Pandora wrote:
On Sat, 4 Feb 2023 05:19:27 -0800 (PST), "littor...@gmail.com" <littoral.homo@gmail.com> wrote:
Saint-Césaire, PA site in SW-France, where in 1979 the remains of a young adult
male Hn were found buried in a small pit. The skeleton was recovered during
archaeological salvage excavations at the back of the Roche-Ã -Pierrot rock shelter,
near the village of Saint-Césaire. It was found in ass.x tools & other artifacts formerly
ass.x only with early Hs, and not Hn. Despite the inland location of the site,
a marine shell was found buried with the individual. ...
Kudu runner:
You can deduce all that (seasonal migration, piscivory) from a single >>>>> marine shell?
From a single shell??
That's the only evidende you mention
I'm not responsible for your selective reading... :-DDD
What else is there that would suggest seasonal migration and piscivory
at the site? You don't mention fishbones.
In AA land, a single shell is enough to prove aquaticness. However,
real scientists do more...
From 2006 (a bit more recent)
http://perso.ens-lyon.fr/vincent.balter/Articles/Balter(JHE)06.pdf
Diet and behavior of the Saint-Ce´saire Neanderthal
inferred from biogeochemical data inversion
Abstract
Biogeochemistry is a powerful tool for dietary
reconstruction, and mixing equations can be used to
quantify the contribution of multiple sources to an
individual's diet. The goals of this paper are: 1) to
generalize the inverse method to dietary mixtures;
and 2) to reconstruct the diet of the Saint-Césaire
Neanderthal using Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca data of the mineral
fraction of bone (hydroxylapatite), and with published
δ13C and δ15N data of the associated organic fraction
of bone (collagen). A new method is proposed to
calculate the maximum diagenetic contribution of the
Sr/Ba ratio, assuming that the soil soluble fraction
is the diagenetic end-member and, for a given fraction
of diagenesis, allows the restoration of the original
Sr/Ba ratio. Considering the Saint-Césaire
Châtelperronian mammalian assemblage as the meat
source, and on the basis of available Sr, Ba, and Ca
contents of plants, the results indicate that the
percentage of plants in the Neanderthal's diet must
have been close to zero for realistic Sr and Ba
impoverishment between diet and hydroxylapatite.
Contrary to previous studies, it is shown that fish
could constitute a significant proportion (30%) of
the diet of the Saint-Césaire Neanderthal. However,
this mass balance solution is not supported by the
zooarchaeological data. When the entire faunal
assemblage is considered as the dietary source, the
calculation shows that bovids (except reindeer)
represent the greatest percentage of consumed meat
(58%), followed by horses/rhinoceros (22%), reindeer
(13%), and mammoths (7%). These respective percentages
are in close accordance with zooarchaeological records,
suggesting that the faunal assemblage associated with
the Neanderthal of Saint-Césaire reliably reflects what
he ate during the last few years of his life. In
behavioral terms, this result supports the hypothesis
that this Neanderthal carried the foodstuffs back to
the Saint-Césaire shelter before their consumption.
From the conclusion:
"In the case of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic site of
Saint-Ce´saire, it is shown that even if 27% of the
Sr/Ba ratio of the Neanderthal could be explained by
diagenesis, plant resources did not constitute a
sizable proportion of the diet of the Neanderthal.
However, from the elemental and isotopic points of
view, it is possible that fish may have contributed
to the overall biogeochemical signature of the
Neanderthal, although this result is not supported by
zooarchaeological data. When the ungulates are pooled
according to their elemental and isotopic pattern,
their respective proportions in the diet of the
Neanderthal resemble those deduced by zooarchaeology.
This suggests that this Neanderthal brought the
foodstuffs back to the site before their consumption,
and thus did not practice passive scavenging."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)