2026-04-18T02:27:04Zhttps://riubu.ubu.es/oai/request

oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/104542025-05-10T00:05:21Zcom_10259_9737com_10259_5086com_10259_2604col_10259_10448

Rodríguez Gómez, Guillermo Espigares, María Patrocinio Martínez Navarro, Bienvenido Ros Montoya, Sergio Guerra Merchán, Antonio Martín González, Jesús Ángel Campaña, Isidoro Pérez Ramos, Alejandro Granados, Alejandro García Aguilar, José Manuel Rodríguez Ruiz, María Dolores Palmqvist, Paul 2025-05-09T11:11:41Z 2025-05-09T11:11:41Z 2024-08 http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10454 10.3390/quat7030037 2571-550X The Early Pleistocene sites of Orce in southeastern Spain, including Fuente Nueva-3 (FN3), Barranco León (BL) and Venta Micena (VM), provide important insights into the earliest hominin populations and Late Villafranchian large mammal communities. Dated to approximately 1.4 million years ago, FN3 and BL preserve abundant Oldowan tools, cut marks and a human primary tooth, indicating hominin activity. VM, approximately 1.6 million years old, is an outstanding site because it preserves an exceptionally rich assemblage of large mammals and predates the presence of hominins, providing a context for pre-human conditions in the region. Research suggests that both hominins and giant hyenas were essential to the accumulation of skeletal remains at FN3 and BL, with secondary access to meat resources exploited by saber-toothed felids. This aim of this study aims to correlate the relative abundance of large herbivores at these sites with their estimates of Carrying Capacity (CC) and Total Available Biomass (TAB) using the PSEco model, which incorporates survival and mortality profiles to estimate these parameters in paleoecosystems. Our results show: (i) similarities between quarries VM3 and VM4 and (ii) similarities of these quarries with BL-D (level D), suggesting a similar formation process; (iii) that the role of humans would be secondary in BL-D and FN3-LAL (Lower Archaeological Level), although with a greater human influence in FN3-LAL due to the greater presence of horses and small species; and (iv) that FN3-UAL (Upper Archaeological Level) shows similarities with the expected CC values for FN3/BL, consistent with a natural trap of quicksand scenario, where the large mammal species were trapped according to their abundance and body mass, as there is a greater presence of rhinos and mammoths due to the greater weight per unit area exerted by their legs. Given the usefulness of this approach, we propose to apply it first to sites that have been proposed to function as natural traps. Funding for this research has been provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (Refs.: CGL2016-78577-P, CGL2016-80975-P, PGC2018-093925-B-C31, PGC2018-093925-B-C33, PID2019-111185GB-I00, PID2021-122355NB-C31), Junta de Andalucía (Refs: UMA18-FEDERJA-188, P18-FR-3193), Generalitat de Catalunya (Ref.: 2021SGR 01238 (AGAUR)), Universidad de Málaga (Refs.: B1-2022_13, B1-2020_24) and by research group RNM-146 of Junta de Andalucía. This research has been authorized by the Consejería de Cultura of the Junta de Andalucía. G. Rodríguez-Gómez enjoys a postdoctoral contract “Atracción de Talento Investigador César Nombela” (Ref. 2023-T1/PH-HUM-29222) co-funded by the Comunidad de Madrid and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I. Campaña and A. Pérez-Ramos are beneficiaries of posdoctoral grants from Junta de Andalucía. This work has also been supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with Universidad Complutense de Madrid in the line Research Incentive for Young PhDs, in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation) (Ref. PR27/21–004). application/pdf eng MDPI Quaternary. 2024, V. 7, n. 3, p. 37-58 https://doi.org/10.3390/quat7030037 Atribución 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Prey biomass Large mammals Taphonomy Early pleistocene Western Europe Venta Micena Fuente Nueva 3 Barranco León Paleontología Arqueología Paleontology Archaeology Carrying Capacity, Available Meat and the Fossil Record of the Orce Sites (Baza Basin, Spain) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Quaternary 7 3 37 58