Wallertheim revisited: A re-analysis of the fauna from the middle palaeolithic site of Wallertheim (Rheinhessen/Germany)

doi:10.1016/S0305-4403(95)80162-6

Journal of Archaeological Science

Volume 22, Issue 1, January 1995, Pages 51-66

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-4403(95)80162-6 Get rights and content

Abstract

The Middle Palaeolithic open site of Wallertheim was excavated in 1927 and 1928. It has since become relatively well-known due to the rich faunal remains and the stone artefacts present in the sediments. This paper presents the results of a reappraisal of the faunal assemblage of Wallertheim. As a result of the taphonomic analysis it is argued that only one species of the diverse fauna can be convincingly related to human activities: Bison priscus, the steppe bison. This will be discussed briefly in the context of other Middle Palaeolithic sites. Attention will be drawn to the implications of taphonomic analyses for the interpretation of Middle Palaeolithic subsistence strategies.

References (96)

BehrensmeyerA.K.
Vertebrate preservation in fluvial channels
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
(1988)
BlumenschineR.J.
An experimental model of the timing of hominid and carnivore influence on archaeological bone assemblages
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1988)
ConkeyM.W.
Ritual communication, social elaboration, and the variable trajectories of Paleolithic material culture
HoffeckerJ.F. et al.
Vertebrate remains from the mousterian site of II'skaja I (Northern Caucasus USSR): New analysis and interpretation
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1991)
KleinR.G.
Stone Age predation of large African Bovids
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1978)
ListerA.
New results in deer from Swanscombe, and the stratigraphical significance of deer in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene of Europe
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1986)
LymanR.L. et al.
A critical evaluation of bone weathering as an indication of bone assemblage formation
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1989)
MareanC.W. et al.
Captive hyaena bone choice and destruction, the Schlepp-Effect and Olduvai archaeofaunas
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1992)
O'ConnellJ.F. et al.
Reanalysis of large mammal body part transport among the Hadza
Journal of Archaeological Science
(1990)
StinerM.C.
The use of mortality patterns in archaeological studies of hominid predatory adaptions
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
(1990)

TurnerA.

Sample size, Schlepp effects and scavenging: the implications of partial recovery for interpretations of the terrestrial mammal assemblage fromKlasies River Mouth

Journal of Archaeological Science

(1989)

AugusteP.

Étude archéozoologique des grands Mammifères du site Pléistocène Moyen de Biache-Saint-Vaast (Pas-De-Calais, France): Apportsbiostratigraphiques et palethnographiques

L'Anthropologie

(1992)

AudouzeF. et al.

Subsistence strategies and economy in the Magdalenian of the Paris Basin, France

BehrensmeyerA.K.

The taphonomy and paleoecology of Plio-Pleistocene vertebrate assemblages east of Lake Rudolf, Kenya

Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology

(1975)

BehrensmeyerA.K.

Taphonomic and ecological information from bone weathering

Paleobiology

(1978)

BehrensmeyerA.K.

Time resolution in fluvial vertebrate assemblages

Paleobiology

(1982)

BehrensmeyerA.K.

Terrestrial vertebrate accumulations

BinfordL.R.

Numamiut Ethnoarchaeology

(1978)

BinfordL.R.

Dimensional analysis of behaviour and site structure: learning from an eskimo hunting stand

American Antiquity

(1978)

BinfordL.R.

Bones: Ancient Allen and Modern Myths

(1981)

BlumenschineR.J. et al.

On the marks of marrow bone processing by hammerstones and hyaenas: their anatomical patterning and archaeological implications

BoriskovskijP.I. et al.

Paleolit bassejna Dnepra i Priazov ja

BosinskiG. et al.

Das Frühwürm im Lössprofil von Wallertheim/Rheinhessen

Geologisches Jahrbuch Hessen

(1985)

BrainC.K.

The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy

(1981)

BunnH. et al.

Systematic butchery by Plio/Pleistocene hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Current Anthropology

(1986)

ChampagneF. et al.

La Grotte des Fieux à Miers (Lot)

ChaseP.G.

The Hunters of Combe Grenat Approaches to Middle Paleolithic Subsistence in Europe

BAR International Series

(1986)

ChaseP.G.

Spécialisation de la chasse et transition vers la Paléolithique supérieur

L'Anthropologie

(1987)

ChaseP.G.

Scavenging and hunting in the Middle Paleolithic. The evidence from Europe

ChaseP.G.

How different was Middle Palaeolithic subsistence? A zooarchaeological perspective on the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic transition

ClottesJ.

Informations archéologiques: Circonscription Midi-Pyrenées

Gallia Prehistoire

(1979)

ClottesJ.

