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18 - Investigating Seasonal Competition between Hominins and Cave Hyaenas in the Belgian Ardennes during the Late Pleistocene: Insights from Cementum Analyses

from Part III - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Stephan Naji
Affiliation:
New York University
William Rendu
Affiliation:
University of Bordeaux (CNRS)
Lionel Gourichon
Affiliation:
Université de Nice, Sophia Antipolis
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Summary

Deciphering the seasonality of predation is a key question in prehistory to understand spatiotemporal human strategies to overcome fluctuating ecological and environmental pressure. In NW Europe, despite periodic rough environmental conditions, the Belgian Ardennes were regularly occupied by humans in the Late Pleistocene, using numerous natural shelters of the karstic valleys and the ungulate biomass reservoir. However, humans competed with several large predators, in particular cave hyaenas. In this multi-taxon, multi-site cementochronological study, we tested season-at-death of different prey accumulated by either hyaenas or hominins during the second half of MIS 3 in the Belgian Ardennes. In conjunction with a classic seasonal study on ungulate species, this study's specificity is that carnivore (hyaena) dental cementum was tested on 19 teeth from three anthropogenic and hyaena-accumulated assemblages. Despite a low proportion of interpretable data, this attempt shows that cave hyaena can yield seasonal information and can successfully be analyzed to explore top predators' differential spatial strategies.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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