Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T08:26:16.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Plant foods in the Upper Palaeolithic at Dolní Vӗstonice? Parenchyma redux

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2013

Alexander J.E. Pryor ,
Madeline Steele ,
Martin K. Jones ,
Jiří Svoboda  and
David G. Beresford-Jones
Alexander J.E. Pryor
Affiliation:
1Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
Madeline Steele
Affiliation:
2WeoGeo, Inc., 2828 SW Corbett Ave # 135, Portland, OR 97201, USA
Martin K. Jones
Affiliation:
1Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
Jiří Svoboda
Affiliation:
3Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlář ská 2, Brno, Czech Republic 4Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Královopolská 147, Brno, Czech Republic
David G. Beresford-Jones
Affiliation:
5McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3ER, United Kingdom
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The classic image of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe envisages them hunting large mammals in largely treeless landscapes. That is partly due to the nature of the surviving archaeological evidence, and the poor preservation of plant remains at such ancient sites. As this study illustrates, however, the potential of Upper Palaeolithic sites to yield macrofossil remains of plants gathered and processed by human groups has been underestimated. Large scale flotation of charred deposits from hearths such as that reported here at Dolní Vӗstonice II not only provides insight into the variety of flora that may have been locally available, but also suggests that some of it was being processed and consumed as food. The ability to exploit plant foods may have been a vital component in the successful colonisation of these cold European habitats.

