late pleistocene population interaction in western europe

for this test are not based on the skeletal characteristics or the genome of late Pleistocene
human populations, but are instead derived from the material traces of their behaviors.
The archaeological test incorporates information generated by ecologists and
anthropologists on the demographic stability of small forager populations over time and
draws on recent studies of resource exploitation by temperate climate foragers.
It is argued that late Pleistocene populations were kept close to the carrying
capacity of the environment in Western Europe and were vulnerable to fluctuations in
resource abundance, in particular during the snow-covered season. If the hypothesis of a
modern human incursion into Eurasia during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is true, it
can be suggested that this demographic growth increased local populations far beyond
carrying capacity and led to chronic resource depression. Therefore, it is suggested that
Neandertals and early modern humans adapted to these stresses in predictable ways in
order to cope with resource scarcity.
These predictable responses or expectations, all related to fauna and therefore
potentially visible in the archaeological record, are linked to maximization of carcass
utilization, changes in the transport of low and high utility parts, of high- and low-ranked
taxa, marrow exploitation of low utility parts, and the importance of scavenging. These
archaeological expectations are tested using eight faunal assemblages from Saint-Césaire
(Charente-Maritime), a site in southwestern France that spans the period of the transition
from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic. It is important to note that even though the
discussion focuses here on Western Europe, this archaeological model might be
applicable to other regions as well.
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