A remarkable collection of Late Pleistocene reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) remains from Woerden (The Netherlands)

• Published in: Quaternary International
• Main Authors: van Kolfschoten, Thijs, van der Jagt, Inge, Beeren, Zoe, Argiti, Vasiliki, van der Leije, Judith, van Essen, Hans, Busschers, Freek S., Stoel, Pieter, van der Plicht, Hans
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: CLIMATE-CHANGE; SYSTEM; SITE; Rangifer; Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/3f030210-b0f3-401d-9fae-66ab6ed6f5e2; https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/3f030210-b0f3-401d-9fae-66ab6ed6f5e2; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2010.12.033; https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/6764047/2011QuatIntvKolfschoten.pdf

Woerden, in the central part of The Netherlands, is a locality where the amateur-archaeologist Pieter Stoel collected several thousands of fossil mammalian remains of Pleistocene age. The stratigraphically-mixed assemblage includes a broad variety of taxa including species that are indicative of interglacial conditions such as Hippopotamus sp. as well as species that inhabited the area during glacial episodes e.g. Mammuthus primigenius and Coelodonta antiquitatis. The fossil remains have an early Middle Pleistocene Late Pleistocene age. Rangifer tarandus is one of the species that is very well represented in the faunal assemblage from Woerden. Woerden yielded not only thousands of fossil bones but also Palaeolithic artefacts. A direct relationship between the reindeer bones and these artefacts could not be indicated. Most of the bones are complete and not a single reindeer bone or bone fragment shows traces of human interference such as clear impact or cut marks. This is remarkable considering the many European Palaeolithic sites where reindeer hunters left their traces. Detailed investigation of the reindeer remains indicates that the majority of the reindeer remains from Woerden represent one population with juvenile as well as adult individuals. The adult specimens show a female/male ratio of 2:1, which is characteristic for natural living reindeer populations. This ratio as well as the standard deviation of the size measurements suggests that the assemblage is one distinct population and not a mix of fossil assemblages with reindeer of different size and different geological ages. Further remarkable is that the dimensions of the limb bones indicate that the reindeer from Woerden were extremely slender; much more slender than the fossil Middle and Late Pleistocene reindeer assemblages from other localities in north-western and central Europe. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.