The biggest challenge in studying coastal prehistoric communities is that these coastal ground lines no longer exist due to erosion and sea level changes. However, there are still some ways to study them indirectly.
After investigating whale bone tools and fragments from prehistoric sites in France and Spain, a group of researchers revealed that the oldest specimen in the collection dates back about 20,000 years. In this way, they take humans’ oldest example of using whale parts as tools.
Before whaling drastically reduced the population, “whales are a valuable source of food and other resources,” the researchers wrote in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. “They are therefore an important part of many coastal human groups around the globe, including hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, and have adopted a acquisition method that includes clearing fresh beach animals, opportunistic killing and organized whaling.”
But, unfortunately, prehistoric coastal archaeological sites are fragile and have eroded or are now underwater. Given that the creation of whale bone tools inevitably requires the presence of humans in coastal areas, they provide valuable opportunities to study prehistoric interactions between humans and marine life as well as ancient whale ecology.
The team – including researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the National Center for Scientific Research in France and the University of Vienna – analyzed 83 bone-pair objects and clearly modified humans and 90 unprocessed bone fragments that still show signs of human processing. The date of radioactive materials (which determines the age of the organic material) shows that the oldest bones in the collection date back about 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, “making it the oldest evidence for whaling.”
In addition, they found through mass spectrometry (which revealed the properties of the molecules) that the bones were from species including blue whales, fin whales, sperm whales, right or bow whales, and gray whales. Although today's gray whales are mainly found in the North Pacific and Arctic, other species still live in Bis, France and Spain for meetings. Interestingly, the analysis also showed that prehistoric whales had slightly different feeding habits compared to their modern counterparts.
“Even if the Paleolithic coast itself is no longer available, the scope identified here may not reflect all the species present in the Bisky Gulf at that time, and the analysis of these whales' skeletons, the Hunter-processors brought these whales into the inland range and opened up a unique environment to the northern environment in the northern environment.” Utilization of human populations. ”
The study provides new insights into prehistoric coastal technologies, especially with some marine animals that have driven 20,000 years of human industry.
