Wild carnivores are a key element to interpreting the past

Ruth Blasco, specialist in Taphonomy at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), leads a new experimental work line with wild predators in the Pyrenees of Lleida (Spain) that aims to simulate scenarios to model and characterise the actions of large and small carnivores, and extrapolate the results to European Pleistocene archaeological sites.

The variety of agents and processes that can potentially contribute to the formation of archaeological sites is extensive. However, the biological agent accumulators par excellence are hominids and carnivores. Both predators seek animals with the same nutritional purposes; therefore, some of the evidence left in their wake is similar.

Thus, we should add that both hominids and carnivores can share the same living spaces (caves or shelters) and may even overlap their activities almost immediately. This phenomenon sometimes generates an amalgam of overlapping events (palimpsests), which make archaeological interpretations difficult or complicated to varying degrees.

Hence, it is necessary to characterise the actions of both predators and to find diagnostic elements that differentiate them at the levels of both bone modification and alterations at the spatial level (dispersion of remains).

Experimental series

Actualistic research based on observation and experimentation is a fundamental tool for characterising and modelling the predation behaviours of wild carnivores. "The characterisation of their behaviour in controlled scenarios allows us to extrapolate their actions at the archaeological level, thus allowing us to isolate events that feature carnivores and hominids more safely and subsequently dive deeper into the interactions that both predators could have in the form of competition for prey, confrontation and/or dependence (in the sense of scavenging)", says Ruth Blasco.

The experimental series involving both large carnivores, such as the brown bear, and small carnivores, such as the fox and the badger, is being developed in the Pyrenees of Lleida, particularly in the Parc Natural de l'Alt Pirineu, where there are no human conditions that may alter the behaviour of these animals.

"This circumstance is vital when extrapolating experimental data. Studies conducted with wild carnivores in captivity or a semi-free state could be at risk of reflecting changes in their behaviour that would leave a different taphonomic signature, which would lead to inadequate archaeological interpretations". explains Ruth Blasco.

Neotaphonomy
The experimental approach emerged in 2010 to respond to the occupational complexity presented at some Pleistocene sites, such as the Toll Cave in Moià (Barcelona, Spain), where one of the main species represented is the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). The first experimental results with bears were published in the journal PLOS ONE in 2014.

This neotaphonomy project has the approval, supervision and collaboration of the Brown Bear Monitoring Team, the Parc Natural de l'Alt Pirineu and the Departament d’Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca i Alimentació of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Similarly, the experimental line is part of the research project "Sharing space: The interaction between hominids and carnivores in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula" (Ref. 2014-100573), which is co-funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya.