Hervé Bocherens

University of Tübingen | EKU Tübingen

Dogs are known to be the oldest animals domesticated by humans. Although many studies have examined wolf domestication, the geographic and temporal origin of this process is still being debated. To address this issue, our study sheds new light on the early stages of wolf domestication during the Magdalenian period (16–14 ka cal BP) in the Hegau Jur...

During the past several decades, the paleoecology of the Mammuthus-Coelodonta Faunal Complex in the Palearctic has been thoroughly explored, especially using stable isotope analysis. Numerous studies have documented high ecological plasticity and regional heterogeneities for this fauna. However, very limited attention has focused on Northeast Asia,...

Nowadays, opportunistic small predators, such as foxes (Vulpes vulpes and Vulpes lagopus), are well known to be very adaptable to human modified ecosystems. However, the timing of the start of this phenomenon in terms of human impact on ecosystems and of the implications for foxes has hardly been studied. We hypothesize that foxes can be used as an...

Significance Most of today’s domesticates began as farm animals, but cat domestication took a different path. Cats became commensal of humans somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, attracted to early farmers’ settlements by rodent pests. Cat remains from Poland dated to 4,200 to 2,300 y BCE are currently the earliest evidence for the migration of the N...

Heavy reliance on plants is rare in Carnivora and mostly limited to relatively small species in subtropical settings. The feeding behaviors of extinct cave bears living during Pleistocene cold periods at middle latitudes have been intensely studied using various approaches including isotopic analyses of fossil collagen. In contrast to cave bears fr...

The spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ) was an important large carnivore of Pleistocene ecosystems in Africa and Eurasia. Like its modern relatives, this obligate carnivore was adapted to crush and digest bones of its prey and absorb organic matter from bones more efficiently than any other carnivore. This difference in the nutrient resource use betw...

The fog harvesting grass Stipagrostis sabulicola is one of the few plants able to cope with the hostile conditions in dune fields of the hyper-arid Namib Desert. S. sabulicola tussocks modify the substrate and atmospheric conditions leading to the formation of fog plant oases (FPO). Average air temperature within FPO canopies was reduced by up to 7...

Controversy exists as to whether the Pleistocene vegetation in northern Sundaland was dominated by lowland tropical grasslands or rainforests, due to limited palaeoecological evidence recorded from the region. We describe a new Pleistocene large mammal fauna from Tham Kra Duk, a cave in the Tham Phedan mountain, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province in Peni...

Plants are a crucial part of the human diet, serving as a primary source of micronutrients, fiber, and carbohydrates, providing readily available energy. Beyond the consumption of cooked and raw edible plants, early humans also developed methods for plant processing for delayed consumption, to de-toxify/improve bioavailability, and perhaps for flav...

Objectives Based on the analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes of bone collagen, stable carbon isotopes of bone apatite and an extensive AMS dating series (~10,000–299 years cal BP), the human paleodiets of 34 individuals from the Central Pampean Dunefields (Argentina, South America) are evaluated. Materials and Methods These data are int...

In order to investigate seasonal changes in diet, environment and climate, we analyzed the stable carbon and oxygen isotopic composition of intra-tooth sequential profiles (14 teeth, 282 enamel samples) of Hippopotamidae, Equidae, Bovidae and Suidae from Melka Kunture, Upper Awash Valley, central Ethiopian Highlands (2000 – 2200 m a.s.l.). We found...

The fog harvesting grass Stipagrostis sabulicola is one of the few plants able to cope with the hostile conditions in dune fields of the hyper arid Namib desert. S. sabulicola tussocks modify the substrate and atmospheric conditions leading to the formation of fog plant oases (FPO). Air temperature within FPO canopies was reduced by up to 7.5°C and...

Studying the behavioural ecology of long-extinct species is challenging due to the difficulty in measuring the behavioural phenotype and correlating this with genetic and environmental factors. However, a multidisciplinary approach integrating isotope analysis of diet and ancient DNA analysis of genetic relationships offers a potential framework to...

