Archaeological perspectives on childcare in the Late Pleistocene: evidence from Neanderthals and modern humans

Year 2025, Issue: 50, 70 - 84, 30.06.2025

Çağatay Yücel

https://doi.org/10.33613/antropolojidergisi.1649083

Abstract

Infant care and nutrition in the Late Pleistocene represent a significant research area for understanding the effects of social and biological dynamics on child-rearing during a critical stage in human evolution. This study aims to investigate infant feeding practices, breastfeeding duration, and early life care practices in hunter-gatherer societies. Drawing on archaeological evidence, biomolecular analyses and anthropological data, the relationship of late Pleistocene childcare to social organization and survival strategies will be discussed.

Keywords

Late Pleistocene , Weaning , Infant Care , Child Nutrition , Breastfeeding Duration

Geç Pleistosen’de çocuk bakımına arkeolojik yaklaşımlar: Neandertaller ve modern insanlardan kanıtlar

Abstract

Geç Pleistosen Çağ’da bebek bakımı ve beslenme, insan evriminin kritik bir evresinde toplumsal ve biyolojik dinamiklerin çocuk yetiştirme üzerindeki etkilerini anlamak açısından önemli bir araştırma alanı sunar. Bu çalışma, avcı-toplayıcı toplumlarda bebeklerin beslenme biçimlerini, emzirme sürelerini ve erken yaşam dönemlerindeki bakım uygulamalarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Arkeolojik buluntular, biyomoleküler analizler ve antropolojik veriler ışığında, Geç Pleistosen çocuk bakımının toplumsal organizasyon ve hayatta kalma stratejileriyle olan ilişkisi tartışılacaktır.

