Zooarchaeological evidence for resource intensification in Algarve, Southern Portugal

Abstract

At least three dimensions of the later Paleolithic faunal record of the Mediterranean Basin indicate changes in human predator-prey interactions and, by extension, land use and the organization of human labor. The first of these dimensions concerns large game exploitation, not so much in the techniques of hunting as in the extent to which nutrition was squeezed from ungulate carcasses, specifically the addition of grease-rendering, a labor-intensive technique, to the long established practice of cold marrow extraction. The second dimension concerns changes in foragers’ emphasis on certain classes of small game, and the third dimension is about differences in the resilience of small game populations to predator pressure. These shifts in human diet and predator-prey ecology do not occur everywhere or at all at once. The geography and chronology of their occurrence may relate to variation in demographic conditions, although competing explanations must also be explored.