Neanderthal genomes have been recovered from sites across Eurasia, painting an increasingly complex picture of their populations’ structure that mostly indicates that late European Neanderthals belonged to a single metapopulation with no significant evidence of population structure. Here, we report the discovery of a late Neanderthal individual, ni...

The history and palaeoecology of the steppe bison (Bison priscus) remain incompletely understood despite its widespread distribution. Using dental microwear textural analysis (DMTA) and vegetation modelling, we reconstructed the diet and assessed the habitat of steppe bison inhabiting Eurasia and Alaska since the Middle Pleistocene. During the Late...

In this paper we present the results of a comprehensive multi-disciplinary study on the skeletal remains of 125 individuals from the pre-Hispanic Casarabe culture settlement Salvatierra. The Casarabe culture flourished between 500–1400 AD in the southeast of the Llanos de Mojos, which make up a large part of the Amazon lowlands of Bolivia.

This protocol presents the procedure of collecting a sample of bone or tooth that is planned for further collagen extraction, prior to stable isotope analysis, radiocarbon dating, and/or proteomic identification. The protocol includes notes about estimating the sample size and selecting the sampling area, and details of taking a sample, cleaning a...

The Namib Desert is a hyperarid coastal desert where fog is a major moisture source. We hypothesized that the fog-harvesting grass Stipagrostis sabulicola establishes an important ecological niche, termed the "Fog-Plant-Oases" (FPOs), and serves as the primary carbon source for the invertebrate community. To determine this, we measured the natural...

This protocol presents the procedure of extracting collagen from a sample of bone or tooth, prior to stable isotope analysis, radiocarbon dating, and/or proteomic identification. The sample is assumed to be pre- treated (cut off from the specimen, cleaned, defatted, crushed). The procedure follows the ABA methodology (Acid-Base-Acid treatment) and...

The extinction of the woolly rhinoceros ( Coelodonta antiquitatis ) at the onset of the Holocene remains an enigma, with conflicting evidence regarding its cause and spatiotemporal dynamics. This partly reflects challenges in determining demographic responses of late Quaternary megafauna to climatic and anthropogenic causal drivers with available g...

Large omnivores at the top of food webs play a key role in ecosystems, as their ability to feed on multiple trophic levels stabilizes food-web dynamics and impacts ecosystem functioning. However, it is largely unexplored how large omnivores adapt their trophic interactions to altered resource availability under global change, particularly in terres...

Two archaeological sites, Tham Lod and Ban Rai rockshelters, in highland Pang Mapha, Mae Hong Son Province in northwestern Thailand have yielded several late Pleistocene to Holocene human and animal remains associated with the Hoabinhian technocomplex. Previously, stable carbon isotope compositions of human and faunal tooth enamel samples from Tham...

Pleistocene environments are among the most studied issues in paleoecology and human evolution research in eastern Africa. Many data have been recorded from archaeological sites located at low and medium elevations (≤ 1500 m), whereas few contexts are known at 2000 m and above. Here, we present a substantial isotopic study from Melka Kunture, a com...

Meat consumption by early hominins is a hotly debated issue. A key question concerns their access to large mammal carcasses, including megafauna. Currently, the evidence of anthropic cut marks on proboscidean bones older than -or close to- 1.0 Ma are restricted to the archaeological sites of Dmanisi (Georgia), Olduvai (Tanzania), Gona (Ethiopia), O...

Learning plays an important role in the ecology and evolution of species. Although learning has been extensively studied in extant populations, studying learning in long extinct species represents a much greater challenge because individuals and thei behaviour cannot be directly observed, and their individual relatedness is more challenging to stud...

The Balkans are considered a major glacial refugium where flora and fauna survived glacial periods and repopulated the rest of Europe during interglacials. While it is also thought to have harboured Pleistocene human populations, evidence linking human activity, paleoenvironmental indicators and a secure temporal placement to glacial periods is sca...

