A multivariate approach for discriminating bone accumulations created by spotted Hyenas and Leopardsharnessing actualistic data from east and Southern Africa

Resumen

Hyenas and large felids were important contributions of bones to the Pliocene and Pleistocene paleontological record of South Africa and elsewhere. Thus, discerning the taphonomic signatures of each is of great importance to paleoanthropologists who view those carnivores as predators and/or competitors of early hominins. Several neotaphonomic studies have emphasized characteristics that distinguish faunas created by hyenas and large cats. Recognizing that many of these studies contend or imply independence in variables that are actually interdependent, we conducted multivariate analyses on published data (including prey skeletal part profiles, tooth mark frequencies, anatomical patterning of tooth marks on bones, number of tooth marks specimen [as a measure of gnawing], ungulate long limb bone [i. E., humeri, radioulnae, femora, tibiae and metapodials]) completeness and bone breakage) to demostrate that bone accumulating behaviour is quite variable for both hyenas and felids. Our results reveal that previously employed analogs are incomplete and transitory, and stress the need for more actualistic work on the topic. That work should lead to more fully realized referential analogs, replacing earlier, inferentially weak ones and providing powerful tools for archaeologists and paleontologistc to use is interpreting the formation of fossil faunas. We end our recomendations with tentative endorsement of prey mortality analysis-medaited by application of actualistically derived and taphonomically sensitized prey age frequency data- as an additional method for distinguishing hyena-and leopard-accumulated faunas.