GALA M., FIORE I. & TAGLIACOZZO A. (2018) – Human exploitation of avifauna during the Italian Middle and Upper Paleolithic, in “Palaeolithic Italy. Advanced studies on early human adaptations in the Apennine Peninsula” (V. Borgia & E. Cristiani Eds.), Leiden: Sidestone Press., pp. 183-217.
Abstract
The regular and systematic exploitation of birds for subsistence purposes is considered to be a hallmark of behavioral modernity. Ethnographic data on recent hunter-gatherers suggest that in order to obtain large quantities of birds, advanced technologies (i.e., snares, nets, bow and arrow) would have been required. The mastering of such technologies has been so far attributed exclusively to Homo sapiens and, in fact, to date only late Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers have been credited for capturing thousands of birds belonging to hundreds of different taxa at many sites in the Italian Peninsula such as Grotta Romanelli and Grotta del Santuario della Madonna. However, increasing evidences document human exploitation of birds already during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene as indicated by recent data from different areas of Europe. This work presents the results of the taphonomic study carried out on the bird bone assemblages from 10 Middle and Upper Paleolithic Italian sites (43,147 NISP). The aim is to evidence discriminating criteria for identifying anthropic traces related to the exploitation of birds as food. The most common human modifications detected on bird bones are those related to butchery: stone tool cut-marks, fresh bone breaks, peeling, crushing, wrench and, more rarely, notches or chop-marks. Burning traces are also very frequent.
This study shows that birds were exploited as a food source already since the Middle Paleolithic, although such exploitation was limited to a narrow range of species.