Archaic humans versus giant hyenas in Pleistocene Europe

María Patrocinio-Espigares and her colleagues have published an interesting study claiming to have identified evidence for competition between archaic humans and giant hyenas for access to a mammoth carcass from a site in Spain dated to over one million years ago. The site, Fuente Nueva-3, is found near the southern Spanish village of Orce, which is an extremely rich area for early Pleistocene fossils, including those of hominins. In fact, Fuente Nueva-3 and a nearby site, Barranco León, dated to 1.3 and 1.4 million years ago, respectively, currently preserve the oldest well accepted evidence for hominin occupation in all of Europe.

The excavations at Fuente Nueva-3 have been ongoing for well over a decade, but this paper reports on a partial skeleton of Mammuthus meridionalis, a species of mammoth, found in association with a few stone tools and, intriguingly, some coprolites (that is, fossilized poop). The materials were deposited near the edge of an ancient lake, and the authors argue that the mammoth (an old female) probably died of natural causes. The skeleton is relatively complete; only the legs and the head are missing.

Photo (A) and map (B) showing the distribution of mammoth bones, stone tools, and coprolites from Fuenta Nueva-3 . From Espigares et al. (2013: Figure 4).

Butchery marks (cutmarks from stone knives and percussion marks and notches from breaking open bones for marrow; although, some of the so-called percussion notches look a lot like the carnivore-created notches I've seen from modern assemblages) and tooth marks are pretty common on many bones from levels above and below the mammoth skeleton, but none whatsoever have been discovered on the mammoth bones in question. Nevertheless, the authors contend that the carcass was butchered by hominins, who removed the legs for consumption elsewhere, and later partly consumed by giant short-faced hyenas (Pachycrocuta brevirostris; they do not, however, tell us how they know the coprolites are those of a hyena).

I suppose this is possible. The authors correctly note that proboscideans are so big, and are covered by so much tough soft tissue, that butchery and tooth marks are unlikely to be inflicted. Pachycrocuta, though, as a recent paper by many of the same authors tells us, was about one-and-a-half times bigger than modern spotted hyenas and probably better adapted to bone-cracking than any other mammal that ever existed (Palmqvist et al., 2011) so, if anything would have left tooth marks on a mammoth-sized carcass, you would think it would be Pachycrocuta. I'll let the authors summarize their thoughts (Patrocinio-Espigares et al., 2013: 122; see the drawing by the very talented Mauricio Antón below for a reconstruction):

The Upper Archaeological Level of Fuente Nueva-3, dated around 1.3 Ma, provides the oldest evidence of a probable competition between Homo and Pachycrocuta, the two major bone-modifying and accumulating agents during early Pleistocene times in Europe. The evidence lies in the finding of an incomplete skeleton of M. meridionalis surrounded by 34 coprolites and 17 lithic artifacts. The skewed spatial distribution of these elements, the physical characteristics of the coprolites and the absence of the elephant limbs and cranium suggest that both hominins and hyenas scavenged the carcass of this megaherbivore, following a sequence of consumption in which the hominins arrived first, dismembered and transported the limbs, and probably also the cranium, and later the hyenas consumed the rest of the elephant carcass.

Original caption: Reconstruction of the possible sequence of interaction between hominins (A) and hyenas (B) during the exploitation of the carcass of M. meridionalis. From Patrocinio-Espigares et al. (2013: Figure 7). 

These conclusions are all based on indirect evidence (stone tools that may or may not have been used to butcher the animal, coprolites that may belong to hyenas that may have fed on the carcass). Either way, this does bring up the interesting issue of how hominins and carnivores interacted: were they competitors on the landscape for carcasses? Was this competition direct (i.e., fighting over access to carcasses) or indirect (one removing edible carcasses from the environment that the other in turn could not exploit)? Researchers have in fact suggested that competition from large carnivores went a long way towards preventing hominin populations from permanently colonizing Eurasia until after 600,000 years ago or so.

References:

Palmqvist, P, Martínez-Navarro, B, Pérez-Claros, JA, Torregrosa, V, Figueirido, B, Jiménez-Arenas, JM, Patrocinio-Espigares, M, Ros-Montoya, S, De Renzi, M (2011). The giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris: modelling the bone-cracking behavior of an extinct carnivore. Quaternary International 243, 61-79.

Patrocinio-Espigares, M, Martínez-Navarro, B, Palmqvist, P, Ros-Montoya, S, Toro, I, Agustí, J, Sala, R (2013). Homo vs. Pachycrocuta: earliest evidence of competition for an elephant carcass between scavengers at Fuente Nueva-3 (Orce, Spain). Quaternary International 295, 113-125.