A late Neandertal femur from Les Rochers-de-Villeneuve, France

Beauval, Cédric; Maureille, Bruno; Lacrampe‐Cuyaubère, François; Serre, David; Peressinotto, David; Bordes, J. G.; Cochard, David; Couchoud, Isabelle; Dubrasquet, David; Laroulandie, Véronique; Lenoble, Arnaud; Mallye, Jean‐Baptiste; Pasty, Sylvain; Prieto, Jérôme; Rohland, Nadin; Pääbo, Svante; Trinkaus, Erik

doi:10.1073/pnas.0502656102

Cited by 92 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…A very large bear obtaining much of its protein from vertebrate prey would have a serious effect on the dynamics of that guild. Moreover, contemporaneous European humans, both late archaic and early modern, consistently exhibit high ␦ 15 N values (13,47,48), and an additional large-bodied carnivore would have further intensified any human-carnivore interactions within the ecosystem.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isotopic evidence for omnivory among European cave bears: Late Pleistocene Ursus spelaeus from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania

Richards

Pacher

Stiller

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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101

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Previous bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotopic studies of Late Pleistocene European cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) have shown that these bears frequently had low nitrogen isotope values, similar to those of herbivores and indicating either unusual physiology related to hibernation or a herbivorous diet. Isotopic analysis of animal bone from the Peştera cu Oase (Cave with Bones), Romania, shows that most of its cave bears had higher nitrogen isotope values than the associated herbivores and were, therefore, omnivorous. The Oase bears are securely identified as cave bears by both their morphology and DNA sequences. Although many cave bear populations may have behaved like herbivores, the Oase isotopic data demonstrate that cave bears were capable of altering their diets to become omnivores or even carnivores. These data therefore broaden the dietary profile of U. spelaeus and raise questions about the nature of the carnivore guild in Pleistocene Europe.carbon isotopes ͉ nitrogen isotopes ͉ diets ͉ ancient DNA L ate Pleistocene cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) diet and physiology is not well known, although based on skull, mandible, and tooth morphology, they have been inferred to have been largely herbivorous (1-4). Moreover, isotopic studies of central and western European cave bears have shown that, in most cases where their values are compared with herbivores and carnivores from the same site, they have ␦ 15 N values that plot with, or lower than, herbivores (Table 1). These dietary inferences are in the context of bears that had a period of dormancy, similar to modern black bears (Ursus americanus) and brown bears (Ursus arctos), given the abundance of hibernation nests in European caves. This pattern has been interpreted in several ways.Based Table 1), is that some cave bears were largely herbivorous, as are some modern bears, but that other cave bears were more carnivorous and hence exhibit ␦ 15 N values similar to those of many modern omnivorous U. arctos and U. americanus. In this interpretation, the variation in trophic level indicated by ␦ 15 N values would reflect ecological plasticity among U. spelaeus, in which they were more or less carnivorous depending on available food resources, body-size requirements, interspecific competition, seasonality, and temperature.Regardless of the cause, 86.1% of the available individual European adult cave bear ␦ 15 N values (n ϭ 101) are Ͻ6.0‰, and hence within the basically vegetarian range [the number rises to 95.6%, n ϭ 91 without Hilderbrand et al.'s (14) 10 specimens] (Table 1). In the context of this distribution of ␦ 15 N values, routine isotopic assessment of a cave bear metapodial associated with an early modern human cranium in the Late Pleistocene Peştera cu Oase, Caraş-Severin, southwestern [supporting information (SI) Text and SI Figs. 4 and 5], provided an anomalously high ␦ 15 N value of 7.8‰ (SI Table 2, Oase O34-232). To further evaluate this result and address the cause of the generally low cave bear ␦ 15 N values, we measured the isotope values of c...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isotopic evidence for omnivory among European cave bears: Late Pleistocene Ursus spelaeus from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania

Richards

Pacher

Stiller

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

101

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“…In the 5 years between 2002 and 2007, a dozen Neanderthal HVRI sequences were recovered (Schmitz et al, 2002;Serre et al, 2004;Beauval et al, 2005;Caramelli et al, 2006;Lalueza-Fox et al, 2006;Orlando et al, 2006;Krause et al, 2007) (Table 2). The Neanderthal samples ranged from El Sidrón in Spain to Okladnikov in Siberia (Krause et al, 2007).…”