Informations archéologiques: Circonscription Midi-Pyrenées

Gallia Prehistoire

(1981)

ConardN.

The 1991 Paleolithic Excavation at Wallertheim, Kreis Alzey-Worms

Mainzer Zeitschrift

(1994)

DalyP. et al.

A hunters village in neolithic Turkey

Scientific American

(1968)

DodsonP.

The significance of small bones in paleoecological interpretation

University of Wyoming, Contributions to Geology, Special Papers No. 2

(1974)

EisenmannV.

Les chevaux (Equus sensit lato) fossiles et actuels: Crânes et dents jugales supérieures

(1980)

EisenmannV.

Étude des dents jugales inférieures des Equus (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) actuels et fossiles

Paleovertebrata

(1981)

EnloeJ.G. et al.

Le remontage des os par individus: le partage du renne chez les magdaléniens de Pincevent (La Grande-Paroisse, Seine-et-Marne)

Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française

(1989)

FarizyC.

Un habitat du Paléolithique moyen à Champlost (Yonne, Nord-Bourgogne, France)

Archäologisches Korrespondenzblait

(1985)

FarizyC. et al.

Premières corrélations chronostratigraphiques et palynologiques sur le gisement moustérien de Champlost (Yonne)

FarizyC. et al.

Chasse et alimentation carnées au Paleolithique Moyen. L'Apoport des gisements en plein air

FarizyC. et al.

Subsistence and behavioural patterns of some Middle Palaeolithic local groups

FaulerW.

Das Deckenschichtenprofil and dos geologische Alter der Moustérienstation von Wallertheim

Jahresberichte und Mitteilungen des Oberrheinischen Geologischen Vereins

(1938)

FigielB.

Der mittelpaläolithische Fundplatz Wallertheim (Rheinhessen)

FrisonG.C.

The Carter/Kerr-McGee paleoindian site: cultural resource management and archeological research

American Antiquity

(1984)

GaudzinskiS.

Die Jagdbeutereste der mittelpaläolithischen Freilandstation Wallertheim/Rheinhessen

GaudzinskiS.

Wisentjäger in Wallertheim. Zur Taphonomie einer mittelpaläolithischen Freilandfundstelle in Rheinhessen

Jahrbuch des RGZM 1992

(1994)

Cited by (85)

