Exploring sex-based prey selection during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in southwestern Europe

The extinction of Neanderthals after a brief period of coexistence with Homo sapiens is a key topic in human evolution and Palaeolithic studies.

To date, there is still no consensus on whether differences in diet and hunting strategies between both human populations could have influenced the outcome.

Traditionally, archaeologists have addressed this topic by studying faunal skeletal remains, determining species variability, age of prey and seasonality of human occupations.

Ethnography shows that, in addition to these aspects, animal sex plays a key role in hunter-gatherers' prey choice procurement decisions, as the biological sex of an animal has major implications on its nutritional value, its presence in the landscape alone or in a group, and its vulnerability.

The assessment of this factor has not yet been addressed in Palaeolithic research, but it is essential to understand whether there were strategic differences in hunting behaviour among both human species.

PALEOHUNTERS aims to determine the influence of ungulate sex on the hunting strategies of late Neanderthals and the first Anatomically Modern Humans groups of northern Iberia and southwestern France, as both species overlapped in those regions for thousands of years.

This interdisciplinary project will implement biological sex determination of ungulates by analysing amelogenin, a protein present in tooth enamel.

The resulting ancient protein data will be combined with zooarchaeological and ecological information to re-evaluate Palaeolithic human subsistence behaviour from the perspective of the biological sex of hunted animals.

Furthermore, integrating biomolecular methods has the potential to contribute to address long-term debated issues in archaeological research from new perspectives.

By achieving these goals, PALEOHUNTERS will put the fellow on an innovative research path where palaeoproteomics becomes an integral part of Pleistocene zooarchaeological investigation.