New data from Ambrona: closing the hunting versus scavenging debate

Single carcass of Mammuthus primigenius with lithic artifacts in the Upper Pleistocene of northern Italy

“…Cutmarks on three woolly mammoth tusks from layer 3 at La Cotte have been similarly documented; they occur at the proximal base of the tusks, where the tusk leaves the bone sheath of the skull. One tusk at Ambrona had an oblique mark on its midsection and similar striations were observed on other tusk fragments from the site (Villa and d'Errico, 2001;Villa et al, 2005). These marks are likely to be produced by the animals themselves using tusks in a variety of activities.…”

“…Humans, at different stages of evolution, have variously cohabited with Deinotherium, Elephas recki, Loxodonta atlantica and Loxodonta africana in Africa (Chavaillon et al, 1987;Delagnes et al, 2006;Isaac and Crader, 1981;Klein et al, 2007;Leakey, 1971), with Mammuthus meridionalis, Mammuthus trogontherii and Palaeloxodon antiquus in Western Asia and Europe (Goren-Inbar et al, 1994;Gaudzinski, 2004;Lister, 2004;Mazza et al, 2006;Palombo and Ferretti, 2005;Santonja and Pé rez-Gonzá lez, 2005;Scott, 2007;Villa, 1990;Villa et al, 2005), with Mammuthus primigenius in the open grassland biomes of glacial Eurasia (Callow and Cornford, 1986;Hoffecker, 2002;Schreve, 2006;Stuart, 2005;Vasil'ev, 2001), with Stegodon orientalis in China (Schepartz et al, 2005), with Palaeloxodon naumanni in Japan (Kondo et al, 2001), with Mammut americanum and Mammuthus columbi in North America (Grayson and Meltzer, 2002;Haynes, 1991;Surovell et al, 2005;Surovell and Waguespack, in press), with Cuvieronius as well as with Stegomastodon in South America (Bryan et al, 1978;Dillehay, 1997;Prado et al, 2005;Ranere and Ló pez, 2007). In sum, proboscideans of different genera and species were encountered in all continents except Australia.…”

“…In Eurasia most of the early occurrences are of Palaeoloxodon antiquus. The best known are: Gesher Benot Ya'akov in Israel (Goren-Inbar et al, 1994), Notarchirico in Basilicata, southern Italy (Piperno, 1999;Piperno and Tagliacozzo, 2001), Bucine in Tuscany, central Italy (Mazza et al, 2006), Fontana Ranuccio, Castel di Guido and La Polledrara in Latium, central Italy Radmilli and Boschian, 1996;Villa, 1991), Ebbsfleet in England (Wenban-Smith et al, 2006), Torralba, Ambrona, Aridos 1, Aridos 2 and Arriaga IIa in Spain (Freeman, 1975(Freeman, , 1978Santonja et al, 1980Santonja et al, , 2001Santonja and Villa, 1990;Villa, 1990;Villa et al, 2005). Note that Torralba and Ambrona, Fontana Ranuccio, Castel di Guido and La Polledrara, are multiple carcass sites.…”

“…Cutmarks on one rib have been only briefly reported from Olorgesailie Site 15 (Potts et al, 1999: 768). SEM verified cutmarks on an elephant skull and long bones have been documented at Ambrona but they are very few (Shipman and Rose, 1983;Villa et al, 2005). Cutmarks on three woolly mammoth tusks from layer 3 at La Cotte have been similarly documented; they occur at the proximal base of the tusks, where the tusk leaves the bone sheath of the skull.…”

Métodos de excavación: del trabajo de campo a la interpretación arqueológica

“…A pesar de que ArqueoUAB no es estrictamente un SIG, facilita en gran medida la gestión de la información espacial, algo muy importante en arqueología. Por ejemplo, este sistema ha sido empleado en múltiples yacimientos al aire libre (Mora et al, 2001;Villa et al, 2005) y en abrigos (Martínez-Moreno et al, 2004, Mora et al, 2008.…”