Author, as appears in the article.: Palmqvist P; Rodríguez-Gómez G; Martínez-Navarro B; Espigares MP; Figueirido B; Ros-Montoya S; Guerra-Merchán A; Granados A; García-Aguilar JM; Pérez-Claros JA
Department: Història i Història de l'Art
URV's Author/s: Martínez Navarro, Bienvenido
Keywords: Taphonomy Subsistence strategies Scavenging Orce Early homo
Abstract: The late Early Pleistocene archaeological site of Fuente Nueva 3 (Orce, Guadix-Baza Depression, SE Spain), dated to ~1.4 Ma, provides evidence on the subsistence strategies of the first hominin population that dispersed in Western Europe. The site preserves Oldowan tool assemblages associated with abundant remains of large mammals. A small proportion of these remains show cut marks and percussion marks resulting from defleshing and bone fracturing, and a small proportion of bones also show tooth marks. Previous taphonomic studies of FN3 suggested that the hominins had secondary access to the prey leftovers abandoned by sabretooth cats and other primary predators. However, a recent analysis by Yravedra et al. (2021) of the frequency of anthropogenic marks and tooth marks has concluded that the hominins had primary access to the carcasses of a wide variety of ungulate prey, even though the frequency of evisceration marks is strikingly low. In this rebuttal, we analyse the patterns of bone preservation in FN3, which show that the exploitation of bone marrow by the hominins after hammerstone breakage was a usual activity at the site. Our study also reviews the evidence available on the lesser abilities of sabretooth cats for carcass processing compared to pantherine felids. This reinforces the hypothesis that primary predators provided the hominins the opportunity to scavenge sizeable chunks of meat and bone marrow of their prey carcasses before the arrival of hyaenas. Finally, we also provide new inferences on resource availability and competition intensity among the members of the carnivore guild in FN3, which reinforce our interpretation that a secondary access by the Oldowan hominins to the prey leftovers of sabretooth cats was an optimal foraging strategy in the Guadix-Baza Depression.
Thematic Areas: Historia Geosciences, multidisciplinary Geociências Ciencias sociales Ciencias humanas Archeology (arts and humanities) Archeology Archaeology Antropologia / arqueologia Antropología Anthropology
licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
Author's mail: bienvenido.martinez@urv.cat
Record's date: 2024-08-03
Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Licence document URL: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/
Papper original source: Archaeological And Anthropological Sciences. 15 (2):
APA: Palmqvist P; Rodríguez-Gómez G; Martínez-Navarro B; Espigares MP; Figueirido B; Ros-Montoya S; Guerra-Merchán A; Granados A; García-Aguilar JM; Pérez- (2023). Déjà vu: on the use of meat resources by sabretooth cats, hominins, and hyaenas in the Early Pleistocene site of Fuente Nueva 3 (Guadix-Baza Depression, SE Spain). Archaeological And Anthropological Sciences, 15(2), -. DOI: 10.1007/s12520-022-01712-1
Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Journal publication year: 2023
Publication Type: Journal Publications
Repositori URV