Diet and Physiological Stresses in Paleolithic non-adults
Final Report Abstract
This project set out to explore diet and physiological stress in western Eurasian Paleolithic children. It focused on shedding light on the little understood aspects of childhood during this time as a means to better understand childcare practices and through that behaviors that can be considered as adaptation strategies essential for the survival of the new generation and thus the population. In this way, the project aimed to address the question of how modern humans were able to survive and their closest relatives, the Neandertals, were not. The results of this project revealed that modern humans might have had a different childcare strategy compared to Neandertals. On a very general terms, unlike Neandertals, modern humans were found to have had fed their children restricted diets, that were not too hard or too tough compared to that of the adults. They also seem to have followed strategies that would reduce the levels of physiological stress post-weaning. However, these generalizations might not have applied for all populations of both taxa dispersed across space and time. Our results also reveal variations across these behavioral patterns in response to other factors, one of which is paleoecological zones. Thus, the success of modern humans and the demise of the Neandertals might not have been linked to a single factor throughout the extent of their populations, but this was most likely a result of the interaction of several factors that did not uniformly affected all populations within each species.
Publications
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Hominin dentition from Hohlenstein Stadel Cave. Proceedings of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution 7:59. 2018
El Zaatari, S., Harvati, K. & Kind, C-J.
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A comprehensive metric analysis of Palaeolithic deciduous and permanent teeth. Proceedings of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution 8:110. 2019
Lockey, A. L., Harvati, K. & El Zaatari, S.
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Hominin remains. In: Kind, C-J, ed. Löwenmensch und mehr. Die Ausgrabungen 2008 - 2013 in den altsteinzeitlichen Schichten der Stadel- Höhle im Hohlenstein (Lonetal), Gemeinde Asselfingen, Alb-Donau-Kreis. Forschungen und Berichte zur Archaeologie in Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart, Reichert. Pp. 171-174. 2019
El Zaatari, S & Harvati, K.
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Human teeth from securely stratified Middle Stone Age contexts at Sibudu, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 11(7), 3491-3501.
Will, Manuel; El-Zaatari, Sireen; Harvati, Katerina & Conard, Nicholas J.
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An outlook on new 3D methods for dental enamel hypoplasia analysis using confocal imaging profilometry. Proceedings of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution 8:109. 2019
Limmer, L. S., Harvati, K. & El Zaatari, S.
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Hypoplasia depth in Late Homo molars. Proceedings of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution 9:69. 2020
Lockey, A. L., McGrath, K., Harvati, K. & El Zaatari, S.
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3D enamel profilometry reveals faster growth but similar stress severity in Neanderthal versus Homo sapiens teeth. Scientific Reports, 11(1).
McGrath, Kate; Limmer, Laura Sophia; Lockey, Annabelle-Louise; Guatelli-Steinberg, Debbie; Reid, Donald J.; Witzel, Carsten; Bocaege, Emmy; McFarlin, Shannon C. & El, Zaatari Sireen
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Childhood stress in Paleolithic hominins: Neanderthals vs. modern humans. Paleoanthropology 2021-1:210. 2021
Limmer, L. S., Santon, M., Harvati, K. & El Zaatari, S.
