Who is who and why. Implications of tooth-marks identification at two sites in the Orce Basin Archaeological Zone (OBAZ; southern Spain)

Abstract

The Orce Basin Archaeological Zone (OBAZ; Granada, Spain) is well known because it contains some of the most important Early Pleistocene archaeo-palaeontological sites for understanding the earliest human settlement in the westernmost part of Eurasia and its ecological context. Among those are Venta Micena (VM), Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva 3 (FN3). The role played by the extinct Pachycrocuta brevirostris present at the OBAZ sites has long been recognised in the literature. However, little or nothing is known about the agency of the other documented carnivore species. Nevertheless, the development of technologies such as 3D modelling, geometric morphometrics, robust data modelling and artificial intelligence algorithms makes it possible to characterise a type of tooth mark (pits) and its assignment to a taxon. Moreover, such a combination of methodologies allows us to infer novel aspects related to the behaviour of carnivores, to establish interpretative differentiation between the carnivore agents at VM3 and BL, to point to the interactions among them and with Homo, and to review some proposals on the first human dispersal outside Africa.