Keywords

Czech RepublicDolní VӗstoniceUpper PalaeolithicGravettianarchaeobotanyplant foodsparenchyma
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 338 , December 2013 , pp. 971 - 984
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barton, H. 2005. The case for rainforest foragers: the starch record at Niah Cave, Sarawak. Asian Perspectives 44:56–72.Google Scholar
Beresford-Jones, D.G. 2006. Preliminary appraisal of the archaeobotanical data from the 2005 Dolní Věstonice field season. Report prepared for the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Available at: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~dir21/tmp/dolni-report.pdf (accessed 17 May 2013).Google Scholar
Beresford-Jones, D.G., Johnson, K., Pullen, A., Pryor, A.J.E., Svoboda, J. & Jones, M.. 2010. Burning wood or burning bone? A reconsideration of flotation evidence from Upper Palaeolithic (Gravettian) sites in the Moravian Corridor. Journal of Archaeological Science 37:2799-811.Google Scholar
Beresford-Jones, D.G., Taylor, S., Paine, C., Pryor, A.J.E., Svoboda, J. & Jones, M.. 2011. Rapid climate change in the Upper Palaeolithic: the record of charcoal conifer rings from the Gravettian site of Dolní Vëstonice, Czech Republic. Quaternary Science Reviews 30:1948-64.Google Scholar
Canti, M.G. 2003. Aspects of the chemical and microscopic characteristics of plant ashes found in archaeological soils. Catena 54:339-61.Google Scholar
Franceschi, V. & Horner, H.. 1980. Calcium oxalate crystals in plants. The Botanical Review 46: 361–427.Google Scholar
Guthrie, R.D. 2001. Origin and causes of the mammoth steppe: a story of cloud cover, woolly mammal tooth pits, buckles, and inside-out Beringia. Quaternary Science Reviews 20:549-74.Google Scholar
Hardy, B.L. 2010. Climatic variability and plant food distribution in Pleistocene Europe: implications for Neanderthal diet and subsistence. Quaternary Science Reviews 29:662-79.Google Scholar
Hardy, B.L. & Moncel, M.-H.. 2011. Neanderthal use of fish, mammals, birds, starchy plants and wood 125-250,000 years ago. PLoS ONE 6: e23768.Google Scholar
Hardy, K., Buckley, S., Collins, M., Estalrrich, A., Brothwell, D., Copeland, L., GarcíA-Tabernero, A., GarcíA-Vargas, S., Rasilla, M. De La, Lalueza-Fox, C., Huguet, R., Bastir, M., SantamarÌA, D., Madella, M., Wilson, J., Cortes, Á. & Rosas, A.. 2012. Neanderthal medics? Evidence for food, cooking, and medicinal plants entrapped in dental calculus. Naturwissenschaften 99: 617-26.Google Scholar
Hather, J.G. 1988. The anatomical and morphological interpretation and identification of charred vegetative parenchymatous plant tissues. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London.Google Scholar
Hather, J.G. 1991. The identification of charred archaeological remains of vegetative parenchymous tissue. Journal of Archaeological Science 18:661-75.Google Scholar
Hather, J.G. 1993. An archaeobotanical guide to root and tuber identification. Volume 1: Europe and south west Asia. oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hather, J.G. 2000. Archaeological parenchyma. London: Archetype.Google Scholar
Hather, J.G. & Mason, S.L.R.. 2002. Introduction: some issues in the archaeobotany of hunter-gatherers, in Mason, S.L.R. & Hather, J.G. (ed.) Hunter-gathererarchaeobotany: perspectivesfrom the northern temperate zone: 1–14. London: institute of Archaeology, University College London.Google Scholar
Haynes, G. 1991. Mammoths, mastodonts, and elephants: biology, behavior, and the fossil record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hedrick, U.P. (ed.). 1919. Sturtevant's edible plants of the world. Albany (NY): J.B. Lyon.Google Scholar
Henry, A.G., Brooks, A.S. & Piperno, D.R.. 2011. Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 108:486-91.Google Scholar
Jones, M. 2009. Moving north: archaeobotanical evidence for plant diet in Middle and Upper Paleolithic Europe, in Hublin, J.-J. & Richards, M.P. (ed.) The evolution of hominin diets: 171-80. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Klima, B. 1995. Dolní Vëstonice II: ein Mammutjägerrastplatz und seine Bestattungen (Études et recherches archéologiques de 1'Universitéde Liége 73/Dolní Vëstonice Studies 3). Liège: Université de Liège.Google Scholar
Koumouzelis, M., Ginter, B., KozłOwski, J.K., Pawlikowski, M., Bar-Yosef, O., Albert, R.M., Litynska-Zajac, M., Stworzewicz, E., Wojtal, P., Lipecki, G., Tomek, T., Bochenski, Z.M. & Pazdur, A.. 2001. The Early Upper Palaeolithic in Greece: the excavations in Klisoura Cave. Journal of Archaeological Science 28:515-39.Google Scholar
Kubiak-Martens, L. 1996. Evidence for possible use of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic diet from the site of Całowanie in the central part of the Polish Plain. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 5:33–38.Google Scholar
Kubiak-Martens, L. 2002. New evidence for the use ofroot foods in pre-agrarian subsistence recovered from the Late Mesolithic site at Halsskov, Denmark. Vegetation History andArchaeobotany 11:23–32.Google Scholar
Mason, S.L.R., Hather, J.G. & Hillman, G.C.. 1994. Preliminary investigation of the plant macro-remains from Dolní Vëstonice II, and its implications for the role of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe. Antiquity 68: 48–57.Google Scholar
O'Connell, J.F., Hawkes, K. & Jones, N.G. Blurton. 1999. Grandmothering and the evolution of Homo erectus. Journal of Human Evolution 36:461-85.Google Scholar
Opravil, E. 1994. The vegetation, in Svoboda, J. (ed.) Pavlov I: excavations 1952-1953 (Études et recherches archéologiques de 1'Université de Liège 66/Dolní Vëstonice Studies 2): 175-80. Liège: Universiteé de Lieège.Google Scholar
ÖStlund, L., Bergman, I. & Zackrisson, O.. 2004. Trees for food—a 3000 year record of subarctic plant use. Antiquity 78:278-86.Google Scholar
Paz, V. 2001. Archaeobotany and cultural transformation: patterns of early plant utilization in Northern Wallacea. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Perry, D. 1999. Vegetative tissues from Mesolithic sites in the northern Netherlands. Current Anthropology 40:231-37.Google Scholar
Plantas for a Future. n.d. Available at: http://www.pfaf.org/user/plantsearch.aspx (accessed 18 April 2012).Google Scholar
Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M.M., Skakun, N., Sinitsyn, A., Spiridonova, E. & Svoboda, J.. 2010. Thirty-thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 107:18815-19.Google Scholar
Rhode, D., Madsen, D.B., Brantingham, P.J. & Goebel, T.. 1992. Human occupation in the Beringian ‘mammoth steppe’: starved for fuel, or dung-burner's paradise?, in Waters, M.R. (ed.) Principles of geoarchaeology: a North American perspective: 68–70. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
RybničKová, E. & RybníčEk, K.. 1991. The environment of the Pavlovian: palaeoecological results from Bulhary, south Moravia, in Kovar-Eder, J. (ed.) Palaeovegetational development in Europe and regions relevant to its palaeofloristic evolution: 73–79. Vienna: Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Savage, G.P., Vanhanen, L., Mason, S.M. & Ross, A.B.. 2000. Effect of cooking on the soluble and insoluble oxalate content of some New Zealand foods. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 13: 201–206.Google Scholar
Siener, R., Honow, R., Seidler, A., Voss, S. & Hesse, A.. 2006. Oxalate contents of species of the Polygonaceae, Amaranthaceae and Chenopodiaceae families. Food Chemistry 98:220-24.Google Scholar
Speth, J.D. & Spielmann, K.A.. 1983. Energy-source, protein-metabolism, and hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2:1–31.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J. (ed.) 1991. Dolní Vëstonice II: Western Slope (Eétudes et recherches archeéologiques de 1'Université de Liege 54). Liège: Université de Liege.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J., NováK, M., NýVoltova Fiskova, M. & Jones, M.. 2007. Dolní Vëstonice. Přehled Výskumu 47:82–84.Google Scholar
Wandsnider, L. 1997. The roasted and the boiled: food composition and heat treatment with special emphasis on pit-hearth cooking. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16:1–48.Google Scholar
Webb, M.A. 1999. Cell-mediated crystallization of calcium oxalate in plants. The Plant Cell 11: 751-61.Google Scholar
Weiss, E., Wetterstrom, W., Nadel, D. & Bar-Yosef, O.. 2004. The broad spectrum revisited: evidence from plant remains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 101:9551-55.Google Scholar
Wollstonecroft, M., Ellis, P.R., Hillman, G.C. & Fuller, D.Q.. 2008. Advances in plant food processing in the Near Eastern Epipalaeolithic and implications for improved edibility and nutrient bioaccessibility: an experimental assessment of Bolboschoenus maritimus (L.) Palla (sea club-rush). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: S19–S27.Google Scholar