Keywords

Geç Pleistosen , Sütten Kesme , Bebek Bakımı , Çocuk Beslenmesi , Emzirme Süresi

References

• Beaumont, J., ve Montgomery, J. (2016). The Great Irish Famine: Identifying starvation in the tissues of victims using stable isotope analysis of bone and incremental dentine collagen. PLOS ONE, 11(8), e0160065. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160065.
• Bentley, R. A. (2006). Strontium isotopes from the Earth to the archaeological skeleton: A review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 13(3), 135–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-006-9009-x.
• Berry, S. H., Bamforth, D. B. (1989). Microwear Analysis of Prehistoric Stone Tools. MRS Bulletin, 14(3), 45-48. Bocherens, H. (2009). Neanderthal dietary habits: Review of the isotopic evidence. J.-J. Hublin ve M. P. Richards (Eds.), The evolution of hominin diets: Integrating approaches to the study of Palaeolithic subsistence içinde (s. 241–250). Springer.
• Bocherens, H. (2011). Diet and ecology of Neanderthals: Implications from C and N isotopes. N. J. Conard ve J. Richter (Eds.), Neanderthal lifeways: Subsistence and technology içinde (s. 73-85). Springer.
• Bocherens, H., Bonilla, M. D. Z., Daujeard, C., Fernandes, P., Raynal, J. P., ve Moncel, M. H. (2016). Direct isotopic evidence for subsistence variability in Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals (Payre, southeastern France). Quaternary Science Reviews, 154, 226-236.
• Bowles, S. (2009). Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors? Science, 324(5932), 1293-1298.
• Dames, B. A. R., Kilili, H., Charvet, C. J., Díaz- Barba, K., Proulx, M. J., de Sousa, A. A., ve Urrutia, A. O. (2023). Evolutionary and genomic perspectives of brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Progress in Brain Research, 275, 165-215.
• Douka, K., Bergman, C. A., Hedges, R. E., Wesselingh, F. P., ve Higham, T. F. (2013). Chronology of Ksar Akil (Lebanon) and implications for the colonization of Europe by anatomically modern humans. Plos One, 8(9), e72931.
• Dunsworth, H. M., Warrener, A. G., Deacon, T., Ellison, P. T., ve Pontzer, H. (2012). Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(38), 15212–15216. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1205282109.
• Eerkens, J. W., ve Lipo, C. P. (2007). Cultural transmission theory and the archaeological record: providing context to understanding variation and temporal changes in material culture. Journal of Archaeological Research, 15(3), 239-274.
• Einwögerer, T., Händel, M., Neugebauer-Maresch, C., Simon, U., ve Teschler-Nicola, M. (2008). The gravettian infant burials from Krems- Wachtberg, Austria. Babies reborn: infant/child burials in Pre-and Protohistory, 15-9.
• Foley, R. A., ve Lee, P. C. (1991). Ecology and energetics of encephalization in hominid evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 334(1270), 223–232. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1991.0111
• Fuller, B. T., Fuller, J. L., Sage, N. E., Harris, D. A., O’Connell, T. C., ve Hedges, R. E. (2004). Nitrogen balance and δ15N: why you’re not what you eat during pregnancy. Rapid communications in mass spectrometry, 18(23), 2889-2896.
• Fuller, B. T., Richards, M. P., ve Mays, S. A. (2003). Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope variations in tooth dentine serial sections from Wharram Percy. Journal of Archaeological Science, 30(12), 1673-1684.
• Giddens, A. (2006). Sosyoloji (H. Çelik, Çev.). Ayraç Yayınları.
• Gurven, M., ve Kaplan, H. (2007). Longevity among hunter-gatherers: a cross-cultural examination. Population and Development Review, 33(2), 321-365. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x
• Hardy, K. (2022). The use of plants by Neanderthals as food, medicine, and raw materials. F. Romagnoli, F. Rivals, ve S. Benazzi (Eds.), Updating Neanderthals içinde (s. 145-161). Elsevier Academic Press.
• Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., Jones, N. B., Alvarez, H., ve Charnov, E. L. (1998). Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(3), 1336-1339. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336
• Henry, A. G., Brooks, A. S., ve Piperno, D. R. (2011). Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(2), 486-491.
• Henshilwood, C. S., d’Errico, F., Yates, R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Duller, G. A. T., Mercier, N., Sealy, J. C., Valladas, H., Watts, I., ve Wintle, A. G. (2002). Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science, 295(5558), 1278-1280. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1067575
• Hernaiz-García, M., Oxilia, G., Benazzi, S., Sarig, R., Fu, J., Kullmer, O., ve Fiorenza, L. (2024). Diet of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens from macrowear analysis of mandibular molars. Journal of Archaeological Science, 164, 105950.
• Hewlett, B.S. ve Lamb, M. E. (2005). Huntergatherer childhoods: evolutionary, developmental, and cultural perspectives. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
• Hill, K., ve Hurtado, A. M. (1996). Ache life history: The ecology and demography of a foraging people. Routledge.
• Hockett, B., ve Haws, J. A. (2005). Nutritional ecology and the human demography of Neandertal extinction. Quaternary International, 137(1), 21-34.
• Hrdy, S. B. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Harvard University Press.
• Humphrey, L. T. (2010). Weaning behaviour in human evolution. Seminars in cell & developmental biology, 21(4), 453-461.
• Humphrey, L. T. (2014). Isotopic and trace element evidence of dietary transitions in early life. Annals of Human Biology, 41(4), 348-357.
• Katzenberg, M.A., Herring, D, Saunders, S.R. (1996). Weaning and infant mortality: evaluating the skeletal evidence. Yearb Phys Anthropol 39,177–199.
• Keeley, L. H. (1996). War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford University Press.
