0000000000530684
AUTHOR
Yolanda Fernández-jalvo
New palaeoecological approaches to interpret climatic fluctuations in Holocene sites of the Pampean region of Argentina
The apparently regular and favourable climate that characterizes the Holocene as an interglacial period shows, however, important climatic instability well documented in the Northern Hemisphere. These fluctuations from colder to warmer or wetter to drier affected both biodiversity and human societies in the last 12,000 years, although the impact in Southern America is still poorly known. We are here investigating the biodiversity of small mammal faunas, more sensitive to climatic changes than large mammals, combining taphonomic and palaeoecological data in the Argentine Pampas to better understand the global nature and effect of these Holocene climatic fluctuations. This paper is pioneering…
The owl that never left! Taphonomy of Earlier Stone Age small mammal assemblages from Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa)
Wonderwerk Cave, in South Africa, is an exceptional site that has yielded a large collection of small mammal fossils in a stratigraphic sequence reaching back ca. 2 million years. Taphonomic studies undertaken to date, show that Tytonidae (likely Tyto alba) was the dominant predator during the Earlier Stone Age. They produced masses of pellets that formed a dense carpet-like surface that covered the cave floor at intervals throughout the sequence. This paper compares the taphonomic signatures of five different Earlier Stone Age small mammal assemblages from Wonderwerk Cave, including assemblages not studied before, as well as a modern pellet assemblage collected from inside the cave. These …
Understanding the Impact of Trampling on Rodent Bones
Experiments based on the premise of uniformitarism are an effective tool to establish patterns of taphonomic processes acting either before, or after, burial. One process that has been extensively investigated experimentally is the impact of trampling to large mammal bones. Since trampling marks caused by sedimentary friction strongly mimic cut marks made by humans using stone tools during butchery, distinguishing the origin of such modifications is especially relevant to the study of human evolution. In contrast, damage resulting from trampling on small mammal fossil bones has received less attention, despite the fact that it may solve interesting problems relating to site formation proces…
Experimental taphonomy in museums: Preparation protocols for skeletons and fossil vertebrates under the scanning electron microscopy
Natural history institutions use different standards and methods to prepare and preserve skeletons of both modern and fossil vertebrates. These standards and treatments may be considered as taphonomic agents of museum collections. Modifications may occur during preparation, affecting the integrity of bone tissues and skeletons or their molecular and geochemical composition. The present evaluation uses a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to analyze the most common preparation methods and standards. The aim of this paper is to evaluate preparation methods to determine those that provide the best SEM observations and those that best preserve osseous tissues and least damage fossil surfaces. I…
Wildcat scats: Taphonomy of the predator and its micromamal prey
Small sized felids, such as wild and domestic cats, are one of the most common predators in the nature and in sites occupied by humans in archaeological and historical contexts. Wildcats have ingestion/ digestion traits highly destructive for their prey, i.e.: teeth to chew causing extreme breakage, and digestion along the entire digestive tract with low pH gastric juices causing extreme bone corrosion. Small sized cats are also well known to play with the prey and select skeletal parts to ingest. The present study is focused on the taphonomic analysis of micromammal remains recovered from scats produced by European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) during several months and years. Exc…
Primer estudio experimental sobre los efectos de la digestión en restos esqueléticos de murciélagos (Mammalia: Chiroptera)
Taphonomic studies dealing with small mammals do not usually consider bats. Therefore, the degree to which bat bones are modi? ed by predation and other taphonomic agents are largely unknown. Here we present the results obtained from a set of experiments developed to approach this issue, focusing initially on the e?ect of digestion. For this purpose several bat bones and teeth were exposed to HCl and to two di?erent proteolithic enzymes. The experiments showed that bat bones are altered by acidic and enzymatic attack in a similar way as the bones of other small mammals. However, some patterns were observed in the teeth that had not been previously described in other groups. Thus, both the i…
Characterization of recent marks produced on fossil bone surface during sullegic and trephic processes and their influence on taphonomic studies
Different taphonomic processes throughout the history of a fossil assemblage may preserve, modify or destroy, particular palaeobiological traits, but these processes always increase taphonomic information of the past. Similarly, fossils are affected during later stages of taphonomic history, i.e. excavation, preparation, study and storage of fossils, known as sullegic and trephic phases. Tools used during excavation and preparation of fossils can damage them and produce marks on their surface. Some of these recent marks highly mimic taphonomic marks produced before excavation. Both modern and fossil marks lead to misinterpretations and erroneous conclusions when similarities are not clearly…