Measuring the palaeolithic life. A bioenergetic approach

Abstract

Due to the difficulty of finding remains and past clues, new and recent methodologies and approaches are getting importance to understand past behaviours. We present the Bioenergy as a new research domain in Human Evolution. This approach is built by sophisticated experimental protocols such as anthropometry, body composition and energy expenditure. These designs are used by recent humans as in vivo subjects to reconstruct some features of hominin paleobiology. Thus, we carry out the experimental programs measuring the energy requirements of prehistoric activities with the volunteers, such as carcass transport, gather vegetable resources and raw material catchment. The main aim of this approach is to recreate scenarios of past daily behaviours, their energy requirements and the environmental constraints by the use of mathematical tools.