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Small Mammal Bones on Later Stone Age Sites from the Cape (South Africa): Consumption and Ritual Events
Author(s) -
Parkington John,
Fisher John W.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
archeological papers of the american anthropological association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1551-8248
pISSN - 1551-823X
DOI - 10.1525/ap3a.2006.16.1.71
Subject(s) - midden , cape , assemblage (archaeology) , mammal , later stone age , geography , archaeology , middle stone age , hunter gatherer , vertebrate , rock shelter , ecology , biology , cave , pleistocene , biochemistry , gene
The Dunefield Midden site, located on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, contains abundant, well‐preserved animal bones and other archaeological materials believed to reflect multiple short occupations by hunter‐gatherer peoples several centuries ago. The bones of small mammals, constituting a subset of a large assemblage of vertebrate remains, present intriguing patterns with respect to spatial distributions of bones and of cutmarked bones. Pronounced differences in the spatial distributions of bones between small carnivores and small noncarnivores probably indicate differences in how the site occupants used the carcasses of these animals.