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During the last two decades, paleoanthropology has focused increasingly on the global issue of modern human origins, and a preeminent part of that process has concerned the fate of the Neandertals of the northwestern Old World. Not so long ago, working on the origins of modern humans was a niche cloaked in convenient obscurity. Many human paleontologists were content to largely ignore, and thus remained ignorant of, the hominid fossils of the later Pleistocene, an attitude parallel to that of Bordes regarding the Neolithic in comparison to the more glamorous Paleolithic; he referred to the former simply as, “C'est de la merde!” However, the Neandertais have become a topic guaranteed to attract attention, thus drawing in scholars who until recently disdained interest in such basically human fossil hominids. They are now willing to direct their students' and even their own research toward late archaic humans (such as Neandertals) and early modern humans in whatever portion of the Old World is most readily available.

Fossils are our most reliable guide to the organisms and environment of the past. We look at fossils from the most ancient epochs in history

Palaeontologists can decipher how ancient organisms lived and interacted using taphonomy, the study of how fossils form. Find out what they've discovered

The last decade has seen dramatic improvements in techniques for retrieving DNA from ancient remains – whether petrified, frozen or mummified

Evidence from Bed I, Olduvai, supports the hypothesis that scavenging, not hunting, was the major meat-procurement strategy of hominids between 2 and 1.7 million years ago. Data used to evaluate the hunting and scavenging hypotheses are derived from studying cut marks on Bed I bovids, comparing adaptations necessary for scavenging with those of early hominids, and a pa-leoecological reconstruction of Bed I carcass biotnass, carnivore guild, and hominidforaging area.

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination of bone surfaces from the Pleasant Lake mastodon, excavated in southern Michigan, documents features indicative of butchery. These features are identified by comparison with modern bones modified by human and natural processes. We report new studies of (1) marks made by bone tools during removal of meat from and disarticulation of carcasses and (2) use wear developed on bone tools. We also apply previously developed criteria for recognizing stone tool cutmarks and stages in the burning of bone. The Pleasant Lake site, dated to between 10,395 ± 100 and 12,845 ± 165 b.p., provides compelling evidence of mastodon butchery and bone tool use. Another site, near New Hudson, Michigan, provides replication of much of this evidence. Together these sites offer new examples of patterns of bone modification and extend the geographic and temporal representation of the much discussed, but still controversial, late Pleistocene bone technology.

The effects of hyena scavenging on the remains of 75 animals in the Awash National Park, Ethiopia, were examined to provide a modern analogy to the fossil assemblage from Makapan. Brain's recent work ('70, '76) suggests that the actions of carnivores may account for the characteristics of the Makapan assemblage, a theory which contrasts with Dart's ('49, '55, '57, '59) interpretation of the fossils as osteodontokeratic tools and weapons manufactured, collected, and used by australopithecines. The modern assemblage was like that from Makapan in terms of relative representation of skeletal elements and patterns of bone breakage. Observations of hyenas in the Awash also lend support to the hypothesis that the Makapan assemblage may represent the uneaten remains of carnivore kills. The representation of major vertebrate groups at Makapan was compared with their representation at Awash and with their representation in hyena diets in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater (Kruuk, '72). This technique of faunal analysis was unable to detect differences between these groups, despite the fact that the three modern assemblages represent animals that died of different causes. Thus extreme caution must be used in deducing any specific information about the mode of death or taphonomic history of the animals represented in an assemblage on the basis of such faunal analyses.