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. 2020 Mar 27;367(6485):eaaz7943.
doi: 10.1126/science.aaz7943.

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

J Zilhão  1   2   3 , D E Angelucci  4 , M Araújo Igreja  3   5   6 , L J Arnold  7 , E Badal  8 , P Callapez  9 , J L Cardoso  3   10 , F d'Errico  11   12 , J Daura  2   3 , M Demuro  7 , M Deschamps  3   13 , C Dupont  14 , S Gabriel  3   5   6 , D L Hoffmann  15   16 , P Legoinha  17 , H Matias  3 , A M Monge Soares  18 , M Nabais  3   19 , P Portela  18 , A Queffelec  11 , F Rodrigues  3 , P Souto  20
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Free article

Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

J Zilhão et al. Science. .
Free article

Abstract

Marine food-reliant subsistence systems such as those in the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) were not thought to exist in Europe until the much later Mesolithic. Whether this apparent lag reflects taphonomic biases or behavioral distinctions between archaic and modern humans remains much debated. Figueira Brava cave, in the Arrábida range (Portugal), provides an exceptionally well preserved record of Neandertal coastal resource exploitation on a comparable scale to the MSA and dated to ~86 to 106 thousand years ago. The breadth of the subsistence base-pine nuts, marine invertebrates, fish, marine birds and mammals, tortoises, waterfowl, and hoofed game-exceeds that of regional early Holocene sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer economies are not the preserve of anatomically modern people; by the Last Interglacial, they were in place across the Old World in the appropriate settings.

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  • Neanderthal surf and turf.
    Will M. Will M. Science. 2020 Mar 27;367(6485):1422-1423. doi: 10.1126/science.abb3568. Science. 2020. PMID: 32217711 No abstract available.

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