Early fowlers of Europe: evidence for bird exploitation during MIS 8/7 from Velika Balanica cave (Serbia)

European early hominins have typically been pictured as hunter-gatherers relying on the large mammalian prey that they hunted or scavenged using heavy-hafted stone or sharpened wooden implements to bring down and dismember the prey, while fowling is regarded as a subsistence adaptation that occurs rather late in Neanderthal and modern human cognitive evolutions. Here we explore how early Neanderthals from Velika Balanica (VB) might exploited birds for food – as they are considered elusive prey for humans up to MIS 5 due to their flight escaping capabilities and low caloric return rates, or possibly feathers – as some of identified cutmarks might suggest. From layer 3, dated to MIS 8/7, out of 25 identified bird bones 5 specimens contain cutmarks – 2 of them on medium-sized birds, and 3 on tiny passerines. Apart from human processing, one bird's ulna contains a raptor beak puncture, while 2 talons of a medium-sized raptor have also been recovered. On the base of this evidence, associated with a high proportion of human processed bones, fireplaces, and high lithic density, we argue that early Neanderthals inhabiting VB during the Middle Pleistocene were in good ecological grasp of their environment and acquired birds for a variety of reasons not primarily connected to their main subsistance pattern.