Distinguishing the taphonomic signature of wolves from humans and other predators on small prey assemblages

Abstract

However, despite being one of the most ubiquitous carnivores in prehistoric archaeological sites, the role of the wolf (Canis lupus) as an agent responsible for accumulations of small-prey remains has never been examined. Wolves are a widespread Holarctic species distributed across a broad variety of habitats, including deserts, dry plains, boreal forests, and the High Arctic 28. They are generalist carnivores, feeding on a wide variety of species throughout their range. Wild ungulates (e.g. red deer, roe deer, fallow deer, moose, wild boar) tend to be their preferred prey, but normally they also prey on smaller animals such as small carnivores, hares, beavers, squirrels, rabbits or birds 29-31. Rabbits are a recurrent prey, reaching values of up to 45% of the wolf diet in some areas where these animals are abundant 31-34. Besides, wolves can use caves and rock shelters, particularly during the breeding season, where they deposit their food debris 35. Studies about wolves' behaviour demonstrate that, despite not accumulating bones in the same large quantities as other carnivores do 36 , parts of their prey carcass (including bones, antlers, and hair) are often brought by the animals to the den from a kill site 37. These studies also show that abundant scats containing prey digested teeth and bone fragments can be found around and inside the caves used as dens 38,39. This indicates that wolves might well have been agents responsible for rabbit bone assemblages at archaeological sites. The aims of this study are as follows: firstly, to study the taphonomic patterns left by the wolf on rabbit remains; and secondly, to put forward a series of criteria that can help distinguish assemblages produced by wolves from those accumulated by people or by other predators in archaeological samples. To this end, an experimental study was conducted with an adult male Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) kept at the wildlife recovery centre, the Centro de Naturaleza Cañada Real (Peralejo, Spain). During March and April 2013, the wolf was fed with 15 complete domestic rabbit carcasses. The rabbit remains used in this study were from a farm specialized in breeding rabbits. All the animals used in the study were sub-adults. The protocol integrated the recovery of the rabbit leftovers not ingested during the feeding as well as the scats deposited inside the enclosure for subsequent analysis. Before each feeding episode the predator enclosure was cleaned of previous meals and scats.

‘Animal Farm’

“…One must consider the possibility that other carnivores, such as canids, could have had access to the remains. Wolfs, for example, are known to completely consume rabbit remains, thus this would result in a large, digested sample (Lloveras et al 2020) but this is not found in the assemblage, and the implementation of sieving certainly diminished recovery bias. The importance of dogs in Late Prehistory contexts is noteworthy, since they probably ate human-abandoned waste, resulting in a different patterning of body parts, besides distinguishable tooth marks and digestion degrees, but data is lacking for better comparison (Almeida et al 2022).…”