Neanderthal subsistence, taphonomy and chronology at Salzgitter‐Lebenstedt (Germany): a multifaceted analysis of morphologically unidentifiable bone

Abstract

Pleistocene faunal assemblages are often highly fragmented, hindering taxonomic identifications and interpretive potentials. In this paper, we apply four different methodologies to morphologically unidentifiable bone fragments from the Neanderthal open-air site of Salzgitter-Lebenstedt (Germany). First, we recorded zooarchaeological attributes for all 1362 unidentifiable bones recovered in 1977. Second, we applied zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) to 761 fragments, and calculated glutamine deamidation values. Third, we assessed the collagen preservation of 30 fragments by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and, finally, we pretreated 10 bones with high predicted collagen values for radiocarbon dating. All returned dates at, or beyond, the limit of radiocarbon dating, indicating an age of older than 51 000 years ago. The ZooMS faunal spectrum confirms a cold environment, dominated by reindeer, alongside mammoth, horse and bison. The low occurrence of carnivore modifications (1%) contrasts with an abundance of human modifications (23%). Cut marks and marrow fractures were observed across reindeer, horse and bison. The mammoth remains are less well preserved and show a lower degree of human modifications, indicating, perhaps, a different taphonomic history. Overall, this study illustrates the importance of retaining, studying and incorporating the unidentifiable bone fraction to optimize interpretations of site formation and subsistence behaviour at Palaeolithic sites.

The ecology, subsistence and diet of ~45,000-year-old Homo sapiens at Ilsenhöhle in Ranis, Germany

“…3 and Supplementary Table 3 ) identified through both comparative morphology and ZooMS analysis. In general, NTAXA and taxonomic richness are positively correlated with sample size, and this is also true at Ranis 24 – 26 . For example, the lower NTAXA in layer 12 (NTAXA = 5) can be explained by the small number of bone fragments recovered from this layer ( n = 18).…”

“…Before peptide extraction all specimens were recorded using a modified faunal and taphonomic database to record a similar range of attributes as in the zooarchaeological analysis and following previous approaches 14 , 26 , 93 , 94 . A small bone splinter (~5 mg) was removed from each specimen, and subsequent ZooMS extraction was conducted at the palaeoproteomics lab at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany).…”

A new legacy: potential of zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry in the analysis of North American megafaunal remains

“…The utility of ZooMS for a particular study is strongly dependent on whether an appropriate collagen fingerprint reference library is available for relevant species in the geographic region of interest. In contrast to other regions where the method has been used successfully, such as southwestern Asia and Europe (e.g., Buckley and Kansa, 2011;Sinet-Mathiot et al, 2019;Ruebens et al, 2023), North America so far has not seen the creation of comprehensive regional reference libraries, especially for extinct taxa, limiting the applicability of ZooMS. For instance, the dearth of published reference markers for camelid species imposed a significant limitation on our analysis, precluding in-depth taxonomic identification of camelid specimens, and enabling their identification only to family level.…”

“…Deamidation ratios could be calculated for 46 specimens displaying relatively high levels of preservation (mean: 0.62-0.75). Analysis of glutamine deamidation rates has been incorporated into ZooMS studies at various Pleistocene sites (Welker et al, 2017;Sinet-Mathiot et al, 2019;Brown et al, 2021c;Ruebens et al, 2022;Silvestrini et al, 2022;Ruebens et al, 2023) and has the potential to provide additional insights into differing patterns of sample preservation. This potential becomes particularly clear when our rates are compared to available glutamine deamidation values from other Late Pleistocene sites across Europe, such as Uluzzo C, Roccia San Sebastiano, and Riparo del Broion sites in Italy (with a mean deamidation value of 0.33), Quincay in France (mean: 0.5) and Grotte du Renne in France (mean: 0.15).…”