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Identifying the behavioural patterns of bone collecting animals is a crucial aspect of taphonomic studies. Although many studies have established criteria for identifying animal-collected or animal-modified bones, very few papers describe the distinguishing features of fox-made bone assemblages. The bone assemblage collected in an inactive underground stone mine in Potok-Senderki (Poland) is diagnostic of a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) den. This site provides an ideal opportunity to develop an understanding of the bone collecting behaviour of red foxes in cave-like environments. This study showed that bones collected by red foxes are concentrated in clusters. The bones represent a broad spectrum of local fox prey species, with most bones showing the marks of gnawing. Each cluster may contain from <10 to >100 bones. Furthermore, the long axes of the bones in clusters frequently show specific orientation. The analysis of bones at this site might make an important contribution towards the establishment of baseline criteria for the identification and evaluation of fox-accumulated bone assemblages.

Archeological and genetic evidence suggest that all domestic cats derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) and were first domesticated in the Near East around 10,000 years ago. The spread of the domesticated form in Europe occurred much later, primarily mediated by Greek and Phoenician traders and afterward by Romans who introduced cats to Western and Central Europe around 2000 years ago. We investigated mtDNA of Holocene Felis remains and provide evidence of an unexpectedly early presence of cats bearing the Near Eastern wildcat mtDNA haplotypes in Central Europe, being ahead of Roman period by over 2000 years. The appearance of the Near Eastern wildcats in Central Europe coincides with the peak of Neolithic settlement density, moreover most of those cats belonged to the same mtDNA lineages as those domesticated in the Near East. Thus, although we cannot fully exclude that the Near Eastern wildcats appeared in Central Europe as a result of introgression with European wildcat, our findings support the hypothesis that the Near Eastern wildcats spread across Europe together with the first farmers, perhaps as commensal animals. We also found that cats dated to the Neolithic period belonged to different mtDNA lineages than those brought to Central Europe in Roman times, this supports the hypothesis that the gene pool of contemporary European domestic cats might have been established from two different source populations that contributed in different periods.

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Cat remains from Poland dated to 4,200 to 2,300 y BCE are currently the earliest evidence for the migration of the Near Eastern cat (NE cat), the ancestor of domestic cats, into Central Europe. This early immigration preceded the known establishment of housecat populations in the region by around 3,000 y. One hypothesis assumed that NE cats followed the migration of early farmers as synanthropes. In this study, we analyze the stable isotopes in six samples of Late Neolithic NE cat bones and further 34 of the associated fauna, including the European wildcat. We approximate the diet and trophic ecology of Late Neolithic felids in a broad context of contemporary wild and domestic animals and humans. In addition, we compared the ecology of Late Neolithic NE cats with the earliest domestic cats known from the territory of Poland, dating to the Roman Period. Our results reveal that human agricultural activity during the Late Neolithic had already impacted the isotopic signature of rodents in the ecosystem. These synanthropic pests constituted a significant proportion of the NE cat’s diet. Our interpretation is that Late Neolithic NE cats were opportunistic synanthropes, most probably free-living individuals (i.e., not directly relying on a human food supply). We explore niche partitioning between studied NE cats and the contemporary native European wildcats. We find only minor differences between the isotopic ecology of both these taxa. We conclude that, after the appearance of the NE cat, both felid taxa shared the ecological niches.

The cave bear ( Ursus spelaeus ) is one of the Late Pleistocene megafauna species that faced extinction at the end of the last ice age. Although it is represented by one of the largest fossil records in Europe and has been subject to several interdisciplinary studies including palaeogenetic research, its fate remains highly controversial. Here, we used a combination of hybridisation capture and next generation sequencing to reconstruct 59 new complete cave bear mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) from 14 sites in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis, we compared them to 64 published cave bear mtDNA sequences to reconstruct the population dynamics and phylogeography during the Late Pleistocene. We found five major mitochondrial DNA lineages resulting in a noticeably more complex biogeography of the European lineages during the last 50,000 years than previously assumed. Furthermore, our calculated effective female population sizes suggest a drastic cave bear population decline starting around 40,000 years ago at the onset of the Aurignacian, coinciding with the spread of anatomically modern humans in Europe. Thus, our study supports a potential significant human role in the general extinction and local extirpation of the European cave bear and illuminates the fate of this megafauna species.

Rationale:The trophic enrichment factor (TEF) is a parameter reflecting the difference in isotopic ratio between a consumer's tissues and diet, used in isotopic ecology and paleoecology to track dietary habits. The TEF of sulfur is believed to be low, but was, until now, only documented in a limited number of taxa. In this study we use a subfossil accumulation of bones from a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) den to verify the TEF for sulfur in fox bone collagen. Methods: Collagen was extracted from 30 samples of subfossil bones, includingfoxes and their prey. The δ 34 S values of the bone collagen samples were measured with an elemental analyzer connected to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. The TEF was calculated as [Δ 34 S = (mean δ 34 S in predator) -(mean δ 34 S in prey)], using taphonomic indices to estimate the mean diet, and calculated separately for different age classes of the predator. Results:We modeled 12 variants of TEF for different estimations of the diet composition and for three fox age classes (adult, subadult, and juvenile). The estimated TEF values range from −0.54 to +0.03‰ and are similar to TEFs known for other mammals. Absolute TEF values are nearly equal to or lower than the analytical error, which is ±0.4‰. Conclusions:For the first time, we present direct δ 34 S data for the bone collagen of a free-living predator and its naturally selected prey. Our results indicate very low or even slightly negative TEF values for sulfur. Furthermore, according to our results, the δ 34 S value should not be considered a reliable indicator of trophic position in terrestrial food webs but rather, it should be used to disentangle different food webs based on different primary producers.