Mousterian Large‐Mammal Remains from Kobeh Cave Behavioral Implications for Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans

TLDR

Neanderthals and early modern humans are thought to have scavenged most large mammals in Middle Paleolithic assemblages, a hypothesis inferred from head‑dominated skeletal patterns that may reflect methodological bias. This study analyzes the Mousterian fauna of Kobeh Cave by refitting previously ignored mid‑shaft bone fragments to reassess skeletal element representation. Researchers refitted and identified mid‑shaft fragments of long bones, incorporated them into element‑abundance calculations, and generated a limb‑dominated skeletal‑element profile. The resulting limb‑dominated profile shows that the head‑and‑foot pattern is an artifact of excluding shaft fragments, providing evidence that Neanderthals or early modern humans primarily scavenged large mammals, while cut marks and percussion marks also indicate hunting activity.

Abstract

Researchers have argued that Neanderthals and/or early modern humans scavenged the majority of the larger mammals represented in Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age faunal assem‐blages at Combe Grenal, Grotte Vaufrey, Grotta Guattari, Grotta dei Moscerini, and Klasies River Mouth. If this is true, then these hominids practiced a pattern of faunal exploitation undocu‐mented among modern hunter‐gatherers. The evidence for this scavenging rests upon the presence of a head‐dominated or headand‐foot‐dominated skeletal‐element pattern. These are skeletal parts with little flesh. However, the sites where this pattern is found are either biased assemblages, shaft fragments having been discarded by the excavators, or unbiased ones in which shaft ments were not included in the zooarchaeologist's analysis. An analysis of the Mousterian fauna from Kobeh Cave, Iran, in which the mid‐shaft fragments of long bones typically considered nonidentifiable were refitted, identified, and entered into the mates of element abundance produced a skeletal‐element profile dominated by limb bones of the highest meat utility. If we remove these mid‐shaft fragments we create a profile of the headand‐foot variety. This suggests that the ubiquitous head‐and‐foot‐dominated or head‐dominated pattern is a methodological arti‐fact resulting from ignoring shaft fragments and that there is evidence that Neanderthals or early modern humans procured large mammals primarily from scavenging. Analysis of surface modification (cut marks, hammerstone percussion marks, and carnivore tooth marks) further substantiates a pattern of hunting by the Middle Paleolithic hominids that inhabited Kobeh Cave.