View - Kowalewski, M. - Virginia Tech

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY PAPERS, V. 8, 2002Chubbock, Colorado (Wheat, 1972), manycarcasses were fully sectioned or meat-stripped butothers were not, probably because human butchersreached the limit of how much meat they couldprocess, store, or carry. This site and others like itare examples of “surplus killing” by humanpredators. Surplus killing has been recognized inmany other predators, such as grey wolf(DelGuidice 1998).3. Bone-breakage analysis may also provideevidence about hunting or scavenging.Humans often break animal bones to get at themarrow or oil-rich cancellous interiors (Fig. 5). Inaddition, bone fragments can be boiled to make asoup from the fat in them. But carnivores also breakhigh-utility bones, and animal trampling canfragment elements (Fig. 6). The agencies thatcaused the bones to break must be accuratelyidentified, and a few guides are available to helpidentify whether carnivores, animal trampling,human processing, or other agencies areresponsible (Binford, 1981; Blumenschine et al.,1996; Haynes, 1981, 1983, 1991; Hesse andWapnish, 1985; Shipman, 1981; Shipman andRose, 1983). The utility indices mentioned aboveFIGURE 5—Fragments of a femur diaphysis fromBos taurus (domestic cow). The bone was brokenby a hammerstone to extract marrow. Note thenotched edges on the specimen to the right; thesenotches mark the spots where hammerstoneimpacts occurred.FIGURE 6—Fragment of a femur shaft fromSyncerus caffer (Cape buffalo). The bone wasfragmented by a Crocuta crocuta (spotted hyena)feeding on the carcass. Note that the notchededges, created by the hyena’s teeth, are very similarto hammerstone-impact notches (see Figure 5).are often used to determine if bones were brokendeliberately by humans following a rational agenda(for example, bones with plenty of marrow shouldbe frequently broken, while bones lacking marrowor fat should not be).The morphology of fractures must be carefullyevaluated to determine if the breaks were madewhen bones were fresh, and if human percussionaccounts for the fragmentation. Blumenschine andSelvaggio (1988) published descriptions ofdistinctive hammerstone marks in order todifferentiate them from animal toothmarks or othernon-cultural damage to bone surfaces.4. Mortality-profile analysis may indicatewhether animals were hunted or scavenged.Klein (1994, for example) and others (Stiner,1990, 1991) have reconstructed hominid huntingmethods based on age profiles of animal boneassemblages. Catastrophic age profiles may implynonselective hunting (the killing of animals ofdifferent age and sex classes in the sameproportion as in the population), such as throughherd surrounds (see Saunders, 1980) or drivesover high cliffs (see Reher and Frison, 1980;Frison, 1970); while non-catastrophic profilesmay indicate deliberate selection of morevulnerable animals, such as the very young or veryold (see Klein, 1994 for a comparison of huntingtactics reconstructed for southern Africa’s Middle58