The fallow deer is a Eurasian deer that was a native to most of Europe during the last interglacial.
In the Holocene, the distribution was restricted to the Middle East and possibly also parts of the Mediterranean Basin, while further southeast in western Asia was the home of the Persian fallow deer, which is bigger and has larger antlers.
In the Levant, fallow deer were an important source of meat in Palaeolithic cultures (420,000–200,000 BCE), as is shown by bones, also used for conserving the marrow to be eaten weeks after the kill, found in the Qesem cave, but the numbers decreased in the following Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture (10,000–8,500 BCE), perhaps because of increased aridity and the decrease of wooded areas.
The fallow deer is a Eurasian deer that was a native to most of Europe during the last interglacial. In the Holocene, the distribution was restricted to the Middle East and possibly also parts of the Mediterranean Basin, while further southeast in western Asia was the home of the Persian fallow deer, which is bigger and has larger antlers. In the Levant, fallow deer were an important source of meat in Palaeolithic cultures (420,000–200,000 BCE), as is shown by bones, also used for conserving the marrow to be eaten weeks after the kill, found in the Qesem cave, but the numbers decreased in the following Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture (10,000–8,500 BCE), perhaps because of increased aridity and the decrease of wooded areas.
Fallow deer