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The zooarchaeology and paleoecology of early hominin scavenging
Pobiner, Briana L.
Abstract:
Questions about the timing, frequency, resource yield, and behavioral and biological implications of large animal carcass acquisition by early hominins have been a part of the "hunting-scavenging debate" for decades. This article presents a brief outline of this debate, reviews the zooarchaeological and modern ecological evidence for a possible scavenging niche among the earliest animal tissue-consuming hominins (pre-2.0 Ma), revisits some of the questions that this debate has generated, and outlines some ways to explore answers to those questions with evidence from the archaeological record.
Automatic Tags
Animals; Hominidae; Biological Evolution; Archaeology; Diet; Feeding Behavior; Ecology; butchery; hunting; scavenging; taphonomy; zooarchaeology
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