The role of foxes in the Palaeolithic economies of the Swabian Jura (Germany)

Abstract

In this study, we examine the role of foxes in Palaeolithic economies, focusing on sites of the Middle Palaeolithic, Aurignacian, Gravettian and Magdalenian of the Swabian Jura. For this purpose, we used published faunal data from 26 assemblages from the region, including new information from the Magdalenian layers of Langmahdhalde. We explore how the abundance of foxes changes over time, how they were used by humans, and how they were deposited at the sites, with a special focus on fox hunting methods. To evaluate these hunting methods, we use the prey choice model of optimal foraging theory (OFT) and simulate possible hunting scenarios, which we test based on the published faunal assemblages. Our research indicates that foxes were hunted since the early Upper Palaeolithic for their meat, fur and teeth, possibly with traps. We find that the abundance of fox remains in the archaeological record of the region increased continuously starting in the Aurignacian, which cannot be explained by taphonomic factors. The trend of foxes to adapt to human-influenced environments with commensal behavior may also have contributed to them being hunted more often.

A quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction of the non-analogue environment of oxygen isotope stage 3: new data from small mammal records of southwestern Germany

“…As such, this study provides a rigorous test of the Bioclimatic Models ability to work with complex records from Paleolithic sites. This is the first study to derive quantitative measures of meteorological phenomena from the Middle Paleolithic (MP) and Upper Paleolithic (UP) in the Ach Valley, extending the precision and comparability of the already robust paleoecological record of this region (Niven 2006;Krönneck 2012;Kitagawa 2014;Miller 2015;Riehl et al 2015;Wong et al 2017Wong et al , 2020aRhodes et al 2018Rhodes et al , 2019Baumann et al 2020;Starkovich et al in press).…”

Structuring domestic space in the Lower Magdalenian: an analysis of the fauna from Level 115 of El Mirón Cave, Cantabria

“…The small size of the faunal fragments, the relatively low frequency of cut marks, and the higher frequency of impact marks combine to suggest that the area around the feature was neither a primary butchery area nor a food-consumption area. The small fragment size could reflect marrow extraction, but particularly to the north and west of the rock alignment, the presence of red fox—a taxon often hunted for raw material (such as pelts, teeth for ornaments and bone for toolmaking) rather than for its contribution to human diet (see discussion in Baumann et al 2020)—suggests another option. At least one of the red fox specimens recovered from Level 115—a mandible with multiple parallel grooves along the ramus and with the inferior surface removed—is heavily modified in a way that suggests use of the bone for making tools or ornaments (Figure 5).…”

Paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on the small vertebrates from the Middle Paleolithic of Hohle Fels Cave, SW Germany

“…The lack of carnivore modifications on fish bones likely indicates that carnivores, which visited the cave, including red/ arctic foxes, wolf, cave/brown bears, hyenas, and birds of prey (Conard et al 2013;Rhodes et al 2019;Baumann et al 2020;Beattie et al 2021), were not the primary agents of accumulation for the fish remains, leaving humans as most probable accumulation agents. On the other hand, we cannot yet definitively prove that the fish remains were accumulated by humans since there is no direct evidence of anthropogenic modifications such as cut marks or burned bones on the assemblage.…”