• Keeley, L. H. (1980). Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses: A Microwear Analysis. University of Chicago Press.
• Kelly, R. L. (2013). The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139176132.
• Konner, M. (2005). Hunter-gatherer infancy and childhood: The !Kung and ot hers.
• Kuhn, S. L., Stiner, M. C., Reese, D. S., ve Güleç, E. (2001). Ornaments of the earliest Upper Paleolithic: New insights from the Levant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(13), 7641-7646.
• Lahr, M. M., Rivera, F., Power, R. K., Mounier, A., Copsey, B., Crivellaro, F., Edung, J. E., Fernandez, J. M. M., Kiarie, C., Lawrence, J., Leakey, A., Mbua, E., Miller, H., Muigai, A., Mukhongo, D. M., Van Baelen, A., Wood, R., Schwenninger, J. L., Grün, R., Achyuthan, H., Wilshaw, A., ve Foley, R. A. (2016). Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 529(7586), 394–398. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16477.
• Lancy D.F., (2008). The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, and Changelings. Cambridge.
• Langley, M. (2018). Children of the ice age. Australasian Science, 39(2), 14-17.
• Lee Thorp, J. A. (2008). On isotopes and old bones. Archaeometry, 50(6), 925-950.
• Nava, A., Lugli, F., Romandini, M., Badino, F., Evans, D., Helbling, A. H., Oxilia, G., Arrighi, S., Bortolini, E., Delpiano, D., Duches, R., Figus, C., Livraghi, A., Marciani, G., Silvestrini, S., Cipriani, A., Giovanardi, T., Pini, R., Tuniz, C., Bernardini, F., Dori, I., Coppa, A., Cristiani, E., Dean, C., Bondioli, L., Peresani, M., Müller, W., ve Benazzi, S. (2020). Early life of Neanderthals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(46), 28719–28726. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011765117.
• Nowell, A. (2016). Childhood, play and the evolution of cultural capacity in Neanderthals and modern humans. M. N. Haidle, N. J. Conard, ve M. Bolus (Eds.), The nature of culture: Based on an interdisciplinary symposium “The Nature of Culture” içinde (s. 87–97). Tübingen, Germany. Springer.
• Nowell, A., White, M. J. (2012). Growing up in the Middle Pleistocene: Life history strategies and their relationship to Acheulian industries. A. Nowell ve I. Davidson (Eds.), Stone tools and the evolution of human cognition içinde (s. 67–82). University Press of Colorado.
• Odell, G. H. ( 2004). Lithic Analysis. Springer.
• Richards, M. P., Trinkaus, E. (2009). Isotopic evidence for the diets of European Neanderthals and early modern humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(38), 16034-16039.
• Rosas, A., Martínez-Maza, C., Bastir, M., García-Tabernero, A., Lalueza-Fox, C., Huguet, R., Ortiz, J. E., Julià, R., Soler, V., de Torres, T., Martínez, E., Cañaveras, J. C., Sánchez-Moral, S., Cuezva, S., Lario, J., Santamaría, D., de la Rasilla, M., ve Fortea, J. (2006). Paleobiology and comparative morphology of a late Neandertal sample from El Sidrón, Asturias, Spain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(51), 19266–19271. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0609662104.
• Rosas, A., Ríos, L., Estalrrich, A., Liversidge, H., García-Tabernero, A., Huguet, R., Cardoso, H., Bastir, M., Lalueza-Fox, C., de la Rasilla, M., ve Dean, C. (2017). The growth pattern of Neandertals, reconstructed from a juvenile skeleton from El Sidrón (Spain). Science, 357(6357), 1282–1287. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan6463.
• Schurr, M. R. (1997). Stable nitrogen isotopes as evidence for the age of weaning at the Angel site: a comparison of isotopic and demographic measures of weaning age. Journal of Archaeological Science, 24(10), 919-927.
• Sellen, D. W. (2001). Comparison of infant feeding patterns reported for nonindustrial populations with current recommendations. The Journal of nutrition, 131(10), 2707-2715.
• Sellen, D. W., ve Smay, D. B. (2001). Relationship between subsistence and age at weaning in “preindustrial” societies. Human Nature, 12, 47-87.
• Shea, J. J. (2006). Child’s play: reflections on the invisibility of children in the Paleolithic record. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews: Issues, News, and Reviews, 15(6),212-216.
• Shea, J. J. (2013). Stone tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East: A guide. Cambridge University Press.
• Smith, T. M., Austin, C., Green, D. R., Joannes-Boyau, R., Bailey, S., Dumitriu, D., Fallon, S., Grün, R., James, H. F., Moncel, M.-H., Williams, I. S., Wood, R., ve Arora, M. (2018). Wintertime stress, nursing, and lead exposure in Neanderthal children. Science Advances, 4(10), eaau9483. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau9483
• Tsutaya, T., ve Yoneda, M. (2015). Reconstruction of breastfeeding and weaning practices using stable isotope and trace element analyses: A review.American journal of physical anthropology, 156, 2-21.
• Vandermeersch, B. (1981). Les hommes fossiles de Quafzeh (Israël). FeniXX.
• Wojtal, P., Haynes, G., Klimowicz, J., Sobczyk, K., Tarasiuk, J., Wroński, S., ve Wilczyński, J. (2019). The earliest direct evidence of mammoth hunting in Central Europe–The Kraków Spadzista site (Poland). Quaternary Science Reviews, 213, 162-166.
• Wright, LE, ve Schwarcz, HP. (1998). Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in human tooth enamel: identifying breastfeeding and weaning in prehistory. American Journal Physical Anthropology, 106,1–18.
• Zilhão, J., Angelucci, D. E., Araújo Igreja, M., Arnold, L. J., Badal, E., Callapez, P., Cardoso, J. L., d’Errico, F., Daura, J., Demuro, M., Deschamps, M., Dupont, C., Gabriel, S., Hoffmann, D. L., Legoinha, P., Matias, H., Monge Soares, A. M., Nabais, M., Portela, P., Queffelec, A., Rodrigues, F., ve Souto, P. (2020). Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers. Science, 367(6485), eaaz7943. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz7943.