Dental microwear as a behavioral proxy for distinguishing between canids at the Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) site of Predmostí, Czech Republic

Morphological and genetic evidence put dog domestication during the Paleolithic, sometime between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, with identification of the earliest dogs debated. We predict that these earliest dogs (referred to herein as protodogs), while potentially difficult to distinguish morphologically from wolves, experienced behavioral shifts, including changes in diet. Specifically, protodogs may have consumed more bone and other less desirable scraps within human settlement areas. Here we apply Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (DMTA) to canids from the Gravettian site of P�redmostí (approx. 28,500 BP), which were previously assigned to the Paleolithic dog or Pleistocene wolf morphotypes. We test whether these groups separate out significantly by diet- related variation in microwear patterning. Results are consistent with differences in dietary breadth, with the Paleolithic dog morphotype showing evidence of greater durophagy than those assigned to the wolf morphotype. This supports the presence of two morphologically and behaviorally distinct canid types at this middle Upper Paleolithic site. Our primary goal here was to test whether these two morphotypes expressed notable differences in dietary behavior. However, in the context of a major Gravettian settlement, this may also support evidence of early stage dog domestication. Dental microwear is a behavioral signal that may appear generations before morphological changes are established in a population. It shows promise for distinguishing protodogs from wolves in the Pleistocene and domesticated dogs from wolves elsewhere in the archaeological record

Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs

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 dog lineage (Canisfamiliaris) lived(1-8). Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the gene IFT8840,000-30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located.Peer reviewe

Is sex estimation from handprints in prehistoric cave art reliable ? A view from biological and forensic anthropology

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Tracking possible decline of woolly mammoth during the Gravettian in Dordogne (France) and the Ach Valley (Germany) using multi-isotope tracking (13C, 14C, 15N, 34S, 18O)

The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was an emblematic and key species of the so-called mammoth steppe ecosystem between ca. 110,000 and 12,000 years ago. Its contribution to human subsistence during the Gravettian period as source of raw material was documented in southwestern France and southwestern Germany, with some evidence of active hunting in the latter region. However, decreasing genetic diversity and increasing indications of nutritional stress point to a likely decline of this megaherbivore. The specificity of the ecological niche occupied by the woolly mammoth is clearly reflected by their collagen 13C and 15N abundances (δ13Ccoll and δ15Ncoll), measured on skeletal remains of the typical mammoth steppe. The abundances of carbon-13 in mammoth collagen are comparable to those of other grazers like horse (Equus sp.), while the nitrogen-15 abundances are significantly higher (about 3‰) than in the other herbivores, either horse or reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). During the Aurignacian and Gravettian occupation at Geißenklösterle in the Ach Valley (Germany), the mammoths had the expected stable isotope signature, but the nitrogen-15 of horses showed an unexpected overlap with those of the mammoth. This unusual pattern was already occurring during the Aurignacian, while the oxygen-18 abundances in bone phosphate (δ18Obp) of horse and reindeer were unchanged between Aurignacian and Gravettian periods, which rules out significant change in environmental and climatic conditions. Thus, we hypothesize that during the Aurignacian and Gravettian, the ecological niche of mammoth was intact but not occupied intensively by mammoths due to a decline in their population. This decline could be tentatively explained by human pressure through hunting. In Dordogne (France), decreasing horse and reindeer δ15Ncoll values coeval to decreasing horse δ18Obp values between the Aurignacian and the Early Gravettian periods reflected a clear change in the environment, while no contrast in δ15Ncoll values was observed between the Early and Final Gravettian at the Abri Pataud. The mammoth of Dordogne yielded slightly higher δ15Ncoll values than expected, probably as a consequence of the nursing effect since all the analyzed samples were ivory instead of bone. The direct dating and sulphur-34 measurement on the ivory of the Early Gravettian at Pataud showed that almost all of them were of contemporaneous and local origin. Significant contrasts in δ34Scoll values were found between the Dordogne and the Ach Valley for the same herbivores species, which confirms the potential of sulphur-34 in collagen as a mobility tracker.<br/

Tracking possible decline of woolly mammoth during the Gravettian in Dordogne (France) and the Ach Valley (Germany) using multi-isotope tracking (13C, 14C, 15N, 34S, 18O)

International audienc