PALÉORIENT, vol. 9/1 - 1983

THE AGE PROFILES OF GAZELLES PREDATED BY ANCIENT MAN IN ISRAEL : POSSIBLE EVIDENCE FOR A SHIFT FROM SEASONALITY TO SEDENTISM

IN THE NATUFIAN

S.J.M. DAVIS

Introduction

Several authors have analysed the age structure of archaeological 'kill samples'. It appears that several cultural variables — such as the techniques required to hunt animals with different behavioural and size characteristics (1), actual hunting intensity (2) and the change from hunting to domestication (3) — may all affect the age profile of prey species in archaeological assemblages.

Elder (2) and Klein (1) have analysed artiodactyl age profiles from archaeological sites in North America and South Africa respectively. Klein compares different species of animals, and correlates their age profile variation with such factors as body size and behaviour as well as possible variation in human hunting techniques. Noting a high juvenile cull, and especially the rarity of prime-adults, among large species such as the Cape and giant buffaloes, he suggests that this reflects man's inability to stalk the less vulnerable prime age groups — termed an 'attri- tionaF pattern. On the other hand, the hartebeest and eland cull profiles showed a predominance of prime adults approximating the normal age profile among ungulate herds in nature : this, Klein suggests, indicates that the living population had been suddenly

wiped out. Entire herds may have been driven into traps. In my opinion, similarity between the age profile of the 'kill sample' and age distribution in nature could just as well indicate that different age groups were culled at random. This kind of age profile is termed by Klein a 'catastrophic' pattern.

Elder analyses the change in age profiles through time of a single species (deer) from various North American Indian sites. He finds a marked profile shift which he suggests was due to more intense exploitation of the deer and improved hunting techniques — the results of contact with white man and the revolutionary introduction of firearms (fig. 1). The intense exploitation of the prey species had 'caused' a downward shift of its 'age pyramid' and hence an increased representation of juveniles.

A high juvenile cull is often cited as evidence for domestication (4). In animal husbandry man controls the mortality pattern of his flock to a greater extent. Since the growth rate of an animal decreases as it gets older it becomes increasingly uneconomical to keep in terms of fodder. A maximum return on feed is obtained by slaughtering late in the animal's immaturity. For sheep and goats this may be between the ages of 6 and 12 months, and these juveniles invariably consist mainly of males not required for stud purposes, the females being kept longer for milking, etc. A preponderance of juvenile bones usually there-

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