At this point we offer some thoughts about the possible relationships between late Pleistocene Siberian humans and carnivores, especially hyenas. To begin, it is important to note that there are some living Siberian carnivores whose ancestors survived the megafaunal extinction event of the deeply cold climatic shift at the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) temporally near the terminal Pleistocene. Among the terrestrial survivors there remain the tiger, bear, wolf, snow leopard, wolverine, foxes, and smaller species. Gone are the large cave lions and cave hyenas. Their extinction along with the megafaunal forms such as the mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, bison, horse, and other large species suggests a rather close predator-prey relationship. As the large LGM prey died off, so did their larger predators. Cycles in prey population size could have swung so low near the end of the Pleistocene that the considerably smaller population size of predators must have dipped below some minimal recovery point, bringing about their extinction, possibly even before that of the herbivorous megafauna. One conjecture for why these now extinct carnivores failed to shift their hunting to smaller species suggests an epigenetic behavioral tie with the big herbivores. As in Africa today, Siberian hyenas may have specialized in hunting only a few species, and their hallmark scavenging ability would have been reduced due to competition with several other species of meat-eaters. Another scenario for their extinction could be that they simply were unable to deal with the LGM cold despite their widespread Old World ecological and altitudinal distribution. Yet another possibility is that Upper Paleolithic people more-or-less commandeered their den sites, leaving the large female cave carnivores with fewer and more vulnerable locations to give birth to and raise their newborn. One more possibility, and most interesting to us, is that the big carnivores were unable to compete as well with the technologically progressive Upper Paleolithic hunters as they did with the late Middle Paleolithic Mousterian people. We will return to this idea later when we review the question: Who were the Upper Paleolithic humans?
Today, the surviving descendant predators make their living fTom kills of medium - to small-sized creatures like pigs, deer, reindeer, sheep, goats, hares, marmots, mice, and so forth, whose Siberian ancestors also passed through the extinction filter. The larger of these carnivores can, of course, bring down a large herbivore of moose or elk size, but it is risky business for even predator packs such as wolves. The odds of a carnivore such as a member of a wolf pack being killed or maimed are surely less than if it was hunting a healthy moose or elk by itself. Despite escaping terminal Pleistocene extinction, modern Siberian carnivores, both terrestrial and aquatic, are much more at risk for their lives and numbers today because of human hunters and competition with humans for game animals and living space than ever in the late Pleistocene. What must have been a late Pleistocene carnivore dominance over humans, or at least a standoff, is now completely reversed, all because of numerous forms of technology and knowledge that enhance human reproduction and survival.
Behavioral studies of modern Siberian carnivores provide valuable insight into the probable life ways of their Pleistocene ancestors. The Siberian tiger has been and continues to be intensively studied both in the wild and in captivity (see Quammen 2003 for references). Its behavior and habits of today must mirror those of its late Pleistocene progenitors. The fact that the modern Siberian tiger hunts humans as well as deer and other creatures should not escape our thinking as we attempt to reconstruct the relationship between hyenas, other carnivores, and Upper Paleolithic humans. Ethnographers have compiled a wealth of information about animal behavior obtained from native Siberian hunters and fishermen such as the Koryaks Kets, Nivkys, and Nenets, whose lives were until very recently closely linked to the terrestrial, riverine, and marine animals of their territories. Native stories about, and fear of, wolf pack and bear attacks, especially polar bears, help enrich our reconstruction. There are historic accounts and descriptions of animal behavior by all kinds of observers, ranging from the most sensationalistic newspaper reporters to carefully made observations by lay persons with good common sense, and professionally trained scientists of animal behavior. Bottom line? Large wild adult carnivores are not to be trifled with, despite their initially cute and cuddly infant forms and behaviors. Comparisons of Siberian natural history and animal behavior records can be made with others recorded for the same or closely related species elsewhere in the world. Such comparisons help identify variation that can be useful for reconstructing Pleistocene behavior. For example, behavioral and ecological studies of Alaskan wolves, bears, wolverines, and other carnivore species are ethological classics (for a summary, see Guthrie 1990), rich in detail, and markedly valuable for their Arctic environmental relationships that would apply to the Pleistocene climate of Siberia. Most significant are the behavioral studies of living carnivores whose close relatives went extinct in Siberia. Of these, the observations of African lions and hyenas, especially the spotted hyena, are of utmost importance to our thinking about the relationships between late Pleistocene humans and hyenas of Siberia. These will be reviewed shortly. In the meantime, let us try to pose a few questions that seem relevant to this discussion.
Behavioral studies of captive hyenas from Kenya by psychologists Laurence Frank, Christine Drea, and Stephen E. Glickman at the University of California, Berkeley, are providing powerful insights into questions revolving around some of the evolutionary uniqueness of the spotted hyena - female aggression, newborn cub aggression, female dominance, etc. (Www. abc. net 1999). They have learned, for example, that testosterone is manufactured by the placenta in pregnant females, flooding the developing fetuses with the male sex hormone. This leads to anatomical masculinization of female external genitalia and behavioral female aggression, but also neonatal sibling aggression. As noted above, born with a full set of sharp deciduous teeth, newborn hyena siblings promptly engage in combat and play that can result in serious wounds and often death of the weaker siblings. Among hyenas, “tooth and claw” natural selection begins soon after birth. Not only are hyenas born fighters, they are also born cannibals, as our perimortem taphonomic findings suggested time and time again. For hyenas, nutrients come fTom hunting, cannibalism, and scavenging. The hyena is not alone in its scavenging behavior. Kruuk found that lions commonly scavenge fTom hyena kills. Both the cave lion and cave hyena of late Pleistocene Siberia probably scavenged from human kills of large animals, which would have decreased the efficiency of human hunting in terms of nutritional yield. This, in turn, must have put a damper on human population growth.
After a successful hunt by some or most members of a hyena clan, the high-ranking dominant female(s) often takes over the downed carcass, and if still caring for cubs, ensures that - like her - they too get a good share of the kill during the ensuing feeding frenzy by clan members. The California psychologists also note that among other carnivores, unlike hyenas, lion cubs are low in the social hierarchy, so that when food is scarce, they are subject to starvation. Patently, as hunting and food-processing machines, hyenas have several evolutionary advantages over other carnivorous predators, including even tool-using humans, whose slow-maturing infants not only are unwieldy baggage for any nomadic human group, but are also toothless, weak prey for prowling hyenas. And attack humans hyenas do.
World History
