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I am a zooarchaeologist working at the Max Planck Institute on a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships for post-doctoral research. I am focusing on the transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic, the emergence of so-called transitional industries, and the earliest Aurignacian. Stone tools from this time period show regional variants, but it is as yet unclear whether they are adaptations to the local ecology, indicative of specific activities, or cultural markers. What I am currently doing is trying to address this question through a study of the associated animal remains. Further, ethnographic descriptions of recent
hunter-gatherer groups have shown that diet is an identity marker that differs from one group to another (Levi-Straus, 1962 and 1963). I am looking at faunal assemblages to see whether one can build/reconstruct the diet code that sets the rules of “good eating” specific to each community (Fischler, 1993). This work also necessitates a reconsideration of traditional archeozoological studies. An economic approach, in terms of animal resources, allows us to think beyond the simple “hunter/hunted” relationship and to
consider also the domestic and spiritual exploitation of the species.
| email: | claire_letourneux eva.mpg.de |
