Hyaenids, felids and canids as bone accumulators: Does the natural history of extant species support zooarchaeological inferences?

Frontiers of the Lower Palaeolithic expansion in Europe: Tunel Wielki Cave (Poland)

“…Although the solifluction of material (or a part of it) into a cave can never be entirely ruled out, especially in the case of sediments that have undergone secondary disturbances, in the case of layer F, we can observe several indications of an internal cave deposition: (i) numerous bone and teeth fragments visible through micromorphology, which is typical for carnivore dens, typically in caves and rockshelters [60][61][62][63] ;…”

The faunal assemblage from La Sassa cave (Latium, Italy): Environmental perspective of a Late Pleistocene cave hyena – Brown bear den

“…A main role by wolves can also be excluded, since the number of gnaw-marks on the shafts is lower than those on the epiphyses (Yravedra et al, 2011) and the severity of damage on compact bones observed in the sample analysed is unusual for wolves (Haynes, 1983). Extant lions do not generally act as bone accumulators but consume their prey at the kill site or its proximity (Schaller, 1972;Palomares et al, 2022) and there is no evidence of this carnivore entering cave-like environments to hunt or scavenge (Palomares et al, 2022). Furthermore, the breakage patterns and the gnawmarks typical of extant and Pleistocene lions of Africa described by Arriaza et al (2016) are not observed at La Sassa cave.…”

New Insights Into Late Pleistocene Cave Hyena Chronology and Population History—the Case of Perspektywiczna Cave, Poland

“…This sediment was dated to early Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 3 on the basis of 14 C dating of cave bear bones (Krajcarz et al 2016a). It is rich in coprolite fragments and gnawed and/or digested bone fragments, and few cave hyena bones and teeth—an assemblage typical for hyena den deposits (Brugal et al 1997; Fosse 1999; Diedrich and Žák 2006; Villa et al 2010; Orbach and Yeshurun 2021; Palomares et al 2022).…”