This volume contains nine papers given at the 15th UISPP congress which examine the exploitation of animal resources in Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe and the economic and cultural choices involved. Case studies are from Aurignacian sites (French Pyrenees and northeastern France), Gravettian sites (Swabian Jura and Moravia), Magdalenian sites (Massif Central, southwestern France, Spanish and French Pyrenees), Epigravettian sites (southern Italy), and Sauvetterian sites (southern French Massif Central).

This book undertakes a thorough study of Reindeer in the Upper Pleniglacial and Tardiglacial societies in France. It addresses two main topics - the economy of animal resources within the societies and the exploitation of Reindeer organized within the annual cycle, in terms of space and time, between 30,000 and 14,000 cal BP in France. The author proposes an analysis and hypothesis regarding the economy of animal resources and the nomadic cycle of the last Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, in order to identify a "Reindeer system."The author discusses the relationship between Reindeer and human mobility and offers some conclusions regarding the annual cycles of nomadism. The volume scrutinizes the distinct eco systems in three regions and its effects on the movements of both human and animal. This book is of interest to zooarchaeologists and prehistorians.