Palaeoenvironmental and seasonal context of the Late Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic occupations in Crimea: an appro
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(2020) 12:268
ORIGINAL PAPER
Palaeoenvironmental and seasonal context of the Late Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic occupations in Crimea: an approach using dental wear patterns in ungulates Iván Ramírez-Pedraza 1,2
&
Florent Rivals 1,2,3
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Thorsten Uthmeier 4
&
Victor Chabai 5
Received: 3 July 2020 / Accepted: 2 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The Crimean Peninsula has a rich archaeological record characterised by numerous multi-layered sites from the Middle Palaeolithic and by a number of important sites representing the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. Absolute dates place the region as one of the last Neanderthal refuges in Europe. Combining dental meso- and microwear analyses of worn molars found at faunal assemblages from different sites across Crimea, we can characterise the feeding habits of ungulates at different scales in their lifetime. The proxy data resulting from these analyses provide evidence not only on diet but also on (1) the habitat where fauna were hunted and (2) the duration of the events of human occupation in each archaeological level. For this palaeoecological reconstruction, we analysed three sites: Kabazi II and Chokurcha I from the Middle Palaeolithic and Siuren I from the Early Upper Palaeolithic. We focused particularly on the repeated Neanderthal subsistence pattern observed at Kabazi II throughout the sequence (around 80 to 48 ky). Analyses revealed that Equus hydruntinus (wild ass) was feeding on abrasive grasses, suggesting it was occupying open habitats, while Saiga tatarica (saiga antelope) was mixed feeding and probably consuming significant amounts of browse and lichens in relatively open habitats. Furthermore, variability in microwear signalled short seasonal occupations for all assemblages. During the Middle Palaeolithic and the early Upper Palaeolithic, these sites were occupied during the warm season. Keywords Late Pleistocene . Microwear . Mesowear . Dietary traits . Seasonality . Eastern Europe This article is part of the Topical Collection on Settlement Patterns Dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01217-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Florent Rivals [email protected]
2
Departament d’Història i Història de l’Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain
Iván Ramírez-Pedraza [email protected]
3
ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
Thorsten Uthmeier [email protected]
4
Institute für Prehistory and Protohistory, Department of Classical World and Asian Cultures, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Kochtsrasse 4, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
5
National Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology, Heroiv Stalingrada avenue 12, Kyiv 04210, Ukraine
Victor Chabai v.p.chaba
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