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About 10,000 years ago, foxes and wildcats made up a notable part of people鈥檚 diets in what is now Western Galilee in Israel.

Archaeologists have long attributed the abundance of small carnivore bones in early Levant settlements to people harvesting fur and to like tooth ornaments.

But now, , while at Tel Aviv University in Israel, and her colleagues have found knife gashes and burn marks typical of butchering and cooking on the bones, suggesting that foxes and wildcats became 鈥渇ood staples鈥� as hunter-gatherers transitioned to sedentary life.

鈥淭hese clever and highly resilient people would never have wasted good, eatable meat, once in their possession,鈥� she says.

During the Neolithic Revolution in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago, people shifted from hunting large red deer (Cervus elaphus) to targeting smaller game, like gazelles, hares, birds and fish. That鈥檚 probably because these smaller animals reproduce so quickly, says at the University of Oxford.

The bones of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) make up a large proportion of the leftovers at the site between 11,600 and 10,000 years ago 鈥� sometimes even outnumbering those of gazelles and wild boar. While far less numerous than foxes, remains of African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) are also scattered across these archaeological sites.

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Even so, researchers have generally overlooked these small carnivores as a food source, says Galmor 鈥� despite acknowledging broadening diets that included Cape hares (Lepus capensis) and tortoises (Testudo graeca).

To shed more light on the situation, Galmor and her colleagues investigated the of Ahihud in Western Galilee.

They found that 32 per cent of the disassembled animal bones in household areas were gazelle, and 12 per cent were red fox. Other small carnivores made up 4 per cent of the bones, including wildcats, beech martens (Martes foina), Egyptian mongooses (Herpestes ichneumon) and European badgers (Meles meles).

Leg bones 鈥� which are rich in meat 鈥� were common among fox and wildcat remains, says Galmor. There were numerous knife marks, half of which were related to butchering in foxes, with 90 per cent occurring on leg bones 鈥� which never represent skinning, she adds. In wildcats, 83 per cent of knife marks represented butchering, all of which were on leg bones. The remaining cut marks reflected skinning.

Burn marks on the carnivore bones were as frequent as those on deer bones, and more than half the burn marks affected the limbs.

The results provide strong evidence that foxes and wildcats were hunted 鈥� perhaps with the help of dogs, given signs of dog gnawing on bones 鈥� and used for both pelts and cooked meat, says Galmor.

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鈥淚 find their evidence convincing,鈥� says at the University of Haifa in Israel. 鈥淭his 鈥榟unting by farmers鈥� included the exploitation of numerous small mammals. Herding goats and raising barley was just part of the story; regularly trapping furry wild mammals was an important subsistence activity, too.鈥�

Foxes may have made themselves particularly easy prey, says Finlayson. 鈥淵ou have to wonder whether they鈥檙e starting to scavenge around these increasingly sedentary settlements,鈥� he says.

Even so, the high number of remains doesn鈥檛 mean they were a greater source of nourishment than gazelles and hares, says Galmor. 鈥淛ust one gazelle 鈥� let alone a larger animal such as deer 鈥� can provide much more meat for a larger group of people,鈥� she says.