The late Middle Pleistocene archaeological site of Casal de’ Pazzi (MIS 7, ∼240–200 ka) in central Italy provided a complex of paleontological (both fauna and flora) and archaeological evidence, as well as a cranial fragment of Homo heidelbergensis. Here, we investigated the stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios of tooth enamel from six herbivor...

In this paper, we present stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of fauna tooth enamel from Garba IVD (1.95 Ma) and Gombore IB (1.66 Ma), two Early Acheulean sites of Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia), and discuss faunal taxonomy and fossil pollen. Our aim is to infer the diet and habitat of the fossil fauna, as well as the environment of bo...

The Namib Desert is a hyperarid coastal desert where fog is a major moisture source. We hypothesized that the fog-harvesting grass Stipagrostis sabulicola establishes an important ecological niche in the extreme Namib Sand Sea ecosystem, referred to as "Fog-Plant-Oases (FPO)". Using a combination of extraction methods, we collected and described th...

The paper focuses on the Pleistocene deposits in Perspektywiczna Cave, southern Poland, related to cave hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ). We used direct radiocarbon dating of hyena fossils supported by genetic and stable isotope analyses to infer the paleobiology of this population. Radiocarbon dating of 19 hyena remains suggests long inhabitation of the...

In Africa, the scarcity of hominin remains found in direct association with stone tools has hindered attempts to link Homo habilis and Homo erectus with particular lithic industries. The infant mandible discovered in level E at Garba IV (Melka Kunture) on the highlands of Ethiopia is critical to this issue due to its direct association with an Oldo...

Mini ecosystem like an oasis in Deserts are hostile places. Extreme temperature fluctuations, strong sun exposure, the constant movement of the dune sand, and mainly faces a lack of water set heir residents strongly. But even in the deserts on earth - the Atacama in Chile and the in Chile and the Namib in Southwest Africa - there are plants that ha...

The earlier Gravettian of Southern Moravia—the Pavlovian—is notable for the many raven bones (Corvus corax) documented in its faunal assemblages. On the basis of the rich zooarchaeological and settlement data from the Pavlovian, previous work suggested that common ravens were attracted by human domestic activities and subsequently captured by Pavlo...

The late Middle Pleistocene site of Casal de' Pazzi is one of the numerous archaeological and paleontological sites found in central Italy. It yielded a rich fossil collection, including Middle Paleolithic stone tools and a single retouched bone fragment, faunal remains, a parietal fragment attributed to Homo heidelbergensis (or likely ascribed to...

Evolutionary biologists have recently solicited archaeologists to help document and understand the morphological evolution of animals in response to human activities and, more generally, to help reconstruct the history and significance of the anthropogenic impact on worldwide ecosystems. Artificial selection associated with domestication is the bes...

The late Middle Eocene Pondaung Fm. is a window to understand the environment and ecosystem dynamics of a past greenhouse world and the paleoenvironments where modern mammal clades such as anthropoid primates originated. Previous studies focused on the overall climate and vegetation of this Eocene habitat and provided first evidence for an early mo...

Neanderthal genomes have been recovered from sites across Eurasia, painting an increasingly complex picture of their populations’ structure, mostly indicating that late European Neanderthals belonged to a single metapopulation with no significant evidence of deep population structure. Here we report the discovery of a late Neanderthal individual, n...

In this paper, stable isotope (δ13C, δ18O) analyses of five equid species from the Linxia Basin, northwestern China, were conducted to investigate dietary niche turnover during a critical Pliocene-Pleistocene phase in the evolution of Old World Equidae. In the Early Pliocene Shilidun fauna, Proboscidipparion pater is inferred to have mainly fed on...

Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period³. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116...

Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot. The separation of focused ac...

In this paper, we present carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis of fauna tooth enamel from Garba IVD (~1.95 Ma) and Gombore IB (~1.66 Ma), two Early Acheulean sites of Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia) and discuss faunal taxonomy and fossil pollen. Our aim is to infer the diet, habitat, and environment at both sites and provide a broader pa...

