Honor among Thieves: A Zooarchaeological Study of Neandertal Ecology - Tapa dura

Winner of the 1996 Book Award, Society for American Archeology
"Truly exciting.... [This book is] a landmark contribution that [is] outstanding in [its] theoretical and methodological rigour.... [It] should become [a] role model for future related work. As the author show[s] so clearly, Neanderthals (and their predecessors) are fascinating in their own right, and not merely because of the last of them may (or may not) have evolved into us."--Nature

"There is something in the book for both advocates and opponents of continuity between Neanderthals and Modern Europeans. . . . Stiner's prose style is lively and engaging, and there is no denying the intellectual attraction of her paleoecologial approach. . . . the book should be read by anyone contemplating a similar, behaviorally oriented analysis of fossil bones."--Science

"This is a book not so much on Neandertals themselves as on the context, the background, in which they lived, . . . rigorously argued, full of information and with many insights into ecological issues affecting human evolution."--Peter Andrews, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Landmark contributions that are outstanding in . . . theoretical and methodological rigour."--Robin Dennell, Nature

Mary Stiner uses ecological niche theory to analyze and interpret several Middle Paleolithic archaeological and paleontological sites in southern Europe. Her concern is with how the hunting, scavenging and foraging behavior of Neandertals compared and contrasted with the subsistence behavior of other large predators living in the region at the time--lions, hyenas, and wolves, for example--and with how Neandertal subsistence behavior related to the behavior of the anatomically modern humans who subsequently came to dominate the area in the Upper Paleolithic. Her conclusion, very broadly stated, is that Neandertals entered the Middle Paleolithic in direct and successful competition with lions, hyenas, and wolves, but ended the period in direct and ultimately unsuccessful competition for the ecological niche that we came to occupy with our slightly more advanced technology and slightly more sophisticated ambush hunting strategies and techniques.