Section: Ancient Hominin Dnamentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaic human genomics

Disotell

2012

American J Phys Anthropol

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For much of the 20th century, the predominant view of human evolutionary history was derived from the fossil record. Homo erectus was seen arising in Africa from an earlier member of the genus and then spreading throughout the Old World and into the Oceania. A regional continuity model of anagenetic change from H. erectus via various intermediate archaic species into the modern humans in each of the regions inhabited by H. erectus was labeled the multiregional model of human evolution (MRE). A contrasting model positing a single origin, in Africa, of anatomically modern H. sapiens with some populations later migrating out of Africa and replacing the local archaic populations throughout the world with complete replacement became known as the recent African origin (RAO) model. Proponents of both models used different interpretations of the fossil record to bolster their views for decades. In the 1980s, molecular genetic techniques began providing evidence from modern human variation that allowed not only the different models of modern human origins to be tested but also the exploration demographic history and the types of selection that different regions of the genome and even specific traits had undergone. The majority of researchers interpreted these data as strongly supporting the RAO model, especially analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Extrapolating backward from modern patterns of variation and using various calibration points and substitution rates, a consensus arose that saw modern humans evolving from an African population around 200,000 years ago. Much later, around 50,000 years ago, a subset of this population migrated out of Africa replacing Neanderthals in Europe and western Asia as well as archaics in eastern Asia and Oceania. mtDNA sequences from more than two-dozen Neanderthals and early modern humans re-enforced this consensus. In 2010, however, the complete draft genomes of Neanderthals and of heretofore unknown hominins from Siberia, called Denisovans, demonstrated gene flow between these archaic human species and modern Eurasians but not sub-Saharan Africans. Although the levels of gene flow may be very limited, this unexpected finding does not fit well with either the RAO model or MRE model. More thorough sampling of modern human diversity, additional fossil discoveries, and the sequencing of additional hominin fossils are necessary to throw light onto our origins and our history. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 55:24-39, 2012. Molecular genetic techniques and the data that they produce have the ability to inform us about numerous aspects of our evolutionary history. Molecular analyses can shed light on phylogeny, demographic history, the history of selective forces, and even anatomy and physiology that are not preserved in the hard tissues of the fossil record.When Darwin (1859, p. 490) first stated that ''Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history'' near the end of the Origin of Species, the only two lines of evidence toward this end were comparative anatomy and paleontology.Th...

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“…I sotope evidence is a powerful tool for reconstructing past human diets and subsistence adaptations (1)(2)(3), and it has been applied to a number of Neanderthals and early modern humans from Europe (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). In 2 earlier studies (10, 11), we argued that Neanderthals had relatively uniform dietary adaptations while early modern humans in Europe had more variable isotope values-and therefore diets-than the Neanderthals.…”

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confidence: 99%

Isotopic evidence for the diets of European Neanderthals and early modern humans

Richards

Trinkaus

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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314

168

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We report here on the direct isotopic evidence for Neanderthal and early modern human diets in Europe. Isotopic methods indicate the sources of dietary protein over many years of life, and show that Neanderthals had a similar diet through time (Ϸ120,000 to Ϸ37,000 cal BP) and in different regions of Europe. The isotopic evidence indicates that in all cases Neanderthals were top-level carnivores and obtained all, or most, of their dietary protein from large herbivores. In contrast, early modern humans (Ϸ40,000 to Ϸ27,000 cal BP) exhibited a wider range of isotopic values, and a number of individuals had evidence for the consumption of aquatic (marine and freshwater) resources. This pattern includes Oase 1, the oldest directly dated modern human in Europe (Ϸ40,000 cal BP) with the highest nitrogen isotope value of all of the humans studied, likely because of freshwater fish consumption. As Oase 1 was close in time to the last Neanderthals, these data may indicate a significant dietary shift associated with the changing population dynamics of modern human emergence in Europe.Europe ͉ isotopes ͉ collagen ͉ fishing

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A late Neandertal femur from Les Rochers-de-Villeneuve, France

Cited by 92 publications

References 28 publications

Isotopic evidence for omnivory among European cave bears: Late Pleistocene Ursus spelaeus from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania

Isotopic evidence for omnivory among European cave bears: Late Pleistocene Ursus spelaeus from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania

Archaic human genomics

Isotopic evidence for the diets of European Neanderthals and early modern humans

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