Reindeer Hunters of the Ice Age in Europe

This book undertakes a thorough study of Reindeer in the Upper Pleniglacial and Tardiglacial societies in France. It addresses two main topics the economy of animal resources within the societies and the exploitation of Reindeer organized within the annual cycle, in terms of space and time, between 30,000 and 14,000 cal BP in France. The author proposes an analysis and hypothesis regarding the economy of animal resources and the nomadic cycle of the last Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, in order to identify a Reindeer system. The author discusses the relationship between Reindeer and human mobility and offers some conclusions regarding the annual cycles of nomadism. The volume scrutinizes the distinct eco systems in three regions and its effects on the movements of both human and animal. This book is of interest to zooarchaeologists and prehistorians.

Presents groundbreaking approach to Palaeolithic mobility and settlements patterns

Their interaction with environment

Includes new way of considering the ethology and ecology

Autorentext
Laure Fontana (Ph.D., 1998, University of Paris 1-Sorbonne) is a specialist in animal resources exploitation and she studies the societies of the Western European Upper Paleolithic, especially those that lived in the last cold environments of the Pleistocene and based their economic system on the exploitation of the Reindeer. As a CNRS Researcher, she has focused her research on the mobility of Paleolithic Reindeer and the economics of animal resources, in order to reconstruct the annual cycles of human groups and the environments of the Western end of the Mammoth steppe. She has edited two books (2009, 2012) and published various articles on these topics.

Inhalt
Preface

Introduction

I. Contexts and object of study

1. From the Aurignacian to the Magdalenian: Palaeolithic "cultures"?

2. The environment of France in the Upper Pleniglacial and Tardiglacial

a. Chrono-environmental framework

b. A cold environment but what esle ?

3. Reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus )

a. An animal adapted to the cold

b. Reindeer before 33,000 cal BP in Europe and France

4. Constitution of the corpus and study areas

a. Sites surveyed and identified

b. Constitution of the regions

II. The place of reindeer in economies between 30,000 and 14,000 cal BP in France

1. The reindeer's share of the hunt

a. Variation over time

b. Variation in space

c. First conclusions

2. Reindeer hunting strategies a. Reindeer mortality profiles: the choice not to choose b. Few adult males c. More or less seasonal hunts

3. Reindeer antlers: sourcing strategies and raw material management

a. Perspective, issues and difficulties

b. The results c. Regional reindeer antler exploitation d. The Place of reindeer antler exploitation in the annual cycle: assumptions

4. Conclusion: the status of the reindeer

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   III. Reindeer mobility and human mobility

   1. State of play and objectives
   2. Migratory and sedentary reindeer

a. The reindeer of the Dordogne... and next door?

b. Reindeer from elsewhere

c. Reindeer with little mobility in the France of the last cold winter months

3. Annual cycles of nomadism: several configurations or several visibilities?

a. Questions

b. Annual cycle of nomadism in the Massif Central from the end of the Gravettian to the Magdalenian

c. The Dordogne, from Gravettian to Magdalenian

d. Conclusion: distinct cycles?

IV. Discussion

1. France's environment between 30,000 and 15,000 years: ecosystems to be defined

a. The mammoth steppe

b. France in the mammoth steppe: an exception that confirms the rule?

c. France, a reindeer steppe... but what else?

d. Conclusions

2. A unique system beyond distinct ecosystems a. The economics of animal resources: a common foundation b. A single procurement strategy

   c. A single economy of animal resources

   d. Mobility of human groups: a reality to be built, far from models

   Conclusions

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   References

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   Acknowledgements

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   Figures and appendices

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   Annexes