What can we learn about the environmental preferences of Neanderthals and Modern Humans?
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2015-06-11

Abstract: In this study we focus on the characterization of Neanderthals and Modern Human site locations using environmental data and different stochastic models. The models were trained using an unique spatial dataset of Neanderthal sites and a set of Modern Human find locations. We applied a boosted regression tree approach (TREENET) and a statistical mechanics approach (MAXENT) to test model robustness. As predictor variables a set of Terrain Indies based on digital elevation models and additional environmental information such as climatic and vegetational/ faunal information were utilized. A quantitative evaluation of the models was done using internal model performance indices such as the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves for the train dataset and a validation test dataset. The dependent variable or target variable in this study are the locations of Neanderthal sites and Modern Human sites described by latitude and longitude. The information on the site location was collected from literature and own research. The study illustrates that the models are able to characterize the environmental preferences of Neanderthals an Modern Human expressed by a specific spatial distribution and a certain variable importance

Authors: Michael Märker, Michael Bolus