“…The Orce sub-basin preserves a unique fossil record of terrestrial vertebrates, including two archaeological sites dated to ~ 1.4 Ma (see review in Palmqvist et al, 2016) that mark the earliest presence of hominins in Western Europe: Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva-3 (FN3). BL and FN3 preserve huge assemblages of skeletal remains of large mammals and Oldowan tools, which are linked through the presence of anthropogenic cut and percussion marks, as well as a human deciduous tooth in the case of BL, which is at this moment the oldest hominin fossil found in Western Europe (Martínez-Navarro et al, 1997Oms et al, 2000aOms et al, , 2000bEspigares et al, 2013Espigares et al, , 2019Toro-Moyano et al, 2013;Titton et al, 2021;Yravedra et al, 2021Yravedra et al, , 2022Palmqvist et al, 2023). Moreover, the Venta Micena site (VM, 1.6-1.5 Ma), which is slightly older than BL/FN3 and has been interpreted as a denning area of the giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris (Arribas and Palmqvist, 1998;Palmqvist and Arribas, 2001;Palmqvist et al, 2022b), provides an excellent record of the large mammal community that preceded the hominin dispersal in the basin (Martínez-Navarro, 1991;Mendoza et al, 2005;Rodríguez-Gómez et al, 2017).…”