleven fossil samples from five Palaeolithic localities in Western Europe which show a consistent classification in the three categories. The tool proposed here opens new doors to investigate seasonal patterns of ungulate accumulations in archaeological sites using non-destructive sampling.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep17330