” Until now, cut marks on Palaeolithic beaver bones had been identified very seldom and on isolated bones only. Dietrich Manias extensive and long-lasting excavations in Bilzingsleben yielded a big number of beaver remains.” It is intriguing that the remains in Bilzingsleben generally represent young adult beavers,” states Gaudzinski-Windheuser. Fat was a very important food resource throughout the Pleistocene.
Previously, the viewpoint was that hominins of this age mainly survived on big mammals, such as rhinoceroses and bovids, for one basic reason: “The remains of big mammals from this duration are normally far better preserved than those of little ones, not to point out plant stays,” states Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Professor in the Department of Ancient Studies/Section Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology at JGU and Director of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, MONREPOS, in Neuwied, which belongs to LEIZA. She authored the brand-new study together with two associates, Lutz Kindler, also from JGU and MONREPOS, and Wil Roebroeks from Leiden University.
New findings show that early human beings had a varied diet plan 400,000 years ago, including searching beavers, contrary to the previous belief of a diet controlled by big mammals.
” Until now, cut marks on Palaeolithic beaver bones had been identified really seldom and on isolated bones just. Dietrich Manias long-lasting and extensive excavations in Bilzingsleben yielded a big number of beaver remains. Their study has now exposed for the very first time the long-term technique behind the exploitation of these animals,” she explains.
Targeted Hunting of Young Adults
The scientists utilized magnifying glasses and digital microscopes to analyze the roughly 400,000-year-old bones of at least 94 beavers, excavated numerous decades ago in Bilzingsleben, Thuringia. This enabled them to identify cut marks from stone tools that indicate intensive use of the carcasses.
” It is fascinating that the remains in Bilzingsleben generally represent young adult beavers,” says Gaudzinski-Windheuser. This shows that hominins at that time would have deliberately hunted unskilled however completely grown and fat-rich animals. Fat was an extremely essential food resource throughout the Pleistocene.
” Until now, it was typically believed that individuals in Europe fed mostly on big game till around 50,000 years ago, and that this was a crucial distinction to the more flexible dietary techniques of contemporary people. We have actually now demonstrated that the hominin food spectrum was much wider much earlier,” states Gaudzinski-Windheuser.
Reference: “Beaver exploitation, 400,000 years back, testifies to prey option diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominins” by Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Lutz Kindler and Wil Roebroeks, 13 November 2023, Scientific Reports.DOI: 10.1038/ s41598-023-46956-6.
Research exposes that early humans hunted beavers 400,000 years earlier, indicating a more diverse diet plan during the Middle Pleistocene than previously thought, challenging the idea of a diet primarily based upon big mammals.
Proof from eastern Germany reveals that early people had a more diverse diet plan than formerly known.
Around 400,000 years back, early human beings hunted beavers as a food resource and perhaps also for their pelts. This is the conclusion of a group from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), likewise in Mainz, and Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Dominating Assumptions Challenged
In their recent publication in the journal Scientific Reports, the authors reveal that Middle Pleistocene human beings methodically eaten these smaller animals and hence had a more diverse diet plan than thus far understood.