Birds of a feather : neanderthal exploitation of raptors and corvids
Finlayson, Clive (University of Toronto. Department of Social Sciences)
Brown, Kimberly (The Gibraltar Museum)
Blasco, Ruth (Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social)
Rosell Ardèvol, Jordi (Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Àrea de Prehistòria)
Negro, Juan José (Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC))
Bortolotti, Gary R. (University of Saskatchewan. Department of Biology)
Finlayson, Geraldine (The Gibraltar Museum)
Sánchez Marco, Antonio (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Giles Pacheco, Francisco (The Gibraltar Museum)
Rodríguez Vidal, Joaquín (Universidad de Huelva. Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra)
Carrión, José (Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Vegetal)
Fa, Darren A. (The Gibraltar Museum)
Rodríguez Llanes, José M. (Université Catholique de Louvain. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters Institute Health and Society)

Data:	2012
Resum:	The hypothesis that Neanderthals exploited birds for the use of their feathers or claws as personal ornaments in symbolic behaviour is revolutionary as it assigns unprecedented cognitive abilities to these hominins. This inference, however, is based on modest faunal samples and thus may not represent a regular or systematic behaviour. Here we address this issue by looking for evidence of such behaviour across a large temporal and geographical framework. Our analyses try to answer four main questions: 1) does a Neanderthal to raptor-corvid connection exist at a large scale, thus avoiding associations that might be regarded as local in space or time?; 2) did Middle (associated with Neanderthals) and Upper Palaeolithic (associated with modern humans) sites contain a greater range of these species than Late Pleistocene paleontological sites?; 3) is there a taphonomic association between Neanderthals and corvids-raptors at Middle Palaeolithic sites on Gibraltar, specifically Gorham's, Vanguard and Ibex Caves? and; 4) was the extraction of wing feathers a local phenomenon exclusive to the Neanderthals at these sites or was it a geographically wider phenomenon?. We compiled a database of 1699 Pleistocene Palearctic sites based on fossil bird sites. We also compiled a taphonomical database from the Middle Palaeolithic assemblages of Gibraltar. We establish a clear, previously unknown and widespread, association between Neanderthals, raptors and corvids. We show that the association involved the direct intervention of Neanderthals on the bones of these birds, which we interpret as evidence of extraction of large flight feathers. The large number of bones, the variety of species processed and the different temporal periods when the behaviour is observed, indicate that this was a systematic, geographically and temporally broad, activity that the Neanderthals undertook. Our results, providing clear evidence that Neanderthal cognitive capacities were comparable to those of Modern Humans, constitute a major advance in the study of human evolution.
Ajuts:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2009/SGR-188 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2009-12703-C03-02 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2011-28681
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Publicat a:	PloS one, Vol. 7, Issue 9 (September 2012) , art. e45927, ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045927
PMID: 23029321

9 p, 427.9 KB

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