Papers by Dorothée Drucker
ADLFI. Archéologie de la France - Informations. une revue Gallia, Sep 1, 2019
The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2019
The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2017
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2018
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, May 31, 2022
The Mammoth Steppe was the dominant terrestrial biome of the Northern Hemisphere during the late ... more The Mammoth Steppe was the dominant terrestrial biome of the Northern Hemisphere during the late Pleistocene. It encompassed a nonanalog community of animals living in a cold and treeless steppe-tundra landscape. The high diversity of species, including megafauna, could be supported by a productive environment. The carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 abundances in bone collagen confirmed that the coexistence of the large herbivores was facilitated by a pronounced dietary niche partitioning, with some species relatively flexible in the exploitation of browse and graze, while others were more specialized. The isotopic abundances of carbon and nitrogen in carnivores confirm a dietary partitioning, probably based on the size of prey, with an increasingly generalist behavior emerging after the Last Glacial Maximum with notable exceptions. Isotopic investigation reveals dynamic processes of ecological displacement and replacement, shedding new light on the potential niche spectrum of extant species that are now present as relic populations. ▪ The Mammoth Steppe is an extinct nonanalog ecosystem with high productivity and biodiversity despite the cold and dry conditions of the Last Glacial Period. ▪ Stable isotopes reveal that niche partitioning among herbivores and carnivores is a dominant trait of the Mammoth Steppe. ▪ Switches in preferred prey and ecological replacement are observed among carnivores over time, with the few highly specialized predators going extinct. ▪ Warmer and more humid conditions preceding the Holocene impacted large herbivores in most regions of the Mammoth Steppe, driving some of the largest ones to extinction.
Journal of Human Evolution, Oct 1, 2006
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2014
The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition around 35,000 years ago coincides with the replacemen... more The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition around 35,000 years ago coincides with the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically modern humans in Europe. Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain this replacement, one of them being the ability of anatomically modern humans to broaden their dietary spectrum beyond the large ungulate prey that Neanderthals consumed exclusively. This scenario is notably based on higher nitrogen-15 amounts in early Upper Palaeolithic anatomically modern human bone collagen compared with late Neanderthals. In this paper, we document a clear increase of nitrogen-15 in bone collagen of terrestrial herbivores during the early Aurignacian associated with anatomically modern humans compared with the stratigraphically older Châtelperronian and late Mousterian fauna associated with Neanderthals. Carnivores such as wolves also exhibit a significant increase in nitrogen-15, which is similar to that documented for early anatomically modern humans compared with Neanderthals in Europe. A shift in nitrogen-15 at the base of the terrestrial foodweb is responsible for such a pattern, with a preserved foodweb structure before and after the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in southwestern France. Such an isotopic shift in the terrestrial ecosystem may be due to an increase in aridity during the time of deposition of the early Aurignacian layers. If it occurred across Europe, such a shift in nitrogen-15 in terrestrial foodwebs would be enough to explain the observed isotopic trend between late Neanderthals and early anatomically modern humans, without any significant change in the diet composition at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2002
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Nov 1, 2003
A paleoenvironmental reconstruction of terrestrial environments in Southwestern France between 33... more A paleoenvironmental reconstruction of terrestrial environments in Southwestern France between 33 and 15 cal kyr BP is provided using N 13 C and N 15 N variations in collagen of three herbivorous mammals. Altogether 161 analyses have been carried out on collagen extracted from skeletal fragments of reindeer, horse and Bos/Bison from four successive chronological phases covering the end of MOIS 3 and MOIS 2. The N 13 C values of ungulate collagen are clearly separated between the studied species. They are interpreted as reflecting a stable dietary adaptation in a changing environment. The variations of N 15 N values of ungulate collagen are significant, especially between specimens from MOIS 3 and specimens from MOIS 2, with a minimum during the Last Glacial Maximum. This phenomenon seems to reflect changes in the activity of nitrogen cycling processes associated with permafrost development. Carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition of fossil herbivore collagen are worth investigating as paleoecological and paleoenvironmental tracers in Upper Pleistocene periglacial continental contexts.
Journal of Human Evolution, 2021
The Final Gravettian in Europe overlapped with the cold and dry climatic event of Heinrich 2 (ca.... more The Final Gravettian in Europe overlapped with the cold and dry climatic event of Heinrich 2 (ca. 27-23.5 kyr cal BP), which caused the contraction of human distribution over refuge regions in the southern peninsulas of Europe. Here, we consider the human subsistence in the northeast Iberian Peninsula, where an extensive range of small to large prey was available. Four human remains from the Serinyà caves were investigated using the stable isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur of bulk collagen (δ13Ccoll, δ15Ncoll, δ34Scoll) and of phenylalanine and glutamine amino acids (δ15NPhe, δ15NGlu). Direct AMS dating of the human and animal remains from the Final Gravettian levels of Mollet III, Reclau Viver, and Arbreda at Serinyà confirmed their chronological position from 27.5 to 22.6 kyr cal BP and the occurrence of four different human individuals. The δ13Ccoll and δ15Ncoll values showed a large contribution of terrestrial prey to the dietary protein of the individuals. The δ34Scoll values were consistent with a subsistence based on the local continental resources, without detectable contribution of marine resource. The δ15NPhe and δ15NGlu values confirm that freshwater resources were not a substantial component of the diet of the considered individuals. Contrast in the isotopic amounts in bulk collagen could be interpreted as the result of different proportions of terrestrial prey in human diet at Serinyà. Altogether, the isotopic investigation reveals the importance of terrestrial over aquatic resources in the subsistence of the studied Final Gravettian individuals from the Serinyà caves in northeastern Iberia during the Last Glacial Maximum. It would be consistent with a scenario of a productive enough terrestrial ecosystem to sustain hunter-gatherer subsistence in this refuge region.
Quaternary International, 2021
This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Quaternary International, 2019
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2016
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, May 1, 2010
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Papers by Dorothée Drucker
haben die Ernährung des anatomisch modernen Menschen
untersucht. Sie konnten in ihrer heute im Fachjournal
„Scientific Reports“ erschienenen Studie widerlegen, dass
sich der frühe Homo sapiens-Vertreter flexibler ernährte, als
die Neandertaler. Auf den Tellern unserer Vorfahren landeten,
wie bei den Neandertalern, überwiegend Mammutfleisch und
Pflanzen – eine Ernährung mit Fisch konnte nicht
nachgewiesen werden. Das internationale Team vermutet
daher, dass die Verdrängung der Neandertaler durch eine
direkte Konkurrenzsituation erfolgte.
antelopes’ bones, the scientists compared the diets of fossil versus modern-day Saiga. In their study, recently published in the scientific journal “Quaternary Science Reviews,” they reached the conclusion that today’s populations are not obligatorily bound to their current habitat. This insight offers new hope for this endangered species.