Project description:For a long time, Neanderthals were considered hunters of large mammals, whereas the diversification of the exploited faunal spectrum to include smaller taxa, including birds, was assumed to be specific to anatomically modern humans. In recent decades, archaeozoological analyses of faunal remains from layers associated with Middle Palaeolithic lithic industries have revealed traces of human manipulation of small taxa, indicating the exploitation of a wider range of animals than previously thought, including small or fast-moving animals such as molluscs, leporids and birds. These new data have challenged the view that Neanderthals did not exploit small animals, thereby narrowing the behavioral gap with anatomically modern humans. Nevertheless, the information currently available comes almost exclusively from southern Europe and the nature of Neanderthal small fauna exploitation in northern Europe remains largely unknown. The present study aims to fill this gap by applying archaeozoological methods, including detailed taphonomic and traceological analyses, to 118 bird remains recovered from levels containing Middle Palaeolithic industries at Scladina cave, southern Belgium. Analyses of proteomics were applied to clarify the taxonomic identity of two morphologically non-diagnostic elements. Compared to mammal remains, bird bones, most of which belong to the order Galliformes, are scarce at Scladina Cave. This is likely due to conservation bias. Traces of non-human predators or scavengers, suggest that mammalian carnivores are responsible for accumulating a considerable portion of the avian assemblage. In total, seven bird bones exhibit anthropogenic traces, and one element presents questionable traces. Various Galliformes and a cormorant were exploited likely for their meat, during MIS 5 and/or 6 and MIS 6. The terminal posterior phalanx (talon) of a raptor of the size of a pomarine eagle displays intense polishing that could be linked to human manipulation of this element (MIS 5 and/or 6), although in the absence of tool marks this remains hypothetical at this stage. On the radius of a Western capercaillie, two deep incisions may indicate bone working, and intense use-wear on one of the fractured ends indicates that the bone has been utilized, potentially on soft organic material (MIS 6). This study provides the first evidence of the exploitation of birds during the Middle Palaeolithic in Belgium and constitutes the only detailed archaeozoological analysis of bird material in northwestern Europe. The likely transformation and use of a bird bone is only the second example recovered from Neanderthal occupations. The novel taxa identified as Neanderthal prey highlight the plasticity of Neanderthal ecological behavior, adapting to different landscapes and climates and exploiting the full spectrum of locally available prey.

Project description:The purpose of this microarray experiment was to validate the Del-Mar 14K Chicken Integrated Systems Microarray for different chicken tissues and to determine the utility of this chicken cDNA microarray for other closely related and more distant avian species. The Del-Mar 14 K array was constructed from cDNAs amplified from EST clones sequenced from five normalized chicken cDNA libraries derived from neuroendocrine (5,929), abdominal fat (4,800), liver (2,635), skeletal muscle (2,398), reproductive tract (2,008), 387 long (70mer) oligonucleotides and 72 quality control spots. The array contains 17,770 cDNA clones, where protein matches were found by BlastX analysis for 68% of chicken contigs and 46% of singleton sequences represented on the array. A reference RNA design was used for the hybridization of total RNA from four chicken tissues (liver, abdominal fat, breast muscle and hypothalamus) and the cross-species hybridization (CSH) of total RNA from tissue from birds representing four orders of the Class Aves [Galliformes (chicken, Coturnix quail and domestic turkey), Anseriformes (Peking duck), Falconiformes (American kestrel) and Passeriformes (American tree sparrow)]. A reference RNA pool was made from an equal amount of high-quality total RNA extracted from chicken liver, abdominal fat, breast muscle and hypothalamus. Each of the 43 microarrays was co-hybridized with Cy3-labeled cDNA targets from one of the avian tissue samples and Cy5-labled cDNA targets from the reference chicken RNA pool. Loess-normalized data were used to determine the number of cDNAs expressed in chicken tissues and the number of genes (cDNAs) detectable by cross-hybridization with various avian tissue samples. The Cy5-labeled reference samples were used to determine the coefficient of variation across the 43 microarrays. This study shows a remarkably high level of cross hybridization of Cy3-labeled cDNA targets from a wide range of avian species to the Del-Mar 14K microarray, where 38 to 62% of the cDNA probes on the chicken array (genes) were detectable. Keywords: Transcriptional profiling, Del-Mar 14K Chicken Integrated Systems Microarray validation, multi-tissues, cross-species hybridization, class Aves

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Eudromia elegans

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