The cat has long been important to human societies as a pest-control agent, object of symbolic value and companion animal, but little is known about its domestication process and early anthropogenic dispersal. Here we show, using ancient DNA analysis of geographically and temporally widespread archaeological cat remains, that both the Near Eastern and Egyptian populations of Felis silvestris lybica contributed to the gene pool of the domestic cat at different historical times. While the cat's worldwide conquest began during the Neolithic period in the Near East, its dispersal gained momentum during the Classical period, when the Egyptian cat successfully spread throughout the Old World. The expansion patterns and ranges suggest dispersal along human maritime and terrestrial routes of trade and connectivity. A coat-colour variant was found at high frequency only after the Middle Ages, suggesting that directed breeding of cats occurred later than with most other domesticated animals.

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Paleontological analysis of remains from Wezmeh Cave in western Iran have yielded a Holocene Chalcolithic archeological assemblage, a rich Late Pleistocene carnivore faunal assemblage, and an isolated unerupted human maxillary premolar (P(3) or possibly P(4)). Species representation and U-series dating of faunal teeth place the carnivore assemblage during oxygen isotope stages (OIS) 3 and 2, and noninvasive gamma spectrometry dating of the human premolar places it at least as old as early OIS 2. The human premolar crown morphology is not diagnostic of late archaic versus early modern human affinities, but its buccolingual diameter places it at the upper limits of Late Pleistocene human P(3) and P(4) dimensions and separate from a terminal Pleistocene regional sample. Wezmeh Cave therefore provides additional Paleolithic human remains from the Zagros Mountains and further documents Late Pleistocene human association with otherwise carnivore-dominated cave assemblages.

In archaeological studies, it is often important to be able assess sexual dimorphism and sex ratios in populations. Obtaining sex ratio is easy if each individual in the population can be accurately sexed through the use of one more objective variables. But this is often impossible, due to incompleteness of the osteological record. A modern statistical approach to handle this problem is Mixture Analysis using the method of maximum likelihood. It consists of determining how many groups are present in the sample, two in this case, in which proportions they occur, and to estimate the parameters accordingly. This paper shows the use of this method on vertebrate fossil populations in a prehistoric context with implications on prey acquisition by early humans. For instance, the analysis of mouflon bones from Arago cave (Tautavel, France) indicates that there are more females than males in the F layer. According to the ethology of the animal, this indicates that the hunting strategy could be the result of selective choice of the prey. Moreover, we may deduce the presence of Anteneandertalians on the site during spring and summer periods.

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Résumé : Moins connue que les grottes de Kebara ou de Tabun localisées sur le versant ouest du Mont Carmel, la grotte Geula située sur le flanc nord a été fouillée dans les années soixante par E. Wreschner. Elle a livré une importante quantité d'ossements de grands mammifères, une petite série lithique attribuée à du Moustérien, ainsi que trois restes d'Homo sapiens. La liste faunique, remarquable, comporte de nombreuses espèces de carnivores, où domine l 'hyène tachetée, et le cortège classique des herbivores du Levant sud, où la gazelle et le daim de Mésopotamie sont les plus nombreux. A их côtés de l 'homme et de l 'hyène, le porc-épic est l 'animal de loin le plus abondant de l'assemblage. Une première étude archéozoologique et taphonomique montre que la grotte Geula était un repaire d'hyène doublé d'une tanière de porc-épic, ce qui est unique dans le Mont Carmel et d'une façon plus générale au Proche et Moyen-Orient. La très faible densité de matériel lithique atteste de brefs passages par les hominidés lorsque la cavité était délaissée par les carnivores.