Direct isotopic evidence for subsistence variability in Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals (Payre, southeastern France) Herv  e Bocherens a, b, * , Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla a, c , Camille Daujeard d , Paul Fernandes e , Jean-Paul Raynal f, g , Marie-H  el  ene Moncel d a Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, Eberhardt Karls Universit€ at Tübingen, H€ olderlinstrasse 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany b Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP), Eberhardt Karls Universit€ at Tübingen, H€ olderlinstrasse 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany c Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Arch€ aologie des Mittelalters, Abteilung für Jüngere Urgeschichte und Frühgeschichte, Schloß Hohentübingen, 72070, Tübingen, Germany d Department of Prehistory, UMR 7194 CNRS, National Museum of Natural History, Institut de Pal eontologie Humaine, Paris, France e Paleotime, 6173 rue Jean S eraphin Achard Picard, 38250, Villard-de-Lans, France f Universit e de Bordeaux, UMR 5199 PACEA-PPP, all ee Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 33615, Pessac, France g Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany article info Article history: Received 22 March 2016 Received in revised form 31 October 2016 Accepted 6 November 2016 Keywords: Neanderthals Isotope analysis Subsistence Ecosystem Land-uses Early middle Palaeolithic abstract The site of Payre (SE France) is presented as a case study to decipher possible changes in subsistence and land-use strategies during the middle Pleistocene in Europe. This study applies carbon and oxygen isotopic data (d 13 C and d 18 O) in dental tooth enamel from four distinct Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals coming from two phases of occupation. This allows us to test if these different Neanderthals were similar in their subsistence strategies and mobility during their childhood, and to compare them with terrestrial predators and to herbivores dwelling in different areas around the cave. The results show that Nean- derthals were exploiting the environment differently over time in the absence of a significant envi- ronmental change. This change of environment exploitation coincides with different durations of occupation. The age of the individuals allows us to discuss the mobility of young Neanderthals and the topographies they lived on before arriving in the cave. The combination of results obtained from various approaches throws a new light on the investigation of Neanderthal ecosystem and land-use patterns during the Early Middle Palaeolithic in Southeastern France. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The causes of the extinction of Neanderthals and their eventual replacement by anatomically modern humans (AMH) in Europe are still hotly debated. One possible reason could be a difference in dietary flexibility between Neanderthals, considered to be restricted to the exploitation of terrestrial large herbivores, and AMH, considered to have a broader dietary spectrum including small game and aquatic resources (Richards et al., 2001; Stiner, 2001; Stiner and Munro, 2002). However, recent zooarchaeo- logical studies and lithic tools micro-wear and residues analyses indicate that Neanderthals were exploiting their environment not just for large herbivore meat, but also for rabbits, turtles, fish, mollusks and birds (e.g., Blasco and Peris, 2012, in press; Cort es- S anchez et al., 2011; Hardy and Moncel, 2011; Hardy et al., 2013; Bocherens et al., 2014), and also included plants in their diet (e.g., Henry et al., 2011, 2014; Naito et al., 2016). It is unfortunately difficult to relate archaeological evidence from stone artefact and faunal analysis and the ancient human individuals themselves. Isotopic analyses performed on large mammals to reconstruct the land-use patterns of Neanderthals are often biased by possible palimpsests of faunal corpus in layers from cave contexts that frequently group several occupations. These palimpsests erase the evidence for possible different managements of the surroundings of the site. Isotopic analyses on Neanderthals offer the opportunity to determine indirectly the mobility and land-use pattern for each individual, through changes in the ecological context of consumed prey as reflected by their isotopic compositions. In this paper, by * Corresponding author. Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, Eberhardt Karls Universit€ at Tübingen, H€ olderlinstrasse 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany. E-mail address: herve.bocherens@uni-tuebingen.de (H. Bocherens). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.11.004 0277-3791/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Quaternary Science Reviews 154 (2016) 226e236