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New insights into the marine contribution to ancient Easter Islanders' diet
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Easter Island (or Rapa Nui), internationally renowned for its megalithic statues, is the most isolated inhabited island of the Pacific. Archaeological surveys undertaken fromthe end of the 19th century led to the discovery of the remains of several hundred human individuals. The majority were buried in monuments (funerary stone platform called ahu) or in caves. This paper presents a study of the ancient Easter Islanders' diet through carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of human tooth and bone collagen and, more particularly, evaluates the impact of gender, age, social status and location of burials. The 125 studied individuals are from 16 sites, which date mainly fromthe 17th to the 19th centuries. This anthropological material is housed at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural sciences and the Father Sebastián Englert Anthropological Museum of Easter Island. One hundred and seven individuals showed well-preserved collagen. The stable isotope data provide new information on ancient Easter Islander dietary habits. They demonstrate gender disparity in access to food resources and show that children were breastfed until 3 years of age. Furthermore, the isotopic signatures cluster according to the place of burial (ahu) indicating family dietary specificities. Finally, our study reveals influences of social status on food intake: individuals from Ahu Nau Nau, which is said to be the royal ahu, display the highest nitrogen and carbon isotope values. A greater consumption of marine products may explain this distinction.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2016
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Morphological evidence for early dog domestication in the European Pleistocene: New evidence from a randomization approach to group differences
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The antiquity of the wolf/dog domestication has been recently pushed back in time from the Late Upper Paleolithic (~14,000 years ago) to the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP; ~36,000 years ago). Some authors questioned this early dog domestication claiming that the putative (EUP) Paleolithic dogs fall within the morphological range of recent wolves. In this study, we reanalyzed a data set of large canid skulls using unbalanced‐ and balanced‐randomized discriminant analyses to assess whether the putative Paleolithic dogs are morphologically unique or whether they represent a subsample of the wolf morpho‐population. We evaluated morphological differences between 96 specimens of the 4 a priori reference groups (8 putative Paleolithic dogs, 41 recent northern dogs, 7 Pleistocene wolves, and 40 recent northern wolves) using discriminant analysis based on 5 ln‐transformed raw and allometrically size‐adjusted cranial measurements. Putative Paleolithic dogs are classified with high accuracies (87.5 and 100.0%, cross‐validated) and randomization experiment suggests that these classification rates cannot be exclusively explained by the small and uneven sample sizes of reference groups. It indicates that putative Upper Paleolithic dogs may represent a discrete canid group with morphological signs of domestication (a relatively shorter skull and wider palate and braincase) that distinguish them from sympatric Pleistocene wolves. The present results add evidence to the view that these specimens could represent incipient Paleolithic dogs that were involved in daily activities of European Upper Paleolithic forager groups.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Partial revision of the genus Dorysthenes (subgenus Paraphrus ) Thomson, 1861 with overall review of the species planicollis (Bates, (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae, Prionini )
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
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Additional contribution to the knowledge of Asian Aegosomatini with the description of a new species in the genus Aegosoma Audinet-Serville, 1832 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Hybotidae (Diptera) of the Botanic Garden Jean Massart (Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium) with description of two new Platypalpus species and comments on the Red Data List
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RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
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From a pair to a dozen: the piscivorous species of Haplochromis (Cichlidae) from the Lake Edward system
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RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
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Révision de quelques espèces d'Anoxia (s.str.) Laporte de Castelnau 1832 d'Europe et d'Asie et contributions au sous genre (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea, Melolonthidae, Melononthinae)
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RBINS collections by external author(s)
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On a small collection of sea cucumbers from the Mediterranean continental slope with the first record and re-description of Pseudothyone serrifera (Oestergren, 1898) (Holothuroidea: Dendrochirotida), a new species for the Mediterranean Sea
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RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
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Waulsort Caverne X: A new cave site with Early Mesolithic human remains in Belgium
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Caverne X in Waulsort (Namur province, Belgium), excavated in the 19th century, revealed a burial site which was unexpectedly dated to the Final Upper Paleolithic (10,820 ± 80 BP, OxA-6856) in the 1990’s. A re-examination of the collection and a new radiocarbon dating program was recently undertaken. The dates obtained on four left femurs (9285 ± 30 BP, ETH-74725; 9310 ± 30 BP, ETH-74726; 9340 ± 30 BP, ETH-74727; 9300 ± 30 BP, ETH-74728) revealed that the remains should in fact be attributed to the Early Mesolithic,consistent with 24 other 14 C dates obtained for eight cave sites in the Meuse Basin which range from ca . 9600 BP to 9000 BP. Caverne X contained 544 human remains belonging to at least nine individuals (one fetus, one perinatal/young child, one teenager, two adolescents/young adults and four adults), and 66 faunal remains consisting mainly of intrusive animals with the possible exception of a cervid antler, and one artefact (a small flint blade). Other than ochre deposits, all alterations (breakage, surface abrasion, impact scars and concretions) are post-depositional in origin. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis indicates a diet primarily based on terrestrial resources from an open landscape with proteins provided by large herbivores. Our study shows that Caverne X fits well with results already obtained for the Meuse Basin cave burials in terms of chronology, minimum number of individuals, funerary rituals and diet.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Size of the lower carnassial in the arctic and the red fox from Late Pleistocene in Belgium compared to other ancient and extant populations
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Lengths, widths, and size proportions (length to width) of the lower carnassial were measured in 45 teeth of the arctic fox and 35 teeth of the red fox from Belgium radiocarbon dated to 46 640–14 120 ka BP. Data the Late Pleistocene foxes from Belgium were compared to 20 ancient and extant populations form Europe, Asia, and North America. The Pleistocene arctic fox from Belgium showed larger carnassial than in all recent samples of this species, whereas the Belgian fossil red foxes were characterized by the carnassial size comparable to that of the recent Siberian red foxes. Both fox species from the Pleistocene of Belgium showed the highest index of the carnassials length to width, which means increase in carnivorous adaptation. We conclude that the higher level of carnivorous specialization reached by the Belgian arctic and red foxes at the end of the Late Pleistocene reflected their scavenging on kills of large carnivores and human hunters (remains of megafauna). Harsh environmental conditions of that period and specific composition of ecosystems led to adapting to a more carnivorous food niche in both foxes.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
