The shaft-based methodological approach to the quantification of long limb bones and its relevance to understanding hominid subsistence in the Pleistocene: application to four Palaeolithic sites

The present work contributes to the debate of skeletal part use in archaeology to reconstruct hominid economic behaviour during the Pleistocene. It doubles the sample of sites where comparison of long limb bone element quantification is made by using alternative identification techniques based on epiphyses and epiphyses plus shafts. A refined method of long limb element quantification using shafts is discussed and applied to four sites representing different time periods from the end of the Middle Pleistocene to the end of the Upper Pleistocene. It is shown that when long limb elements are properly quantified a hypothesis of early access to carcasses at these sites can be supported. The data thus drawn are also Used to compare skeletal part evenness across the time periods represented by the four sites selected. The results indicate low-cost transport decisions by hominids at these sites. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.