Human and Hyena Co-occurrences in Pleistocene sites: Insights from Spatial, Faunal and Lithic Analyses at Camiac and La Chauverie (SW France)

Abstract

In several caves, lithic artifacts or human-modified bones have been found as more or less associated with large faunal assemblages accumulated by cave hyenas. Even if these small records remain often hard to interpret, they are essential to understand interactions between human groups and other cave dwellers. Their study can bring new elements of discussion on critical issues such as the intensity of competition for shelter occupation or the potential existence of specific human activities in hyena dens (e.g. scavenging of meat scraps, collecting of bones). Here we present an interdisciplinary work on two Upper Pleistocene hyena dens, Camiac and La Chauverie, where a small number of Middle Paleolithic artifacts have been found. Results are provided by the combination of three disciplines: faunal taphonomy, lithic analyses (including studies of reduction sequences) and spatial analysis (threedimensional plotting, systematic refitting). At Camiac and La Chauverie, our interdisciplinary analysis highlights two distinctive types of human occupations. Sites that first seem to be closely related (hyena dens with scarce lithic artifacts) hide in fact a variety of situations, ranging from the succession of independent occupations of human groups and hyenas to potential traces of short human visits to hyena dens. Finally, by comparing our results with the regional record, we discuss the actual evidence for competition for shelter between cave hyenas and the last Neanderthals in southwestern France.

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