Comparing methods for analysing mortality profiles in zooarchaeological and palaeontological samples

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology

Volumn 15, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 404-420

  Steele, T E ^a  

^a MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY   (Germany)

Author keywords

Age distribution; Age structure; Dental eruption attrition; Faunal analysis; Hunting; Life history; Prey selection; Zooarchaeology

Indexed keywords

EID: 29244465856     PISSN: 1047482X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/oa.795     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Binford LR, Bertram JB. 1977. Bone frequencies and attritional processes. In For Theory Building in Archaeology, Binford LR (ed.). Academic Press: New York; 77-153.
2. Blumenschine RJ. 1987. Characteristics of an early hominid scavenging niche. Current Anthropology 28: 383-407.
3. Brown WAB, Chapman NG. 1991a. Age assessment of red deer (Cervus elapbus): from a scoring scheme based on radiographs of developing permanent molariform teeth. Journal of Zoology 225: 85-97.
4. Brown WAB, Chapman NG. 1991b. The dentition of red deer (Cervus elaphus): a scoring scheme to assess age from wear of the permanent molariform teeth. Journal of Zoology 224: 519-536.
5. Carter RJ. 1998. Reassessment of seasonality at the early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, Yorkshire based on radiographs of mandibular tooth development in red deer (Cervus elaphus). Journal of Archaeological Science 25: 851-856.
6. Caughley G. 1966. Mortality patterns in mammals. Ecology 47: 906-918.
7. Costamagno S. 2000. Stratégies d'approvisionnement et traitement des carcasses au Magdalénien: l'exemple de Moulin-Neuf (Gironde). Paleo 12: 77-95.
8. Costamagno S. 2001. Exploitation de l'antilope saïga au Magdalénien en Aquitaine. Paleo 13: 111-128.
9. Cruz-Uribe K, Klein RG, Avery G, Avery M, Halkett D, Hart T, Milo RG, Sampson CG, Volman TP. 2003. Excavation of buried Late Acheulean (Mid-Quaternary) land surfaces at Duinefontein 2, Western Cape Province, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 559-575.
10. d'Errico F, Vanhaeren M. 2002. Criteria for identifying red deer (Cervus elaphus) age and sex from their canines. Application to the study of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ornaments. Journal of Archaeological Science 29: 211-232.
11. Davis SJM. 1987. The Archaeology of Animals. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT.
12. Deevey ES. 1947. Life tables for natural populations of animals. Quarterly Review of Biology 22: 283-314.
13. Ducos P. 2000. A new approach to the construction of age profiles. ArchaeoZoologia 11: 135-144.
14. Efron B, Tibshirani RJ. 1993. An Introduction to the Bootstrap: Monographs on Statistics and Applied Probability, Vol. 57. Chapman & Hall: New York.
15. Fernandez P, Legendre S. 2003. Mortality curves for horses from the Middle Palaeolithic site of Bau de l'Aubesier (Vaucluse, France): methodological, palaeo-ethnological, and palaeo-ecological approaches. Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 1577-1598.
16. Frison GC. 1978. Animal population studies and cultural inference. Plains Anthropologist 23: 44-52.
17. Greenfield HJ. 1986. The paleoeconomy of the Central Balkans (Serbia): a zooarchaeological perspective on the Late Neolithic and Bronze age (ca. 4500-1000 B.C.). BAR International Series 304: 1-513.
18. Hamlin KL, Pac DF, Sime CA, DeSimone RM, Dusek GL. 2000. Evaluating the accuracy of ages obtained by two methods for Montana ungulates. Journal of Wildlife Management 64: 441-449.
19. Hoffecker JF, Baryshnikov G, Potapova O. 1991. Vertebrate remains from the Mousterian site of Il'skaya I (Northern Caucasus, U.S.S.R.): new analysis and interpretation. Journal of Archaeological Science 18: 113-147.
20. Hoffecker JF, Baryshnikov GF, Doronichev VB. 2003. Large mammal taphonomy of the Middle Pleistocene hominid occupation at Treugol'naya Cave (Northern Caucasus). Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 595-607.
21. Houston DB. 1982. The Northern Yellowstone Elk: Ecology and Management. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.: New York.
22. Keiss RE. 1969. Comparison of eruption-wear patterns and cementum annuli as age criteria in elk. Journal of Wildlife Management 33: 175-180.
23. Klein RG. 1978. Stone Age predation on large African bovids. Journal of Archaeological Science 5: 195-217.
