Archaeologists from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie and Leiden University say they have found cut marks on the bones of two beaver species from the 400,000-year-old hominin open air site of Bilzingsleben in central Germany. Their results demonstrate a greater diversity of prey choice by Middle Pleistocene hominins than commonly acknowledged, and a much deeper history of broad-spectrum subsistence than commonly assumed, already visible in prey choices 400,000 years ago.
Castor sp. from the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America by John Woodhouse Audubon.
“A solid understanding of early hominin diets, key for tracking human behavioral and cognitive evolution, is hampered by the fact that the archaeological record is strongly biased towards the remains of large ungulates, while it is well-established that a reliance on game meat alone would not have provided a sufficient subsistence base given human dietary needs,” said study’s first author Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser and her colleagues.
“Despite various biases, recentl studies documented a greater diversity in hominin food choices, including regular exploitation of a variety of small animals, plant and aquatic foods, not only for the early modern human lineage in Africa, but also for Neanderthals, be it mainly from the southern parts of their range.”
“Most of that evidence dates respectively to the Middle Stone Age of Africa and to the later Middle Paleolithic in Europe, from about 125,000 years ago onwards,” they noted.
“Far less is still known about the subsistence base of the Middle Pleistocene predecessors of both lineages, with that record still strongly suggestive of a narrow, large- and medium-sized ungulates focused subsistence base.”
In their research, the authors examined a large faunal assemblage from the 400,000-year-old hominin site of Bilzingsleben in Thuringia, central Germany.
They used magnifying glasses and digital microscopes to analyze 2,496 remains (1,963 teeth and 533 cranial and postcranial bones and bone fragments) of two beaver species: the living Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) and the extinct giant beaver Trogontherium cuvieri.
This enabled them to identify cut marks from stone tools that indicate intensive use of the carcasses.
Based on the cut mark distribution pattern, beaver may have been targeted for their skins, as well as for their meat.
It is interesting that the beaver remains from Bilzingsleben mainly represent young adults.
“Beavers are monogamous and territorial animals, with home ranges of between 1 and 3 km along water streams,” the researchers said.
“The beaver lodge is generally inhabited by the parents and two generations of offspring.”
“With sexual maturity the young adults are expelled and start to create their own territory and lodge.”
“The dominance of this age class in the Bilzingsleben assemblage can be interpreted as the result of repetitive hominin predation on young adult beavers over an extended period,” they said.
“With their semi-aquatic lifestyle, beavers call for hunting tactics that are different from those for larger terrestrial animals.”
“While ethnographic and historical sources show that beavers were mostly caught by means of nets or traps, often installed at the exits of their lodges, the focus on young adults documented at Bilzingsleben suggests more specific individual-targeting hunting practices.”
“Unlike small mammals such as rabbits and hares, recently shown to have played some role in hominin diets in the northwestern Mediterranean, beavers were high-ranked prey animals, a valuable resource for hunter-gatherers in Eurasia and North America from the early Holocene onward, clearly demonstrated through their abundant remains in archaeological assemblages.”
“The Bilzingsleben data suggest a similar importance during earlier warm-temperate periods in Europe, from at least 400,000 years ago onwards, and more generally, indicate that ‘broad spectrum diets’ may have been present much earlier than generally assumed.”
The team’s results were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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S. Gaudzinski-Windheuser et al. 2023. Beaver exploitation, 400,000 years ago, testifies to prey choice diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominins. Sci Rep 13, 19766; doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-46956-6
