Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:46:24.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Did Neanderthals eat inner bark?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Dennis M. Sandgathe  and
Brian Hayden
Dennis M. Sandgathe
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A-1S6, Canada
Brian Hayden
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A-1S6, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Using ethnographic parallels the authors identify ‘bark peelers’ used in Ice Age Europe. They suggest that Palaeolithic Europeans used these to extract edible and nourishing new growth from the trunks of spring trees.

Keywords

PalaeolithicEuropeNeanderthalplant-usebark peelersbone tools
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 77 , Issue 298 , December 2003 , pp. 709 - 718
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Airaksinen, M. M., Peura, P., Ala-Fossi-Salokangas, L., Antere, S., Lukkarinen, J., Saikkonen, M. & Stenback, F.. 1986. Toxicity of Plant Material Used as Emergency Food During Famines in Finland. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 18: 273–96 Google Scholar
American Museum of Natural History. Museum collections. online: http://anthro.amnh.org (accessed: January 2002).Google Scholar
Beaulieu, J.-L. de & Reille, M.. 1992. The Last Climatic Cycle at La Grand Pile (Vosges, France): A New Pollen Profile. Quaternary Science Reviews Vol. 11: 431–38.Google Scholar
Beaulieu, J.-L. de & Reille, M.. 1984. A Long Upper Pleistocene Pollen Record from Les Echets, near Lyon, France. Boreas 13: 111–132.Google Scholar
Bocherens, Herve. 1999. Reconstruction of Neanderthal diet using bone collagen carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. Hominid Evolution: Lifestyles and Survival Strategies. (ed. Ullrich, Herbert). Gelsenkirchen: Edition Archaea.Google Scholar
Bowes, Bryan G. 1996. A Colour Atlas of Plant Structure. Manson Publishing Ltd. London.Google Scholar
Eidlitz, Kerstin. 1969. Food and emergency food in the circumpolar area. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia XXXII, Sweden.Google Scholar
Gaudzinski, Sabine. 1999. Middle Palaeolithic bone tools from the open-air site Salzgitter-Lebenstedt (Germany). Journal of Archaeological Science 26: 125–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottesfeld, Leslie M. Johnson. 1992. The importance of bark products in the Aboriginal economies of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Economic Botany 46(2)148–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guiot, J., Pons, A., De Beaulieu, J-L. & Rielle, M.. 1989. A 140,000 Year Continental Reconstruction from Two European Pollen Records. Nature 338: 309–13.Google Scholar
Hall, Ed (ed). 1986. Making a spruce bark canoe. A Way of Life. Northwest Territories Renewable Resources.Google Scholar
Hayden, Brian. (ed). 2000. The ancient past of Keatley Creek. Volume II: Socioeconomy. Burnaby: Archaeology Press, Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Hayden, Brian., 1997. The pithouses of Keatley Creek. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
, Krashninnikov S. P. 1972. Explorations of Kamchatka. Report of a Journey Made to Explore Eastern Siberia in 1735–41. Portland: Oregon Historical Society.Google Scholar
Kuhnlein, Hariet V. & Nancy J. Turner. 1996. Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples. Canada: Gordon and Breach Publishers.Google Scholar
Larson, Philip R. 1994. The Vascular Cambium: development and structure. springer series in wood Science. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard Borshay. 1979. The !Kung San: Men, women and work in a foraging society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lemoine, Genevieve. 1995. Use wear analysis on bone and antler tools of the Mackenzie Inuit. BAR international series 679. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Maack, Richard. 1870. Description of Vilyuiskii Okrug ([Yakut] people of the Vilyui River area of Sahka [Yakutia]) c. 1870. Saint Petersburg, Tip. Vulfa.Google Scholar
Mania, Ursula. 1995. The Utilisation of Large Mammal Bones in Bilzingsleben: A Special Variant of Middle Pleistocene Man’s Relationship to his Environment. in Man and Environment in the Palaeolithic. (ed.Ullrich, H.): 239–46. Liège: E.R.A.U.L. 62.Google Scholar
