Neanderthal and Modern Human Diet in Eastern Europe

The Late Pleistocene environments of Eastern Europe — especially the cool and dry environments of the East European Plain — offer a unique setting for comparison of Neanderthal and modern human diet. There are some taphonomic factors specific to this setting, however, including those related to the scarcity of natural shelters and distribution of woody plants on the central plain, which complicate the analysis of Late Pleistocene human diet. Neanderthals occupied southern upland areas, and sometimes the southwest and central plain, probably sustaining themselves primarily on the hunting of large mammals, which often included steppe species such as Bison priscus and Saiga tatarica. It is difficult to understand how recent hunter-gatherers in some of these environments (e.g., southwest plain during the Middle Pleniglacial) could have sustained themselves throughout the year on the basis of large mammal hunting without food storage. The key to Neanderthal survival in such habitats may have been the hunting of mammoth and rhinoceros — very large herbivores not available to recent hunter-gatherers in northern interior settings. Modern humans — who are present on the East European Plain as early as anywhere in Europe — broadened the diet to include small mammals, birds, and/or fish during the Middle Pleniglacial. Evidence of this shift, which seems to have been achieved through the design of novel foodgetting technologies, is derived both from the faunal remains and stable isotope analysis of human bone. Modern humans occupied the loess-steppe habitat on the central plain during the Late Pleniglacial and often used their food debris as fuel.