The means by which modern peoples replaced Neandertals in Europe remain unclear. Many have assumed that this replacement was related to a greater ability on the part of modern peoples to obtain food. Since large mammals formed a very substantial part of the diet of both sets of populations, this would suggest that modern peoples were in some way more efficient hunters than were Neandertals. However, recent analyses of dietary differences across the transition from Neandertals to moderns in southwestern France suggest otherwise. This work, based on the bone assemblages from the archaeological site of Grotte XVI, failed to find any significant, behaviorally-caused differences in hunting practices between Neandertals and early modern human groups.
These conclusions are based on a single site, and it is possible that other sites, when analyzed from the same perspective, will show differences in human hunting abilities that may help account for the demise of Neandertals. In the research to be conducted during this study, Dr. Donald K. Grayson will team up with paleontologist Dr. Francoise Delpech (University of Bordeaux) to analyze bone assemblages left by the latest Neandertals and earliest modern humans at the site of Roc de Combe, also in southwestern France. This research asks whether applying the Grotte XVI protocol to a different set of assemblages of the same age will replicate the Grotte XVI results. If those results are replicated, it will become increasingly unlikely that the replacement of Neandertals by modern peoples can be attributed to differences in the use of large mammals as food. It will remain possible that the energetic costs involved in pursuing larger mammals differed between the two populations, and future subsistence-oriented research on this question in southwestern Europe might be profitably focused on this possibility.
The research proposed here can be expected to have a variety of broader impacts. First, Dr. Grayson's previous research in this area has strongly suggested that higher summer temperatures led to decreasing abundances of reindeer during the later Ice Age. If this finding is confirmed, it will have important implications for understanding of the impact of global warming on reindeer and caribou populations, a matter of deep concern to both scientists and native peoples. Second, to judge by the media coverage it received throughout the world, Grotte XVI work was of great general interest and, as such, helped to improve the public's understanding of the deeper human past. Similar interest in the results of the work at Roc de Combe is expected. Third, this thoroughly interdisciplinary research will continue to build ties between American and French scientists. Finally, ongoing work will be incorporated into the courses taught by Dr. Grayson at the University of Washington, including courses on zooarchaeology, extinctions, and human impacts on the environment. Participants in those courses have included many undergraduates who went on to pursue higher degrees in various disciplines, or completed their Ph.D.s at the University of Washington to become productive members of the scientific community in the United States or elsewhere.
