The genus Rangifer exists in the paleontological record throughout the middle to late Pleistocene or Ice Age period and has a probable antiquity of at least 400,000 years. The relative prevalence of caribou remains in paleontological and archaeological sites from this period serves as a sensitive indicator of climatic and vegetational change (Parker 1971; Messier et al. 1988). This is because caribou are tied to arctic tundra or subarctic taiga (open coniferous forest) habitats, which provide their chief foods: lichens, particularly of the genera Cladonia and Alectoria, and a wide variety of low browse or groundcover plants, including forbs, fungi, willow and birch shoots, and grass and sedge shoots (Kelsall 1968). Thus, the presence of caribou during glacial periods (and their absence during interglacial periods) in central Europe and other parts of northern Eurasia is linked to the expansion and regression of the Scandinavian ice sheet to which these arctic and subarctic environments were tied (Bouchud 1966).
Remains of R. tarandus are initially associated with late Homo erectus or archaic Homo sapiens sites in Europe and, more frequently, with Neanderthal sites. Rangifer tarandus existed as a recognizable taxon throughout the Upper Paleolithic period from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago (Banfield 1961). It is a conservative taxon, with little change occurring in caribou throughout the late Ice Age and postglacial periods. During the Upper Paleolithic period, many northern Eurasian hunting populations became specialized in hunting wild reindeer (Sturdy 1975; Mellars 1996; Burke and Pike-Tay 1997). The caribou was probably the most important game animal in western Europe during the Upper Paleolithic, and European cave deposits contain large amounts of caribou bones (Delpech and Heintz 1976;Delpech 1983; Boyle 1990, 1993; Straus 1997; Thacker 1997). Caribou also figure prominently in Ice Age art, as at Lascaux Cave, and some depictions (as at Trois Freres) suggest that they played an important role in ritual and perhaps shamanistic activities. In the New World, caribou were important to Paleo-Indian hunters throughout North America (Cleland 1965; Funk, Fisher, and Reilly 1970; Spiess, Curran, and Grimes 1985; Peers 1986; Jackson 1988).
After the end of the Ice Age, caribou populations retreated northward to areas offering suitable habitat, such as northern Germany and southern Scandinavia, and many parts of Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. They were an important focus of Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic hunters throughout this region; their bones are found in archaeological sites, and they were depicted in rock art in each of these areas. With evolving post-Pleistocene climates, caribou became restricted to areas of northern Scandinavia, Siberia, parts of the Russian Far East, and the more northerly areas of Canada and. Alaska (Yesner 1995). They have continued to be hunted by various aboriginal populations in all of these regions until the present time (e. g., Birket-Smith 1929; Lips 1947; Chard 1963; Gub-ser 1965; Nelleman 1970; Simchenko 1976; Irimoto 1981;Hall 1989;Krupnik 1993).
World History
