Bison sex matters: the potential of proteomic tooth enamel analysis for determination of ancient human subsistence strategies
Berezina N. Ziganshin R. Kolobova K. Koliasnikova A. Medvedev S. Rendu W. Buzhilova A.
September 2024Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
2024#16Issue 9
Hunting strategies in the Paleolithic period represent a significant and complex challenge, influencing the lifestyles of early human populations dependent on the seasonal activity of herds. Varying seasonally, a composition of a herd caused changes in the speed of animals movements, their aggressiveness, hides and the fatness and flavor of their meat. The morphological criteria for determining grazer sex and age have long been established in zooarchaeology. However, many traits associated with bison sex are poorly defined for archeozoological collections due to the fragmented and scattered nature of the bone remains. The objective of presented study was to demonstrate the potential utility of proteomic tooth enamel analysis detecting the AmelX and AmelY peptide fragments for prey-sex determination in cases where morphological criteria did not work. In the study, the tooth enamel samples from 18 animals were analyzed, including eight modern specimens of known sex, and ten Pleistocene specimens of unknown sex from four different Paleolithic sites. A blind test conducted for the modern collection yielded a 100% accuracy. This outcome prompted the development of the criteria for sex determination in the bison based on proteomic analysis of tooth enamel.
bisons , Neanderthals , Paleolithic , proteomic analysis , sex-determination , subsistence strategies
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation
Shemyakin−Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
ZooStan - Archeozoological Center for the Study of Central Asia - CNRS – Al-Farabi Kazakh National University – International Research Laboratory, Almaty, Kazakhstan
ZooSCAN, International Research Laboratory 2013, CNRS-IAET SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology
Shemyakin−Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
ZooStan - Archeozoological Center for the Study of Central Asia - CNRS – Al-Farabi Kazakh National University – International Research Laboratory
ZooSCAN
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026