24. Klein RG. 1982a. Age (mortality) profiles as a means of distinguishing hunted species from scavenged ones in Stone Age archeological sites. Paleobiology 8: 151-158.
25. Klein RG. 1982b. Patterns of ungulate mortality and ungulate mortality profiles from Langebaanweg (Early Pliocene) and Elandsfontein (Middle Pleistocene), south-western Cape Province, South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum 20: 49-94.
26. Klein RG, Wolf C, Freeman LG, Allwarden K. 1981. The use of dental crown heights for constructing age profiles of red deer and similar species in archaeological samples. Journal of Archaeological Science 8: 1-31.
27. Klein RG, Allwarden K, Wolf C. 1983. The calculation and interpretation of ungulate age profiles from dental crown heights. In Hunter-gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European Perspective, Bailey G (ed.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge; 47-57.
28. Klein RG, Cruz-Uribe K. 1984. The Analysis of Animal Bones from Archeological Sites. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.
29. Klein RG, Cruz-Uribe K. 1996. Exploitation of large bovids and seals at Middle and Later Stone Age sites in South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 31: 315-334.
30. Klein RG, Cruz-Uribe K. 2000. Middle and Later Stone Age large mammal and tortoise remains from Die Kelders Cave 1, Western Cape Province, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 38: 169-195.
31. Koike H, Ohtaishi N. 1985. Prehistoric hunting pressure estimated by the age composition of excavated sika deer (Cervus nippon) using the annual layer of tooth cement. Journal of Archaeological Science 12: 443-456.
32. Kurtén B. 1953. On the variation and population dynamics of fossil and recent mammal populations. Acta Zoologica Fennica 76: 1-122.
33. Levine MA. 1983. Mortality models and the interpretation of horse population structure. In Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European Perspective, Bailey G (ed.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge; 23-46.
34. Lowe VPW. 1967. Teeth as indicators of age with special reference to red deer (Cervus elaphus) of known age from Rhum. Journal of Zoology 152: 137-153.
35. Lubinski PM. 1997. Pronghorn Intensification in the Wyoming Basin. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin.
36. Lubinski PM. 2000. A comparison of methods for evaluating ungulate mortality distributions. ArchaeoZoologia 11: 121-134.
37. Lubinski PM. 2001. Observations on seasonality and mortality from a recent catastrophic death assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 28: 833-842.
38. Lyman RL. 1987. On the analysis of vertebrate mortality profiles: sample size, mortality type, and hunting pressure. American Antiquity 51: 125-142.
39. Lyman RL. 1994. Vertebrate Taphonomy. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
40. Marean CW. 1997. Hunter-gatherer foraging strategies in tropical grasslands: model building and testing in the East African Middle and Later Stone Age. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16: 189-225.
41. Mariezkurrena K. 1983. Contribución al conocimiento del desarrollo de la dentición y el esqueleto postcraneal de Cervus elaphus. Munibe 35: 149-202.
42. Mech LD, Smith DW, Murphy KM, MacNulty DR. 2001. Winter severity and wolf predation on a formerly wolf-free elk herd. Journal of Wildlife Management 65: 998-1003.
43. Mitchell B. 1967. Growth layers in dental cement for determining the age of red deer (Cervus elaphus L.). Journal of Animal Ecology 36: 279-293.
44. Monchot H, Léchelle J. 2002. Statistical nonparametric methods for the study of fossil populations. Paleobiology 28: 55-69.
45. Mooney CZ, Duval RD. 1993. Bootstrapping: A Nonparametric Approach to Statistical Inference. Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences. Sage Publications: Newbury Park, CA.
46. Moore NP, Cahill JP, Kelly PF, Hayden TJ. 1995. An assessment of five methods of age determination in an enclosed population of fallow deer (Dama dama). Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 95B: 27-34.
47. Morris P. 1972. A review of mammalian age determination methods. Mammal Review 2: 69-104.
48. Munson PJ. 1991. Mortality profiles of white-tailed deer from archaeological sites in eastern North America: selective hunting or taphonomy? In Beamers, Bobwhites, and Blue-Points: Tributes to the Career of Paul W. Parmalee, vol. 23, Purdue JR, Klippel WE, Styles BW (eds). Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers: Springfield, IL; 139-151.