Selection versus opportunism: A view from Neanderthal subsistence strategies
2022, Updating Neanderthals: Understanding Behavioural Complexity in the Late Middle Palaeolithic
Neanderthal subsistence strategies were considered for a long time through the lens of the duality of selection versus opportunism, mostly as a comparison to the hunting behaviours developed in later periods. Based on some examples from the literature, this chapter proposes a review to discuss the presence of selection and opportunism in the different stages of the predation chaîne opératoire developed by Neanderthal populations in Eurasia. We underline the existence of a continuum between these two options and the impossibility of using this duality to evaluate the Mousterian subsistence strategy. We conclude that long-term organisation is at the centre of the Neanderthal subsistence and is strongly connected with the adaptation of Neanderthals to the opportunity offered by their territory.
Wonderboompoort, South Africa: A natural game funnel for meat harvesting during the later Acheulean
2021, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Citation Excerpt :
For example, several sites with assemblages dominated by numerous large cutting tools – some co-occurring with Middle Palaeolithic artifacts and faunal remains that document the hunting and butchering of large ungulates – are clustered in and about the entrance to the box canyon at ‘Ayoun Qedim in the al-Jafr Basin, Jordan (e.g., Rech et al., 2007; Nowell et al., 2016; Pokines et al., 2019). There are many other examples across Eurasia, so that the emerging pattern suggests an important shift at roughly 250 ka towards ambush spear hunting, perhaps targeting a specific age-class of ungulate (e.g., Gaudzinski, 1995; Rollefson, 2007; Stiner 2009; Adler et al., 2006). In the Kenya Rift Valley, eastern Africa, with abundant evidence of large-mammal butchery between ∼ 1.2 Ma and 500 ka (Kübler et al., 2015), minor topographic barriers such as river gorges, fault scarps and lava flows probably constrained the movements of large mammal herds during their seasonal migrations, allowing “early humans to take advantage of predictable natural constrictions to ambush animals” (Kübler et al., 2019: 653).
We revisit Wonderboompoort, South Africa, in terms of its potential to have served as a natural game funnel during the Pleistocene later Acheulean. The geological and ecological time depth of the Magaliesberg landscape, allows us to use the current setting as suitable proxy for understanding past animal and early human land use. We formulate a set of four criteria for natural game-funnelling landscapes. Testing Wonderboompoort against these criteria, we demonstrate that the Magaliesberg range forms a topographic barrier with the pass or ‘poort’ as a narrow gap with adjacent lookout points across grazing plains and into the valley. Our hydro-analyses demonstrate how the locality provided a permanent, predictable water source and access to wetland zones north and south of the mountain. Quartzite outcrops in a sheltered valley with direct evidence of flake quarrying for later Acheulean tool knapping contributes to the strategic attraction of the Wonderboom landscape for early humans within a diverse and rugged biotope. Our parsimonious interpretation is that the Wonderboom landscape may serve as model example of a natural game-funnel, and that meat harvesting – instead of weapon-assisted hunting – remains plausible until evidence to the contrary is found.
Neanderthal ecology and the exploitation of cervids and bovids at the onset of MIS4: A study on De Nadale cave, Italy
2021, Quaternary International
North-eastern Italy was a familiar region for Neanderthal groups, as attested by over 20 Middle Palaeolithic multi-layered sites in caves, rockshelters and at the open, investigated during the last decades. Of this large record, evidence pointing for human frequentation during to the Marine Isotopic Stage 4 is documented at a very ephemeral level. Here we contribute to shed light on a so sparse context through the presentation of De Nadale Cave, a single-layered Quina Mousterian site located in the Berici Hills and dated to 70.2 + 1/-0.9 ka BP. In the following article, zooarchaeological results are presented with important implications in hunting behaviour and subsistence strategies. The scarcity of comparative data from MIS 4 sites in continental and peninsular Italy does not provide hints for evaluating the significance of De Nadale in Neanderthal land-use, rather discussing differences on a diachronic scale with MIS 3 Middle Palaeolithic archaeofaunal assemblages in the same region.
Large bovids on the Neanderthal menu: Exploitation of Bison priscus and Bos primigenius in northeastern Italy
2019, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
In northern Italy, Fumane Cave (Lessini Mountains -Verona), San Bernardino Cave, and De Nadale Cave (Berici Hills - Vicenza) provide data to interpret the exploitation dynamics of the Pleistocene's large bovids Bos primigenius and Bison priscus between 70 and 42 ky BP. Through the taphonomic study of bone assemblages, we have attempted to reconstruct the strategies, methods, and butchery practices in the exploitation of these game animals adopted by different cultural groups of Middle Palaeolithic hunters. Therefore, Neanderthal hunting behaviour has been examined using different proxies such as the choice of anatomical parts, selective transport of elements, prey selection, and age estimation. Results suggest bovines were an important subsistence resource in some cases, even if they were not the most exploited taxa in others, indicating differences and similarities depending on the context across the Italian peninsula. These results highlight additional aspects of Neanderthal landscape use and hunting strategies.
Paleolithic subsistence strategies and changes in site use at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece)
2017, Journal of Human Evolution
Klissoura Cave 1 in southern Greece preserves a long archaeological sequence that spans roughly 90,000 years and includes Middle Paleolithic, Uluzzian, Upper Paleolithic, and Mesolithic deposits. The site provides a unique opportunity to examine diachronic change and shifts in the intensity of site use across the Late Pleistocene. There is an overall picture of the intensified use of faunal resources at the site, evidenced by a shift from large to small game, and to small fast-moving taxa in particular. This trend is independent of climatic change and fluctuations in site use, and most likely reflects a broader, regional growth of hominin populations. At the same time, multiple lines of evidence (e.g., input of artifacts and features, sedimentation mechanisms, and intensification of faunal resources) indicate that the intensity of site use changed, with a sharp increase from the Middle Paleolithic to Aurignacian. This allows us to address a fundamental issue in the study of human evolution: differences in population size and site use between Neandertals and modern humans. At Klissoura Cave 1, the increase in occupation intensity might be related to population growth or larger group size, but it might also be due to changes in season of site use, more favorable environmental conditions at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, and/or changes in the composition of people occupying the site. These explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and indeed the data support a combination of factors. Ascribing the increase in occupation intensity to larger Upper Paleolithic populations more broadly is difficult, particularly because there is little consensus on this topic elsewhere in Eurasia. The data are complicated and vary greatly between sites and regions. This makes Klissoura Cave 1, as the only currently available case study in southeastern Europe, a critical example in understanding the range of variation in demography and site use across the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.
Neandertal long bone breakage process: Standardized or random patterns? The example of Abri du Maras (Southeastern France, MIS 3)
2017, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
The identification of social learning processes and knowledge transmission mechanisms in the archaeological record is a matter currently explored on lithic record but not very often on faunal assemblages. As soon as the Middle Palaeolithic, the uniformity and orientation of cut marks or patterns of bone breakage may represent very useful tools to highlight butchery traditions. Following this line of research, we have tried to identify standardized actions on bones in the process of marrow recovering and therefore butchery cultural learning within Neandertal groups at Abri du Maras (MIS 3, Southeastern France). The detection of culturally-induced patterns involves the discrimination of those generated intuitively, which depend on conditioning factors such as bone density or skeletal morphology. To tackle this issue, we have used a zooarchaeological approach focused on the morphology and location of damage caused during the bone breakage process (percussion marks and scraping marks). We also compare our data with previously published results both at a zooarchaeological and experimental level. Our work indicates that the bone remains from layer 4.1 at Abri du Maras do not reveal standardized patterns of long bone breakage in terms of distribution of impact notches along long bone shafts and then imply two hypotheses: 1) the presence of several groups with various butchery practices during the sedimentary formation and the marked palimpsest character of this layer or 2) the presence of individuals within one single group which do not share similar butchery know-how.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Wallertheim revisited: A re-analysis of the fauna from the middle palaeolithic site of Wallertheim (Rheinhessen/Germany)

