许家窑遗址马科动物的死亡年龄

普氏野马(Equus przewalskii)和野驴(Equus hemionus)是许家窑遗址动物群中的优势属种。本文基于对这两种动物牙齿材料的测量与分析,确定了遗址中马科动物的死亡年龄,并对上、下文化层的死亡年龄分布进行了研究,以期探知古人类获取肉食资源的方式与特点。通过与马科动物在自然生存状态下以及死于不同原因(如疾病或营养衰竭、食肉动物猎杀、现代人类狩猎等)的年龄结构对比,结果表明:古人类在许家窑文化早期(下文化层)可能通过捡拾自然死亡的动物尸体、与食肉类动物抢夺猎物、主动狩猎等多种方式获取马科动物,而在许家窑文化晚期(上文化层)可能以主动狩猎作为获取马科动物的主要方式。此外,古人类在遗址的早期就可能已经具有捕获整个马科动物居群中任意年龄个体的能力,并能做出最优化判断,有选择地去捕猎脂肪和肉量较高的壮年动物群体。

Equine Mortality Profile Analysis of Xujiayao Site,China

Xujiayao site is an early Late Pleistocene site in the Nihewan Basin, China. The Xujiayao faunal assemblage is dominated by Equus przewalskii and Equus hemionus. Evidence from previous analyses of bone surface modifications has only confirmed a behavioral correlation between equids and humans, which is insufficient and ambiguous for determining how people at Xujiayao site acquired these equids. Besides active human hunting, there are two methods of scavenging that can lead to the same analytic results: first-access scavenging from non-predator related accidents, and early access aggressive scavenging from carnivore kills. This research applies mortality profile analysis to compare Xujiayao's data with that drawn from different contexts, including natural live populations, natural deaths, carnivore kills, anthropogenic sites and modern hunters. The results indicate that archaic Homo sapiens at Xujiayao might have used both active hunting and scavenging to acquire equids in the early period of the site, but they mainly used active hunting in the later period, with a tendency to select the prime adults as their active hunting prey.