Paleolithic Subsistence and Foraging

This topic examines how Paleolithic hominins and humans obtained food, from scavenging and gathering to organized big-game hunting, using faunal and botanical remains to reconstruct diet and economy.

Definition

The study of the food-getting strategies and diets of Paleolithic populations, reconstructed primarily from animal bones, plant remains, tools, and chemical signatures.

Scope

It covers the methods and evidence used to study Pleistocene subsistence, including zooarchaeology, taphonomy, use-wear analysis, and stable isotopes. The topic addresses debates over the relative roles of hunting, scavenging, and plant gathering across the Paleolithic, the organization of foraging and mobility, and how subsistence strategies changed as hominins moved into new environments and as modern human behaviour developed.

Core questions

• How can faunal assemblages distinguish hunting from scavenging?
• What was the balance of animal and plant foods in Paleolithic diets?
• How did subsistence and mobility strategies vary across time and environment?
• What methods reconstruct prehistoric diet from the archaeological record?

Key theories

Hunting versus scavenging debate

Lewis Binford's taphonomic argument that some early hominin sites reflect scavenging of carcass remains rather than the systematic hunting once assumed, prompting rigorous analysis of bone modification to infer subsistence behaviour.

Taphonomy of bone assemblages

The framework that distinguishes the effects of hominin butchery, carnivore activity, and natural processes on animal bones, allowing archaeologists to interpret how faunal assemblages at a site were formed.

History

Early interpretations cast Paleolithic hominins as 'man the hunter', but in the late 1970s and 1980s Lewis Binford and others used taphonomy to challenge this view, arguing that bone assemblages must be analysed for evidence of butchery, scavenging, and carnivore involvement. This debate transformed zooarchaeology into a rigorous, method-driven approach to reconstructing ancient diet.

Debates

Hunters or scavengers?

Researchers continue to debate when systematic big-game hunting emerged and how much early hominins relied on scavenging, with interpretations hinging on detailed taphonomic readings of cut marks, tooth marks, and bone breakage.

Key figures

• Lewis R. Binford
• Richard G. Klein
• Mary Stiner
• Robert Blumenschine

Seminal works

• binford1981
• klein2009

Frequently asked questions

Were Paleolithic people mainly hunters?

Diet varied by time, place, and species. While big-game hunting was important in many later contexts, plant gathering and, for some early hominins, scavenging also contributed, and the balance is reconstructed case by case.

How do archaeologists know what people ate?

They analyse animal bones for butchery marks, study plant remains and residues, examine tool wear, and measure stable isotopes in human bone to estimate the make-up of past diets.