Subsistence activities and the sexual division of labor in the European Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic: evidence from upper limb enthesopathies.

Studies of cultural artifacts and faunal remains from European Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites indicate a shift in hunter gatherer subsistence strategies, involving an intensification and diversification of resource exploitation relative to earlier foragers during the Tardiglacial and Postglacial periods. This trend has been recognized as well through the analysis of non-pathological skeletal adaptations of the upper limbs of European Upper Paleolithic human fossils. These paleoanthropological studies of adaptive bone modeling also raise the question of female use of throwing-based weapon technology in the Upper Paleolithic.

Enthesopathies as occupational stress markers: evidence from the upper limb.

Enthesopathies--that is, "musculo-skeletal stress markers"--are frequently used to reconstruct past lifestyles and activity patterns. Relatively little attention has been paid in physical anthropology to methodological gaps implicit in this approach: almost all methods previously employed neglect current medical insights into enthesopathies and the distinction between healthy and pathological aspects has been arbitrary. This study presents a new visual method of studying fibrocartilaginous enthesopathies of the upper limb (modified from Villotte: Bull Mém Soc Anthropol Paris n.

Determination of the dietary habits of a Magdalenian woman from Saint-Germain-la-Rivière in southwestern France using stable isotopes.

To obtain direct dietary information, carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were measured from bone collagen acquired from the well-preserved skeleton of a Magdalenian woman from the site of Saint-Germain-la-Rivière in southwestern France. Comparison of delta13C and delta15N values of the human bone collagen to those of bone collagen from local herbivores and carnivores indicates that the woman's primary source of protein was the meat of large terrestrial herbivores. Application of a linear mixing model to the woman's isotopic signature indicates that (1) no significant marine-derived protein contributed to her average diet; (2) saiga antelope, which dominates the faunal remains at Saint-Germain-la-Rivière, was not the main source of terrestrial protein; and (3) her pattern of subsistence reflects a less opportunistic behavior than generally attributed to humans from this period.