In the archeological record, the presence of smaller-bodied species is often assumed to indicate a decline in higher-ranked, larger-bodied prey and broadening of the diet to include lower-ranked items with higher handling costs. This shift is typically considered to be a product of a “broad spectrum revolution” that gave rise in many regions to increased sedentism, subsistence intensification, and investments in farming at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. However, recent evidence suggests that the use of small, fast prey may have emerged much earlier in hominin evolution than previously appreciated. Here, we assess ethnographic, historical, and actualistic observations of European rabbit hunting to explore whether such small, fast prey are inherently lower-ranked than larger ones. We find that, in combination, the type of procurement method and the population density of rabbits substantially affect foraging returns and the definition of prey types. When rabbits are locally abundant and mass-captured in the open, on-encounter returns are predictably high, sometimes higher than those of large-bodied ungulates. We suggest that rabbit hunting may have been locally and intermittently common during the European Middle and Late Pleistocene as rabbit densities waxed and waned.

在考古记录中，通常认为存在较小身体的物种表示较高等级的，较大身体的猎物有所减少，并且饮食范围扩大了，从而包括了具有较高处理成本的较低级别的食物。通常认为这种转变是“广谱革命”的产物，该革命在许多地区引起了久坐，自给自足的加剧以及在更新世/全新世边界的农业投资。但是，最近的证据表明，在人类素的进化过程中，早于人们所认识的，使用小型快速猎物的出现可能要早得多。在这里，我们评估了欧洲兔子狩猎的人种学，历史和现实主义观察，以探究这种小的，快速的猎物天生是否比大的猎物排名低。我们发现，结合起来，采购方法的类型和兔子的种群密度在很大程度上影响觅食的回报和猎物类型的定义。当兔子在当地很丰富并在野外被大量捕获时，相遇的回报是可以预见的，有时甚至比大有蹄类动物的要高。我们建议，在欧洲中更新世晚期和晚期，随着兔子密度的增加和减少，猎兔可能在当地和间断。