The Roc de Combe Faunal Assemblages and Early Upper Paleolithic Human Subsistence in Southwestern France

现代人取代欧洲尼安德特人的方式仍不清楚。许多人认为，这种替代与现代人获得食物的能力更强有关。由于大型哺乳动物构成了这两组种群的食物中非常重要的一部分，这表明现代人在某种程度上比尼安德特人更有效率。然而，最近对法国西南部从尼安德特人到现代人转变过程中饮食差异的分析表明，情况并非如此。这项工作基于考古遗址石窟十六世的骨骼组合，没有发现尼安德特人和早期现代人群体在狩猎方式上有任何显著的、由行为引起的差异。这些结论是基于单个遗址的，当从相同的角度分析其他遗址时，可能会显示出人类狩猎能力的差异，这可能有助于解释尼安德特人的灭绝。在这项研究期间进行的研究中，唐纳德·K·格雷森博士将与古生物学家弗朗索瓦·德尔佩赫博士(波尔多大学)合作，分析同样位于法国西南部的Roc de Combe遗址上最新的尼安德特人和最早的现代人留下的骨骼组合。这项研究的问题是，将Grotte XVI协议应用于相同年龄的不同组合是否会复制Grotte XVI的结果。如果这些结果被复制，现代人取代尼安德特人的可能性将越来越大，这可以归因于使用大型哺乳动物作为食物的差异。在这两个种群中，追求较大的哺乳动物所涉及的能量成本仍有可能不同，未来在欧洲西南部针对这个问题的以生存为导向的研究可能会有利可图地专注于这种可能性。可以预期，这里提出的研究将产生各种更广泛的影响。首先，格雷森博士之前在这一领域的研究有力地表明，夏季气温升高导致了冰河时代后期驯鹿数量的减少。如果这一发现得到证实，它将对理解全球变暖对驯鹿和驯鹿种群的影响产生重要影响，这是科学家和土著人民都深感关切的问题。其次，从世界各地的媒体报道来看，石窟十六世的作品具有极大的普遍兴趣，因此有助于提高公众对人类更深层次历史的理解。预计人们对Roc de Combe的工作结果也会有类似的兴趣。第三，这种彻底的跨学科研究将继续在美国和法国科学家之间建立联系。最后，正在进行的工作将纳入格雷森博士在华盛顿大学教授的课程，包括动物考古学、物种灭绝和人类对环境的影响等课程。这些课程的参与者包括许多本科生，他们后来在不同学科攻读更高的学位，或者在华盛顿大学完成博士学位，成为美国或其他地方科学界富有成效的成员。

The means by which modern peoples replaced Neandertals in Europe remain unclear. Many have assumed that this replacement was related to a greater ability on the part of modern peoples to obtain food. Since large mammals formed a very substantial part of the diet of both sets of populations, this would suggest that modern peoples were in some way more efficient hunters than were Neandertals. However, recent analyses of dietary differences across the transition from Neandertals to moderns in southwestern France suggest otherwise. This work, based on the bone assemblages from the archaeological site of Grotte XVI, failed to find any significant, behaviorally-caused differences in hunting practices between Neandertals and early modern human groups. These conclusions are based on a single site, and it is possible that other sites, when analyzed from the same perspective, will show differences in human hunting abilities that may help account for the demise of Neandertals. In the research to be conducted during this study, Dr. Donald K. Grayson will team up with paleontologist Dr. Francoise Delpech (University of Bordeaux) to analyze bone assemblages left by the latest Neandertals and earliest modern humans at the site of Roc de Combe, also in southwestern France. This research asks whether applying the Grotte XVI protocol to a different set of assemblages of the same age will replicate the Grotte XVI results. If those results are replicated, it will become increasingly unlikely that the replacement of Neandertals by modern peoples can be attributed to differences in the use of large mammals as food. It will remain possible that the energetic costs involved in pursuing larger mammals differed between the two populations, and future subsistence-oriented research on this question in southwestern Europe might be profitably focused on this possibility. The research proposed here can be expected to have a variety of broader impacts. First, Dr. Grayson's previous research in this area has strongly suggested that higher summer temperatures led to decreasing abundances of reindeer during the later Ice Age. If this finding is confirmed, it will have important implications for understanding of the impact of global warming on reindeer and caribou populations, a matter of deep concern to both scientists and native peoples. Second, to judge by the media coverage it received throughout the world, Grotte XVI work was of great general interest and, as such, helped to improve the public's understanding of the deeper human past. Similar interest in the results of the work at Roc de Combe is expected. Third, this thoroughly interdisciplinary research will continue to build ties between American and French scientists. Finally, ongoing work will be incorporated into the courses taught by Dr. Grayson at the University of Washington, including courses on zooarchaeology, extinctions, and human impacts on the environment. Participants in those courses have included many undergraduates who went on to pursue higher degrees in various disciplines, or completed their Ph.D.s at the University of Washington to become productive members of the scientific community in the United States or elsewhere.