The early use of fire among Neanderthals from a zooarchaeological perspective

Abstract

Fire represented a real revolution in human lifestyles, transforming the way food was processed and leading to a new way of organising settlements and interacting socially. Yet, it is one of the most debated and controversial issues in the field of Palaeolithic archaeology. The scientific community generally proposes that the regular and controlled use of fire occurred from 400 to 300 ka onward, and that the archaeological signal became well established in sites younger than 100 ka. Thus, the chronological range between 400 and 300 ka is crucial to exploring how this phenomenon and the associated behavioural changes occurred. Here, we examine the zooarchaeological signature this process left on the faunal record, including procurement techniques and animal processing (e.g., roasting). The data are compared to information from sites without fire that are framed within the same chronological period. Our objective is to collect zooarchaeological data on the process of dependence on fire as a central element in the new human mode of adaptation.