Late Pleistocene large mammal paleocommunitiesa comparative study between localities with brown bear (Ursus arctos), cave bear (U. spelaeus) and mousterian lithic assemblage

Resumen

Cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) and brown bear (U. arctos) fossils are common in the Eurasian Late Pleistocene deposits. Human presence is often indicated by Mousterian culture artifacts. The cave bear and the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), a human group associated with Mousterian culture, became extinct before the Holocene, whereas the brown bear survived. Here we studied large mammal paleocommunities from fossil localities with brown bear fossils, cave bear fossils and Mousterian lithic assemblage in the Late Pleistocene to test if paleocommunities reflect different habitats for brown bear than the two extinct species. Second we asked if paleocommunities in sites with Mousterian culture assemblage reflect more the prey selection than the environment of the people. Our results indicate that Mousterian sites have higher abundance of equids and mustelids than the bear sites, but lower abundance of large carnivores, especially cursorial ones. These probably reflect prey preferences and competitive exclusion of large carnivores by people associated with Mousterian lithic culture. We found no significant differences in paleocommunities suggesting different habitats for brown bear, cave bear or for people associated with Mousterian lithic assemblage.