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View - Kowalewski, M. - Virginia Tech

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HAYNES—RECONSTRUCTING HUMAN PREDATIONbutcher marks would be found when differentcarcass processing strategies were used (Fig. 7).Future replicative study may incorporate thetesting of copied prehistoric weaponry for accuracyand dropping power, thus supporting interpretationsof predation on certain species. Other future studiesmay try out various methods of hunting such asambushing or driving different taxa. These twolatter kinds of replicative experiments have notbeen attempted or reported, for understandablereasons, but would be very useful. While suchstudies cannot provide direct evidence abouthuman predation in the past, they do offer a degreeof plausibility or feasibility that is worth havingwhen reconstructing variable hunting and carcassprocessingpractices. By understanding weaponuses, archeologists may then also be able toreconstruct different predation tactics such assustained pursuit or mass driving, partly reflectedin the discarded weaponry at archeological sites.For example, clubs and simple thrusting spears maybe numerous where drivelines and corrals arefound, whereas ambush sites may contain killingimplements delivered from a distance, such asthrowing spears or arrows.IMPLICATIONS OFANALYTICAL RESULTSThe main goal of all the archeological methodssurveyed above is not just to list the animal specieseaten by human foraging groups in prehistory orthe numbers of animals killed in any unit of time.The bigger goal is to understand how predationaffects the ways that human cultures organizethemselves in all aspects—including socialorganization and kinship systems, settlementmobility and scheduling, technology and landscapeuse, and so forth. Humans that prey on migratorylarge mammals may or may not be migratorythemselves, and the way carcasses are treated infact will reflect this important characteristic.Foraging humans often share meat and carcassparts from kills, and the network of people whowill be given pieces of animal carcasses may belarge and complex. Obviously predation practicesand body-part distributions will differ when meatsharingis regularly done, as compared to thepractices of groups that do not cement social orkinship bonds with regular meat re-distribution.The last topic surveyed in this paper ispredation on humans, by both other humans andquadrupedal carnivores.ANALYZING PREDATIONBY HOMINIDS ON HOMINIDSCannibalism.—Cannibalism is the eating ofhuman bodies by other humans. Ritual cannibalismhas been practiced at many times and in many partsof the world; culinary or dietary cannibalism areterms used when the practice is frequent andprovides a substantial part of the human diet(Keeley, 1996, p. 103–106). Late in the 20 th century,anthropologists generally declared humansfeeding-on-humansa fiction or at most only asymbolic action (Arens, 1979; Peter-Röcher, 1994;but see Forsyth, 1983, 1985). However, thearcheologist Lawrence Keeley (1996) haspersuasively argued that at least some historic andprehistoric societies derived a non-negligibleamount of calories from cannibalism.Middle Paleolithic (Neandertal) cannibalismin Europe has been hypothesized based on markedskeletal elements, but re-analysis indicates thatsome instances may have been mis-interpreted.One ambiguous example is the Krapina (Croatia)Neandertal bones, which were affected by nonculturalpostmortem events such as carnivoregnawing or trampling (Trinkaus, 1985), but also mayhave been cut by Neandertal stone tools to preparea fresh body for secondary burial (Russell, 1986).By contrast, the 100,000-year-old bones of sixNeandertal individuals from the Moula-Guercy cavesite in France do seem to have been cut and brokenfor “culinary” cannibalism (Defleur et al., 1999).Paleoanthropologists and archeologists believethey can identify when either the “ritual” or the“culinary” form of the practice occurred (seeespecially Turner and Turner, 1999; see also Villa,1992; White 1992). The methods used to identifyinstances of culinary cannibalism are similar to61

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