Study of human behaviors during the late pleniglacial in the East European Plain through their relation to the animal world
Abstract
The late Pleniglacial was characterized by different palaeoenvironmental and geographical modifications, which affected the diverse living beings that had to adapt to those peculiar conditions. This paper intends to explore how this phenomenon may have impacted the practices of the nomadic human populations who occupied the East European Plain during the last part of the Pleistocene, through their relation to the environments, landscapes, overall territories, and especially with other species in archaeological context. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, we performed an exhaustive review of the faunal record from an extensive set of archaeological recorded contexts ranging between 31.0 and 21.5 ka cal BP (26.0-18.0 ka 14C BP). We examined the seasons of occupations and the types of activities at each site, the global subsistence economies, as well as the technocultural practices and settlement patterns of the human groups. This research shed new light on the connections amongst different human groups and between humans and other animals, the socio-ecological systems that have been favored during this critical period of human prehistory in the East European Plain.