A partial proboscidean skeleton has been recovered during the systematic excavations at the Middle Pleistocene open-air site Marathousa 1 (MAR-1) in the Megalopolis basin (Peloponnese, Greece). The remains of the individual, an adult male of the European straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus, display human-induced cut marks, which, togeth...

Supplementary information to the Poster "Foxes as proxy for human activities in the past: Isotopic evidence from Southwest Germany"

The Early Gravettian of Southern Moravia – the Pavlovian – is notable for its corvid-rich faunal assemblages dominated by common ravens ( Corvus corax ). Based on the available zooarchaeological and settlement data from the Pavlovian, it has been hypothesized that ravens were attracted by human domestic activities and subsequently captured by Pavlo...

Oxygen isotopes are commonly applied to study archaeological human and animal mobility among the vertical ecological zones of the Central Andes in South America. Such research assumes that oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in meteoric waters demonstrate an inverse relationship with elevation. However, because the primary source of precipitation in the C...

The Guadix-Baza Basin (GBB, Granada, Spain) extends over a surface area of some 4.500 km2 and constitutes one of the richest Pleistocene vertebrate fossil records in Western Europe. Within this basin, Orce area stands out for having yielded evidence on of the oldest hominin presence in western Eurasia. Exceptionally rich collections of stone tools...

The domestic cat is the world's most popular pet and one of the most detrimental predators in terrestrial ecosystems. Effective protection of wildlife biodiversity demands detailed tracking of cat trophic ecology, and stable isotopes serve as a powerful proxy in dietary studies. However, a variable diet can make an isotopic pattern unreadable in op...

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day do...

The evolutionary history and palaeoecology of orangutans remains poorly understood until today. The restricted geographic distribution of extant Pongo indicates specific ecological needs. However, it is not clear whether these needs were shared by the great diversity of fossil pongines known from the Miocene to the Pleistocene. Here we show how nic...

In the last decades, methodological advancements in the natural and exact sciences have increasingly been used to study the past. In this chapter, we review how such developments can be applied to address questions regarding Neanderthal identification, phylogeny, chronology, mobility, climate, and diet. These examples illustrate how prehistoric stu...

Palynological investigations in the Orce Archaeological Zone (OAZ) (Guadix-Baza Basin, Granada, Spain), Venta Micena 1 (VM1), Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva 3 (FN3) are presented. This archaeological region is connected with the first Homo populations in Western Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. The VM1 pollen record is characterized by Ep...

Dietary traits of individuals and populations of both Neanderthals and animals, are essential for the reconstruction of biotic interactions among species. These kinds of dynamic relationships with other living species in a shared environment can be seen as a major influence in evolution and ecology, and the timing and type of interaction could have...

This paper presents the results of a study of 17 brown bear skulls from two destroyed sanctuaries dated no later than the middle of the 20 th century, from the Chamgu River (eastern slope of the V. Sakhalin Mountains, Central Sakhalin), apparently from the last monuments of the bear cult on the Island and probably the only one from which materials...

In the rich vertebrate fauna of Imanay Cave the abundant material of the small-sized cave bears was originally assigned to the taxon Ursus savini. Teeth and metapodials of statistical amounts were compared with other cave bear faunas and the taxonomic position was determined through morphological and metric analyses. The size of teeth and metapodia...

Stable carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions of faunal remains unearthed from the rock shelter site of Tor Hamar in southern Jordan were analyzed for reconstructing paleoenvironments and hunting activities in the region. The site is located at the Jebel Qalkha area and has archaeological deposits dated to the Early Upper Paleolithic (ca. 38e37 ka...

Simbiro III, comprising the Monumental Section (MS) and the gully, is part of the Melka Kunture cluster of prehistoric sites, located in the Ethiopian highland at ~2000 m a.s.l. The MS, discovered in the Sixties and then not extensively investigated, looks like a ~5 meters high cliff and includes the impressive remnant of deposited multiple layers...