49. Munson PJ. 2000. Age-correlated differential destruction of bones and its effect on archaeological mortality profiles of domestic sheep and goat. Journal of Archaeological Science 27: 391-407.
50. O'Connor T. 2000. The Archaeology of Animal Bones. Texas A&M University Press: College Station, TX.
51. Payne S. 1973. Kill-off patterns in sheep and goats: the mandibles from Asvan Kale. Anatolian Studies 23: 281-303.
52. Pike-Tay A. 1991. Red Deer Hunting in the Upper Paleolithic of South-West France: A Study in Seasonality, Vol. 569. BAR International Series: Oxford.
53. Pike-Tay A (ed.). 2000. Innovations in Assessing Season of Capture, Age and Sex of Archaeofaunas, Vol. XI/1.2. ArchaeoZoologia: Grenoble.
54. Quimby DC, Gaab JE. 1957. Mandibular dentition as an age indicator in Rocky Mountain elk. Journal of Wildlife Management 21: 435-451.
55. Reitz EJ, Wing ES. 1999. Zooarchaeology: Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
56. Rohlf FJ, Sokal RR. 1995. Statistical Tables (3rd edn). W. H. Freeman and Company: New York.
57. Shipman P. 1981. Life History of a Fossil: An Introduction to Taphonomy and Paleoecology. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
58. Smith DW, Brewster WG, Bangs EE. 1999. Wolves in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem: restoration of a top carnivore in a complex management environment. In Carnivores in Ecosystems: The Yellowstone Experience, Clark TW, Curlee AP, Minta SC, Kareiva PM (eds). Yale University Press: New Haven, CT; 103-125.
59. Smith RJ. 1996. Biology and body size in human evolution. Current Anthropology 37: 451-481.
60. Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ. 1995. Biometry: The Principles and Practice of Statistics in Biological Research (3rd edn). W. H. Freeman and Company: New York.
61. Spinage CA. 1973. A review of age determination of mammals by means of teeth, with special reference to Africa. East African Wildlife Journal 11: 165-187.
62. Steele TE. 2002. Red deer: Their ecology and how they were hunted by Late Pleistocene hominids in western Europe. PhD thesis, Stanford University.
63. Steele TE. 2003. Using mortality profiles to infer behavior in the fossil record. Journal of Mammalogy 84: 418-430.
64. Steele TE. 2004. Variation in mortality profiles of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Middle Paleolithic assemblages from western Europe. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 14: 307-320.
65. Steele TE. 2005. Accuracy of age determinations from tooth crown heights: a test using an expanded sample of known age Cervus elaphus. In Recent Advances in Ageing and Sexing Animal Bone, Cosmopoulos DR (ed.). Oxbow Books: Oxford; 119-128.
66. Steele TE, Weaver TD. 2002. The modified triangular graph: a refined method for comparing mortality profiles in archaeological samples. Journal of Archaeological Science 29: 317-322.
67. Stiner MC. 1990. The use of mortality patterns in archaeological studies of hominid predatory adaptations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9: 305-351.
68. Stiner MC (ed.). 1991a. Human Predators and Prey Mortality: Westview Special Studies in Archaeological Research. Westview Press: Boulder, CO.
69. Stiner MC. 1991b. An interspecific perspective on the emergence of the modern human predatory niche. In Human Predators and Prey Mortality, Stiner MC (ed.). Westview Press: Boulder, CO; 149-185.
70. Stiner MC. 1994. Honor Among Thieves: A Zooarchaeological Study of Neandertal Ecology. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
71. Stiner MC. 1998. Mortality analysis of Pleistocene bears and its paleoanthropological relevance. Journal of Human Evolution 34: 303-326.
72. Velleman PF. 1997. DataDesk (version 6.0): Statistics Guide. Vol. 3. Data Description: Ithaca, NY.
73. Velleman PF, Hoaglin DC. 1981. Applications, Basics, and Computing of Exploratory Data Analysis. Duxbury Press: Boston, MA.
74. Vigne J-D. 2000. Outils pour restituer les stratégies de chasse au cerf en Europe au Mésolithique et au Néolithique: analyses graphiques, statistiques et multivariées de courbes d'âges d'abattage. Anthropozoologica 31: 57-67.
75. Voorhies MR. 1969. Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an Early Pliocene Vertebrate Fauna, Know County, Nebraska: Contributions to Geology Special Papers, Vol. 1. University of Wyoming: Laramie, Wyoming.
76. Wilson B, Grigson C, Payne S (eds). 1982. Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, Vol. 109. BAR British Series: Oxford.