Late Holocene Settlement Dynamics and Trans-Saharan Connections in Southeastern Mauritania: A Remote Sensing Approach

长期以来，人类社会一直与其他动物进行复杂的社会和生态互动。社会食肉动物，特别是狼，是迷人的，考虑到更新世狩猎采集群体如何将它们视为生态竞争对手，猎物，但也作为潜在的宠物和有用的狩猎盟友。目前驯化研究的学者认为，自由放养的狼在被人类营地产生的垃圾吸引后，很可能遵循了一条既不刻意也不定向的驯化途径。我的研究目的是确定支持犬科动物在人类生态系统中长期存在的物质证据，这为人类提供了社会生态机会，最终参与驯化的变革性结合。在大型独居超食肉动物灭绝后，人类（hominins）、斑点鬣狗（spotted hyenas）和犬科动物（canids）成为欧洲生态系统的主要捕食者。我的博士论文的一个重要部分集中在非常保存完好的早更新世晚期动物群组合在Cueva Negra del Estrecho德尔里奥Quipar（西班牙）的网站，这已经产生了一个高度破碎的骨骼组合与明确的人为痕迹，二次食肉动物的清除，和鬣狗积累的埋藏研究。辨别人类垃圾的二次清除是否至少部分是犬科动物活动的结果，并探索整个更新世的二次清除模式，将揭示驯化前基本人类-犬科动物生态相互作用的时间性。即使在没有犬科动物遗骸的情况下，二次清除的机构也可以从双重模式的骨骼组合中推断出来：首先，我将在关于早更新世人类狩猎-食腐之争所建立的理论和实验框架内，考虑这些组合的性质。齿痕和切痕的频率和位置可以告诉我们积聚的主要因素。此外，它们的相对叠加对于辨别尸体访问时间性至关重要。其次，牙印的强度和性质可以帮助区分食骨食肉动物和大型猫科动物的行动。使用三维几何形态测量学、骨骼部分存活率和骨骼上齿痕分布模式的空间分析进行的统计评估进一步有助于识别食肉动物的机构。在晚更新世相互作用的背景下，骨埋藏学和头骨形态学可以与遗传证据和狼遗骸的同位素特征相补充，以评估是否有更近的，与人类的共生关系将为犬科动物提供更大的饮食呼吸和全年更丰富的食物供应，特别是在旧石器时代晚期。根据专著和出版物中描述的蚀变模式，这种机会主义的犬科动物行为在欧亚更新世的许多其他地点都有暗示。然而，这些相互作用在很大程度上被忽视了，由于研究的重点是确定双重模式的骨积累的主要来源，无论是人为的或从鬣狗窝。一旦确定了该组合的人为性质，经常提到次生食肉动物改变的存在，但没有探索任何有意义的细节。我相信更新世人与犬科动物相互作用的讨论可以为旧石器时代考古学和犬科动物古生物学领域做出重大贡献，通过展示人类生态系统中长期的犬科动物的共同性如何塑造了狼和人类的进化轨迹，同时也有助于我们理解许多更新世遗址的动物群记录和狗驯化的社会生态基础。

Human societies have long engaged in complex social and ecological interactions with other animals. Social carnivores, particularly wolves, are fascinating, considering how Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups have considered them as ecological competitors, preys, but also as potential pets and useful hunting allies. Current scholarship in domestication studies considers that free-ranging wolves most likely followed a neither deliberate nor directed commensal pathway to domestication after being attracted to refuse generated by human camps. The aim of my research will be to identify material evidence underpinning a long-term canid commensality in hominin ecosystems, which afforded humans the socio-ecological opportunity to eventually participate in the transformative bonding of domestication.The late Early Pleistocene saw the arrival and consolidation of social hunters (hominins, spotted hyenas, and canids) as the main predators of European ecosystem, after the extinction of the large solitary hypercarnivores. An important part of my doctoral thesis focuses on the taphonomic study of the remarkably well-preserved late Early Pleistocene faunal assemblage at the site of Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Rio Quipar (Spain), which has yielded a highly fragmented bone assemblage with clear anthropogenic traces, secondary scavenging by carnivores, and hyena accumulations. Discerning whether the secondary scavenging of human refuse was at least partially the result of canid activity, and exploring this pattern of secondary scavenging throughout the Pleistocene, would shed light into the temporality of foundational human-canid ecological interactions before domestication.The agency of secondary scavenging can be inferred from dual-patterned bone assemblages, even in the absence of canid remains: First, I would consider the nature of the assemblages within the theoretical and experimental frameworks set by the hunting-scavenging debate for Early Pleistocene hominins. The frequency and location of tooth-marks and cut-marks can inform us about the primary agent of accumulation. Furthermore, their relative superimposition is paramount for discerning carcass access temporality. Secondly, the intensity and nature of the tooth-marks can help distinguish the action of bone-eating carnivores from large-sized felids. Statistical assessments using 3D geometric morphometrics, skeletal part survivorship, and the spatial analysis of the distribution patterns of the tooth-marks on the bones further contribute to discerning carnivore agency.In the context of Late Pleistocene interactions, bone taphonomy and skull morphology can be complemented with genetic evidence and the isotopic signatures of wolf remains, to assess whether a closer, symbiotic association with humans would offer canids a greater dietary breath and a steadier food supply throughout the year, particularly during the Upper Palaeolithic.This opportunistic commensal canid behaviour is hinted at in many other sites across the Eurasian Pleistocene, based on the alteration patterns described in monographs and publications. However, these interactions have been largely overlooked, due to a research focus on ascertain the primary origin of dual-patterned bone accumulations as either anthropogenic or resulting from a hyena den. Once the anthropogenic nature of the assemblage is established, the presence of secondary carnivore alterations is often mentioned but not explored in any meaningful detail. I believe this discussion of Pleistocene human-canid interactions can make significant contributions to the fields of Palaeolithic archaeology and canid palaeontology by demonstrating how long-term canid commensality in hominin ecosystems shaped the evolutionary trajectories of wolves and humans, while also contributing to our understanding of both the faunal record at many Pleistocene sites and the socio-ecological foundations of dog domestication.