Thin on the Ground E-Book

Steven E. Churchill

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Foundation of Human Biology
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1148

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology and Ecology synthesizes the current knowledge about our sister species the Neandertals, combining data from a variety of disciplines to reach a cohesive theory behind Neandertal low population densities and relatively low rate of technological innovation. The book highlights and contrasts the differences between Neandertals and early modern humans and explores the morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptive solutions which led to the extinction of the Neandertals and the population expansion of modern humans. Written by a world recognized expert in physical anthropology, Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archaeology and Ecology will be a must have title for anyone interested in the rise and fall of the Neandertals.

Leseprobe

Advances in Human Biology

Series Editors:

Matt Cartmill

Kaye Brown

Boston University

Titles in this Series

Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology, and Ecology  by Steven E. Churchill

THIN ON THE GROUND

Neandertal Biology, Archeology, and Ecology

STEVEN EMILIO CHURCHILL

Department of Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University USA

SERIES EDITORS: MATT CARTMILL AND KAYE BROWN

This edition first published 2014 © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Cover drawing by Matt Cartmill

Contents

Series Introduction

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter One: Thin on the Ground: Population Density and Technological Innovation

Note

Chapter Two: The Neandertals in Time and Space

2.1 Geographic and Temporal Boundaries

2.2 Defining the Neandertals

2.3 Neandertal DNA

2.4 Neandertal Taxonomy

2.5 Regional and Temporal Variation in Neandertal Morphology

2.6 The Evolutionary History of the Neandertals

Notes

Chapter Three: Neandertal Material Culture

3.1 Neandertal-associated Lithic Industries

3.2 Variation in the Eurasian Middle Paleolithic: Technology as Adaptive Interface

3.3 Composite Technology, and the Archeologically Less-visible Component of Technology

3.4 Subsistence Technology

3.5 Domestic Technology

Notes

Chapter Four: The Body Neandertal

4.1 Neandertal Body Size: Short but Massive

4.2 Body Composition: “Scaled Up” Inuit?

4.3 The Cost of Size: Feeding a Large Body and Large Brain

4.4 The Benefits of Size: Neandertal Body Size in Ecological Context

Notes

Chapter Five: Surviving the Cold

5.1 How Cold Was It?

5.2 Human Adaptation to the Cold

5.3 Cold Adaptation and Neandertal Morphology

5.4 Physiological Solutions to Cold Stress

5.5 Cold Stress and Neandertal Behavior

5.6 Thermogenic Capacity and Cold Tolerance

5.7 The Neandertals Were  Cold-adapted

Notes

Chapter Six: The Caloric Economy of Pleistocene Europe

6.1 Issues in the Reconstruction of Past Environments

6.2 Pleistocene Biomes of Europe and Western Asia

Notes

Chapter Seven: Neandertals as Consumers

7.1 Analysis of Food Residues: The Macromammal Component of Neandertal Diet

7.2 Analysis of Food Residues: The Small Animal Data

7.3 Analysis of Food Residues: Macrobotanical Remains

7.4 Dental Wear and Food Residues on Teeth

7.5 Stable Isotope and Trace Element Analyses

7.6 The Thorny Issue of Cannibalism

7.7 The Trophic Ecology of Neandertals

Notes

Chapter Eight: Red in Tooth and Claw: Neandertals as Predators

8.1 Neandertal Morphology and Predation

8.2 Neandertals as Close-range Predators

8.3 Prey Size, Hunting “Pack” Size, and Risk of Injury to Neandertal Hunters

8.4 Neandertal Hunting in Ecological Context

Notes

Chapter Nine: In the Company of Killers: Neandertals as Carnivores

9.1 Large-bodied Carnivores of the Eurasian Late Pleistocene

9.2 The Members of the Eurasian Pleistocene Large-bodied Carnivore Guild

9.3 Competition within the Carnivore Guild

9.4 Neandertals Were Not the Socially-Dominant Members of the Carnivore Guild

9.5 Neandertal Ecology in the Context of Competition within the Carnivore Guild

Notes

Chapter Ten: The Cost of Living in Ice Age Europe

10.1 Subsistence Organization and Mobility

10.2 Home Range Size

10.3 Paleontological Reflections of Neandertal Mobility

10.4 The Energetic Cost of Mobility

10.5 The Energetic Cost of Domestic Activities

10.6 Neandertal Physical Activity Levels

Notes

Chapter Eleven: Neandertal Social Life, Life History, and Demography

11.1 Subsistence Labor Demands, Group Size, and Social Structure

11.2 Neandertal Life History

11.3 Neandertal Demography

Notes

Chapter Twelve: From Thin to Thick: The African MSA

12.1 Tipping the Scales on Population Growth

12.2 Culture Change in the Late MSA and Mousterian

Note

References

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 2

Table 2.1

Chapter 3

Table 3.1

Table 3.2

Table 3.3

Table 3.4

Chapter 4

Table 4.1

Table 4.2

Table 4.3

Table 4.4

Table 4.5

Table 4.6

Table 4.7

Table 4.8

Table 4.9

Table 4.10

Table 4.11

Table 4.12

Chapter 5

Table 5.1

Table 5.2

Table 5.3

Table 5.4

Table 5.5

Table 5.6

Chapter 6

Table 6.1

Table 6.2

Table 6.3

Chapter 7

Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 7.3

Table 7.4

Chapter 8

Table 8.1

Table 8.2

Table 8.3

Table 8.4

Chapter 9

Table 9.1

Table 9.2

Table 9.3

Table 9.4

Table 9.5

Table 9.6

Chapter 10

Table 10.1

Table 10.2

Table 10.3

Table 10.4

Table 10.5

Table 10.6

Table 10.7

Table 10.8

Table 10.9

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

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Series Introduction

For us, the experience of reading Steve Churchill's book Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology, and Ecology was like that of reading The Origin of Species for the first time. In both Churchill's and Darwin's books, the reader is led carefully and meticulously through a beautifully organized presentation of all the evidence bearing on a vexed and long-standing problem, arriving at a novel answer that resolves many issues all at once. Like Darwin, Churchill makes his case with such a wide-ranging, comprehensive, and judicious presentation that when the overall conclusion is fully laid out in the last chapter, its force is inescapable.

In Thin on the Ground, Churchill attempts to answer the overriding question of why the Neandertals became extinct. Over the past 150 years, many answers have been offered to this question. Some have claimed that Neandertals were too dim-witted or inarticulate to compete with the modern humans that began streaming into their European homeland some 40,000 years ago. Others have sought the cause of the Neandertals' demise in disease, or in changing climates that grew too hot or too cold for them, or in genocidal persecution by our own ancestors. Still others have argued that the Neandertals simply evolved into modern Europeans, and never became extinct at all. The search for understanding the disappearance of the Neandertals has seemed both speculative and never-ending.

In this new text, Churchill carefully demonstrates the inadequacy of all these answers. He marshals evidence from a broad range of sciences – genetics, anatomy, archeology, ecology and climatology – to support a complex answer of his own: Neandertals inhabited a ecologically marginal and energetically precarious position in the trophic pyramid of Pleistocene Europe, from which they (and some other large carnivores) were ousted by invaders whose physiology and subsistence strategies gave them an insuperable competitive edge.

We are enormously proud to begin our Advances in Human Biology textbook series, aimed at professionals as well as advanced undergraduate students, with this accessible yet magisterial book by Steve Churchill. We firmly believe it will become a landmark in the scientific study of the fossil record of the human lineage.

Matt Cartmill and Kaye Brown