Taphonomy and chronosequence of the 709 ka Kalinga site formation (Luzon Island, Philippines)

Abstract

The recently described site of Kalinga in the Philippines adds to our understanding of Early-Middle Pleistocene hominin behaviour. Yet, disentangling the natural from the anthropogenic modifications that have taken place in such an old archaeological site is challenging. In this paper we use a set of taphonomic tools at hand to rectify the distortion made by natural processes during the formation of the Kalinga site. From the description of the ribs completeness, surface damages and scattering in the excavation, one can reconstruct the butchery, transport and deposition sequence of the rhino carcass and its post-depositional disturbances and diagenetic evolution of the site. We conclude that the rhino and the stone artefacts potentially used to deflesh the carcass were transported by a mudflow from its butchery place over a few meters only and got stuck and mixed with an older faunal assemblage that was transported by a small stream. Lower and Middle Pleistocene Asian sites opening a window on subsistence behaviour of ancient hominins are scarce. So far, three sites have yielded evidence of clear butchery activities 1 : 800 ka Indonesian site of Ngebung 2 2,3 and the 412 ± 25 ka site of Hexian 4 as well as the ca. 300 ka Chinese site of Zhoukoudian locality 4 5. This scarcity of records of early Palaeolithic subsistence strategies in Asia is made more challenging by the integrity of the archaeological sites as, the older they are, the more likely they are to be heavily disturbed and therefore to be hardly interpreted 6. The recently described site of Kalinga in the Philippines (Fig. 1a), where the recovery of a 709 ka almost complete disarticulated rhinoceros skeleton showing cutting and percussion marks along with 57 stone artefacts 7 , presents a unique opportunity to study ancient human-animal interactions in this part of the world. The site of Kalinga is located down North a 7.5 m-high hill, and halfway the southern slope of a small southeast-northwest valley with seasonal runoff waters (Fig. 1b). In the 42 m 2 excavation named Main Trench on which we focus in this paper, apart from the rhino remains, fossils of tortoise, Varanus salvator, Stegodon luzonensis and Cervus cf. mariannus were excavated along with two tektites, several pebbles mostly composed of dacite, and a possible manuport, all of them between 70 cm and 1 m below the present surface within a silty clay layer 7 (Fig. 1c). This fossiliferous bed referred to as Unit F is uncomfortably overlaying an eroded coarse to medium sandy indurated fluvial layer (Unit A). The archaeological layer of Unit F is in turn sub-horizontally overlaid by a 1-1.15 m thick cross-bedded coarse sandy fluvial layer (Unit G) with silt lenses. Above Unit G is a 2.5 m thick silty pedogenised layer with imprints of rhizomes which are not affecting the underlaying layers (Unit J). The uppermost layer (Unit Y) is composed of cross-beded medium to coarse sands within which a few stone artefacts and poorly preserved bones were recovered. These latter remains which pertain to a d...

A new rhinoceros clade from the Pleistocene of Asia sheds light on mammal dispersals to the Philippines

“…A partial skeleton of Rhinoceros philippinensis von Koenigswald, 1956 (Figure S1) was recently discovered at Kalinga site in Northern Luzon from a 709±68 ka archaeological layer. Stone tools were recovered together with the skeleton and several skeletal elements exhibited evidence of butchery (Ingicco et al, 2018(Ingicco et al, , 2020. This early Middle Pleistocene individual considerably adds to the knowledge of Philippine rhinocerotid species, as its hypodigm was restricted to a few fossil teeth without any clear stratigraphic context, recovered from different islands in the archipelago (von Koenigswald, 1956;Bautista, 1995).…”

Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers in the Philippines—Subsistence strategies, adaptation, and behaviour in maritime environments

“…The relatively small flakes (< 100 mm in length) remain mostly unretouched and were mainly manufactured from siliceous rocks, such as chert, flint, or quartzite, as well as igneous rocks. The assemblages included cores and hammerstones, suggesting that at least some of the flakes were manufactured at the site (Ingicco et al, 2018;Ingicco et al, 2020). Microscopic usewear analysis conducted by one of the authors (AP) indicated that some tools may have been used in butchering the rhinoceros and for other uses, e.g., processing of plants.…”