title: The earliest pigeon fanciers.
abstract: Feral Pigeons have colonised all corners of the Earth, having developed a close association with humans and their activities. The wild ancestor of the Feral Pigeon, the Rock Dove, is a species of rocky habitats, nesting typically on cliff ledges and at the entrance to large caves. This habit would have brought them into close contact with cave-dwelling humans, a relationship usually linked to the development of dwellings in the Neolithic. We show that the association between humans and Rock Doves is an ancient one with its roots in the Palaeolithic and predates the arrival of modern humans into Europe. At Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar, the Neanderthals exploited Rock Doves for food for a period of over 40 thousand years, the earliest evidence dating to at least 67 thousand years ago. We show that the exploitation was not casual or sporadic, having found repeated evidence of the practice in different, widely spaced, temporal contexts within the cave. Our results point to hitherto unappreciated capacities of the Neanderthals to exploit birds as food resources on a regular basis. More so, they were practising it long before the arrival of modern humans and had therefore invented it independently.
authors.affiliation: The Gibraltar Museum, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, P. O. Box 939, Gibraltar.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blasco
authors.affiliation: The Gibraltar Museum, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, P. O. Box 939, Gibraltar.
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Finlayson
authors.affiliation: 1] Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain [2] IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social, C/Marcel.lí Domingo s/n - Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rosell
authors.affiliation: Area of Neogene and Quaternary Faunas, Institut Català de Paleontologia, Campus de la UAB, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio Sánchez
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Marco
authors.affiliation: The Gibraltar Museum, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, P. O. Box 939, Gibraltar.
authors.forename: Stewart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Finlayson
authors.affiliation: The Gibraltar Museum, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, P. O. Box 939, Gibraltar.
authors.forename: Geraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Finlayson
authors.affiliation: Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC), Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Avda. Americo Vespucio s/n, 41092 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: Juan José
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Negro
authors.affiliation: Gibraltar Caves Project, 18-20 Bomb House Lane, P. O. Box 939, Gibraltar.
authors.forename: Francisco Giles
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Pacheco
authors.affiliation: Depto. Geodinámica y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Campus del Carmen, Universidad de Huelva, Marine International Campus of Excellence - CEIMAR, 21071 Huelva, Spain.
authors.forename: Joaquín Rodríguez
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Vidal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D059552:Caves; D010856:Columbidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D059125:Neanderthals / Q000502:physiology
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