Mania, D, Mania, U. & Vlcek, E.. 1999. The Bilzingsleben Site: Homo erectus, his Culture and his Ecosphere. Hominid Evolution: Lifestyles and Survival Strategies. (ed. Ullrich, Herbert.) Gelsenkirchen: Edition Archaea.Google Scholar
Mania, D, Mania, U. & Vlcek, E.. 1994. Latest Finds of Skull Remains of Homo erectus from Bilzingsleben (Thuringia). Naturwissenschaften 81: 123–27.Google Scholar
Marshall, Lorna. 1976. The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mobely, Charles M. & Eldridge, Morley. 1992. Culturally Modified Trees in the Pacific Northwest. Arctic Anthropology 29(2)91–110 Google Scholar
Morice, A. G. 1910. The Great Déné Race. Anthropos Ephemeris Internationalis Ethnologica et Linguistica. Vol. 5 Google Scholar
Niklasson, M., Zackrisson, O. & Ostlund, L.. 1994. A Dendrochronological Reconstruction of Use by Saami of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) Inner Bark Over the Last 350 Years at Sädvajaure, N. Sweden. Vegetational History and Archaeobotany 3: 183–190.Google Scholar
Pons, A., Guiot, J., De Beaulieu, J-L. & Reille, M.. 1992. Recent Contributions to the Climatology of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Cycle Based on French Pollen Sequences. Quaternary Science Reviews 11: 439–448 Google Scholar
People of the ‘Ksan. 1980. Gathering What Nature Provided: Food Traditions of the Gitksan. Vancouver: Douglas & Mcintyre.Google Scholar
Reille, M. & De Beaulieu, J. L.. 1990. Pollen Analysis of a Long Upper Pleistocene Continental Sequence in a Velay Maar (Massif Central, France). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 80: 35–48.Google Scholar
Richards, Michael P, Pettitt, Paul B., Trinkhaus, Erik, Smith, Fred H., Paunivic, Maja & Karavanic, Ivor. 2000. Neanderthal Diet at Vindija and Neanderthal Predation: The Evidence from Stable Isotopes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97, 13: 7663–7666.Google Scholar
Swetnam, Thomas W. 1984. Peeled Pondorosa Pine Trees: A Record of Inner Bark Utilization by Native Americans. Journal of Ethnology 4(2)177–90 Google Scholar
Teit, James A. 1900. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Part IV. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. II.Google Scholar
Teit, James A. 1909. The Shuswap. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Part VII. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. II.Google Scholar
Thieme, Hartmut. 1999. Lower Palaeolithic Throwing spears and other wooden implements from SchÖningen, Germany. Hominid Evolution: Lifestyles and Survival Strategies. (ed. Ullrich, Herbert). Gelsenkirchen: Edition Archaea.Google Scholar
Thieme, Hartmut. 1997. Lower Palaeolithic Hunting Spears from Germany. Nature 385: 807–10.Google Scholar
Tode, Alfred. 1982. Der Altsteinzeitliche Fundplatz Salzgitter-Lebenstedt. Teil I, Archäologischer Teil, Köln: Böhlau Verlag.Google Scholar
Tromnau, G. 1982. Eine bearbeitete Mammutrippe aus den Rheinkiesen bei Duisburg. Festschrift für Rudolf Stampfuβ. (ed.Krause, G.): 197–201. Bonn: Hebelt Verlag.Google Scholar
Turner, Nancy J. 1988. Ethnobotany of Coniferous Trees in Thompson and Lillooet Interior Salish of British Columbia. Economic Botany 42(2)177–194 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Nancy J. 1975. Food Plants of British Columbia Indians. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum.Google Scholar
Turner, Nancy J. & Hebda, Richard J.. 1989. Contemporary Use of Bark for Medicine by Two salishan Native Elders of southeast Vancouver Island, Canada. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 29: 59–72 Google Scholar
Valoch, Karel. 1982. Die Beingeräte von Predmostí in Mähren (Czechoslovakia). Anthropologie XX(1)57–69 Google Scholar
Watanabe, Hitoshi. 1985. The Chopper-Chopping Tool Complex of Eastern Asia: An Ethnographical-Ecological Re-examination. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4: 1–8 Google Scholar
Woillard, Genevieve M. 1978. Grande Pile Peat Bog: A Continuous Pollen Record for the Last 140,000 Years. Quaternary Research 9: 1–21 Google Scholar
Yanovsky, & Kingsbury, . 1938. Analyses of Some Indian Food Plants. Association of Official Agricultural Chemists 21: 648–65.Google Scholar
Zackrisson, O., Ostlund, L., Korhonen, O. & Bergman, I.. 2000. The Ancient Use of Pinus sylvestri L. (Scots Pine) Inner Bark by Sami People in Northern Sweden, Related to Cultural and Ecological Factors. Vegetational History and Archaeobotany 9: 99–109 Google Scholar