| [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Thread Index] | [Date Prev] | [Date Next] | [Date Index] |
Just Published, apologies for cross-postings. Taphonomy and Palaeoecology of Bears from the Quaternary of Cantabrian Spain. By Ana C. Pinto, Peter Andrews & Paco Etxeberría. Ed. Fundación Oso de Asturias/DuPont Ibérica/The Natural History Museum; Grafinsa, Oviedo, Oct. 2005. ISBN 84-96476-49-9. 318 figs., 96 tables, 680 pgs. 20 Euros. Buy on-line at http://krkediciones.com/fichaLibro.php?l=414 or at http://www.paquebote.com/welcome.html This book is presented primarily in Spanish, however from page 560 onwards there is an extensive English translation that is perhaps easier than the Spanish version since it has been much prunned. From page 650 the English reader finds the list of Figure and Table captions in English, with indication of the page number where these are found. Page 679 is the Index to the English summary. Abstract Many cave bear bones have been recovered on the deepest recesses of European caves, representing thousands of individuals. Cave bear hibernation caves are sometimes also used by Neanderthals, and much has been writen on the interrelation or juxtaposition of both occupations. Here we set to shed more light on the cave bear palaeoecology from three different perspectives, two of which had never been applied before to that species. We analyzed 4 cave bear collections in Northern Spain, three of them containing only cave bears and the fourth containing also some wolf and hyaena remains. We also dug and analyzed one Holocene brown bear site, and carried comparations with extant brow bear specimens legally hunted in the area a few decades back. Our approaches were: a) Taphonomy Cave bears hibernate usually very deeply into the cave, in areas rarely visited by other carnivores. Despite the presumed vegetal diet of cave bears (suggested by their cranial and dental morphology, and by bone isotopic contents), it is very rare to find fully articulated skeletons as would be expected, and cave bear assemblages are usually a jumble of broken and altered bear bones, conspicuously showing toothmarks and carnivore alterations. We analyzed bone fragmentation, breakage patterns and toothmark locations and sizes in all adult and infant remains of these collections. Our results indicate that cave bears are, in all the sites analyzed, scavenging on their conspecifics, following a very precise pattern that seeks the ephyseal plates of animals preferably in growth, thus distroying or altering most frequently epiphyses but leaving most bones otherwise complete and intact. The size of the toothmarks is very large and these appear more usually in epiphyseal and simphyseal a reas. Despite the very different size and thickness of the adult bone when compared with infantile bones, the resulting patterns of bone fragmentation, breakage patterns and tooth size ranges are surprisingly identical for adult and infant cave bear bones in the same population, and very similar between populations distant cronologically and geographically. Cave bear bones from the cave that had also hyaena and wolves show a completely different fragmentation, breakage and toothmark pattern, with much smaller fragments, rare complete bones and much higher counts of much smaller toothmark sizes. No scavenging pattern was identified in brown bear assemblages nor similarity in modifications adult-infant. b) Dental Microwear Analysis No analysis of this type had ever been carried out on bears, and indeed not many on carnivores in general thus we produced our methodology by adapting from the literature mostly on hominids, in order to posibilitate direct comparison. We review literature on the bear chewing apparatus and muscles, temporo-mandibular joint and movement and movility of the mentonian simphyses. We decide to carry all analysis on the 1st low molar (the carnassial lower molar, most stable), describe its orientation, features, cusps and facets. We analyze with x10 each individual cusp of the selected M1 of cave bears and fossil and extant brown bears and observe the gross modifications, which already gives interesting information suggesting that cave bears did not ingest tubers nor any particle soiled feed. Facets do not appear homogeneously thus only after this x10 study cusp by cusp we decide which facets for the SEM DMA study: One from the trigonid and other from the talonid, that is Protoconid dista l facet 2(1) and Hipoconulid lingual facet 10(9). Cave bears seem to have less lateral mobility of the mandible, producing feature orientation patterns that are much more homogeneous than in brown bears, and do not seem to engage in puncture-crushing, while brown bears seem to do so notoriously. Average number of marks is larger for cave bears. They also have a much higher relative proportion of pits relative to scratches -50%-50% in facet 10(9), than do either fossil or extant brown bears. Brown bears have scratches that are longer and noticeably narrower than those of cave bears, and this seems consistend with the documented grass consumption of brown bears. Cave bear pits however are smaller than these of brown bears. These results are not inconsistent with an increased consumption of bone matter on the part of cave bears. c) Palaeopathology Spectacularly diseased cave bear bones have been regularly published, and the literature on cave bear pathologies is very abounding. Here we recorded all pathological alterations, even those just incipient without functional meaning, in all the collections described above of cave and brown bears. Most pathologies -even incipient- on the cave bear skeleton, concentrate on the anterior member. The arms and scapula of cave bears are larger and stronger than these of brown bears, and our results indicate that the adaptive pressures that developed the stronger cave bear arms are still acting. Since the dental wear analysis seems to exclude digging for tubers, and cave bears seem too large and heavy to be good climbers, it seems reasonable to asume that this adaptation has to do with either cave bear adaptation to caves -digging for hibernation dens, or well its adaptation to glacial environments -digging in the snow and ice for food. VERY IMPORTANT ERRATA IN ENGLISH SUMMARY OF THE BOOK Please print this page and keep it inside the book. These corrections are important for the text to make sense. Pg. 573 starting at "Tooth-marks: cusp impressions..." All these entries must be marked from A to I as follows A) Tooth-marks... B) Scratches.... C) Tooth-marks... D) Notches.... E) Notches F) etc G) etc H) etc I) etc. Pg . 578 starting at "Slight wear: "The "valleys" between the cusps....." These four entries must be numbered from 1 to 4 as follows: 1) Slight wear 2) Incipient wear 3) Moderate wear 4) Advanced wear Pg. 579, starting at "Cusp with unworn cusp tip" These 9 entries must be numbered from 1 to 9 as follows: 1) Cusp with unworn cusp tip 2) Cusp with loss of .... 3) Cusp with.... 4) Cusp affected by... 5) Cusp affected by... 6) Cusp that has facets 7) Cusp with enamel loss.... 8) Presence of 9) Punctual antemortem.... __________________________________ Dr. Ana C. Pinto Llona Instituto de Historia, Dpto. de Prehistoria Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas c/ Duque de Medinaceli, 8 28012 Madrid, España acpinto@ih.csic.es acpinto@las.es Tel.: (+) (34) 91 429 0626 (Ext. 5303) http://www.accuca.conectia.es http://www.rediris.es/list/info/accuca.es.html http://www.ch.csic.es
Partial index: