title: Evidence for a (15)N positive excursion in terrestrial foodwebs at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in south-western France: Implications for early modern human palaeodiet and palaeoenvironment.
abstract: The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition around 35,000 years ago coincides with the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans in Europe. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain this replacement, one of them being the ability of anatomically modern humans to broaden their dietary spectrum beyond the large ungulate prey that Neanderthals consumed exclusively. This scenario is notably based on higher nitrogen-15 amounts in early Upper Palaeolithic anatomically modern human bone collagen compared with late Neanderthals. In this paper, we document a clear increase of nitrogen-15 in bone collagen of terrestrial herbivores during the early Aurignacian associated with anatomically modern humans compared with the stratigraphically older Châtelperronian and late Mousterian fauna associated with Neanderthals. Carnivores such as wolves also exhibit a significant increase in nitrogen-15, which is similar to that documented for early anatomically modern humans compared with Neanderthals in Europe. A shift in nitrogen-15 at the base of the terrestrial foodweb is responsible for such a pattern, with a preserved foodweb structure before and after the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in south-western France. Such an isotopic shift in the terrestrial ecosystem may be due to an increase in aridity during the time of deposition of the early Aurignacian layers. If it occurred across Europe, such a shift in nitrogen-15 in terrestrial foodwebs would be enough to explain the observed isotopic trend between late Neanderthals and early anatomically modern humans, without any significant change in the diet composition at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.
authors.affiliation: Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Paläobiologie (Biogeologie), Universität Tübingen, Hölderlinstrasse 12, D-72074 Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: herve.bocherens@uni-tuebingen.de.
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bocherens
authors.affiliation: Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Paläobiologie (Biogeologie), Universität Tübingen, Hölderlinstrasse 12, D-72074 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Dorothée G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Drucker
authors.affiliation: Musée National de Préhistoire, UMR 5199, 1 rue du musée, F-24620 Les Eyzies de Tayac, France; UMR 5199 PACEA/PPP, Université Bordeaux 1, av. des Facultés, Bât B18, 33405 Talence, France.
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Madelaine
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry; D002980:Climate; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry; D004032:Diet; D004777:Environment; D020387:Food Chain; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology*; D059125:Neanderthals / Q000502:physiology; D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes; D003094:Collagen
keywords: Collagen; Early Aurignacian; Stable isotopes; Western Europe