Abstract

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Archaeological Science

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Journal of Archaeological Science

Étude archéozoologique des grands Mammifères du site Pléistocène Moyen de Biache-Saint-Vaast (Pas-De-Calais, France): Apportsbiostratigraphiques et palethnographiques

L'Anthropologie

Subsistence strategies and economy in the Magdalenian of the Paris Basin, France

The taphonomy and paleoecology of Plio-Pleistocene vertebrate assemblages east of Lake Rudolf, Kenya

Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology

Taphonomic and ecological information from bone weathering

Paleobiology

Time resolution in fluvial vertebrate assemblages

Paleobiology

Terrestrial vertebrate accumulations

Numamiut Ethnoarchaeology

Dimensional analysis of behaviour and site structure: learning from an eskimo hunting stand

American Antiquity

Bones: Ancient Allen and Modern Myths

On the marks of marrow bone processing by hammerstones and hyaenas: their anatomical patterning and archaeological implications

Paleolit bassejna Dnepra i Priazov ja

Das Frühwürm im Lössprofil von Wallertheim/Rheinhessen

Geologisches Jahrbuch Hessen

The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy

Systematic butchery by Plio/Pleistocene hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Current Anthropology

La Grotte des Fieux à Miers (Lot)

The Hunters of Combe Grenat Approaches to Middle Paleolithic Subsistence in Europe

BAR International Series

Spécialisation de la chasse et transition vers la Paléolithique supérieur

L'Anthropologie

Scavenging and hunting in the Middle Paleolithic. The evidence from Europe

How different was Middle Palaeolithic subsistence? A zooarchaeological perspective on the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic transition

Informations archéologiques: Circonscription Midi-Pyrenées

Gallia Prehistoire

Informations archéologiques: Circonscription Midi-Pyrenées

Gallia Prehistoire

The 1991 Paleolithic Excavation at Wallertheim, Kreis Alzey-Worms

Mainzer Zeitschrift

A hunters village in neolithic Turkey

Scientific American

The significance of small bones in paleoecological interpretation

University of Wyoming, Contributions to Geology, Special Papers No. 2

Les chevaux (Equus sensit lato) fossiles et actuels: Crânes et dents jugales supérieures

Étude des dents jugales inférieures des Equus (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) actuels et fossiles

Paleovertebrata

Le remontage des os par individus: le partage du renne chez les magdaléniens de Pincevent (La Grande-Paroisse, Seine-et-Marne)

Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française

Un habitat du Paléolithique moyen à Champlost (Yonne, Nord-Bourgogne, France)

Archäologisches Korrespondenzblait

Premières corrélations chronostratigraphiques et palynologiques sur le gisement moustérien de Champlost (Yonne)

Chasse et alimentation carnées au Paleolithique Moyen. L'Apoport des gisements en plein air

Subsistence and behavioural patterns of some Middle Palaeolithic local groups

Das Deckenschichtenprofil and dos geologische Alter der Moustérienstation von Wallertheim

Jahresberichte und Mitteilungen des Oberrheinischen Geologischen Vereins

Der mittelpaläolithische Fundplatz Wallertheim (Rheinhessen)

The Carter/Kerr-McGee paleoindian site: cultural resource management and archeological research

American Antiquity

Die Jagdbeutereste der mittelpaläolithischen Freilandstation Wallertheim/Rheinhessen

Wisentjäger in Wallertheim. Zur Taphonomie einer mittelpaläolithischen Freilandfundstelle in Rheinhessen

Jahrbuch des RGZM 1992