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

人类社会长期以来一直与其他动物进行复杂的社会和生态互动。社会性食肉动物，尤其是狼，是令人着迷的，考虑到更新世的狩猎采集者群体是如何将它们视为生态竞争者、猎物，但也是潜在的宠物和有用的狩猎盟友。目前驯化研究的学者认为，自由放养的狼很可能在被人类营地产生的垃圾吸引后，遵循了一种既非故意也非定向的共生途径来驯化。我研究的目的将是确定支持人类生态系统中长期犬科动物共生的物质证据，这为人类提供了最终参与驯化的变革联系的社会生态机会。早更新世晚期，在大型独居的超级食肉动物灭绝之后，群居狩猎者（人类、斑点鬣狗和犬科动物）作为欧洲生态系统的主要捕食者的到来和巩固。我博士论文的一个重要部分集中在对queva Negra del Estrecho del里约热内卢Quipar（西班牙）遗址保存完好的早更新世晚期动物组合的地图学研究上，该研究发现了一个高度碎片化的骨骼组合，具有明显的人为痕迹，食肉动物的二次食食和鬣狗的聚集。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这种二次清除模式，将有助于揭示在驯化之前人类-犬科动物基本生态相互作用的暂时性。即使在没有犬科动物遗骸的情况下，也可以从双重模式的骨骼组合中推断出二次清除的作用：首先，我将在理论和实验框架内考虑由早期更新世人类狩猎-清除争论所设定的组合的性质。牙印和割伤的频率和位置可以告诉我们堆积的主要原因。此外，它们的相对叠加对于辨别尸体进入时间至关重要。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为。利用三维几何形态计量学进行统计评估，骨骼部分存活，以及对骨头上牙印分布模式的空间分析，进一步有助于辨别食肉动物的代理。在晚更新世相互作用的背景下，骨图谱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，以评估与人类更密切的共生关系是否会为犬科动物提供更多的饮食呼吸和全年更稳定的食物供应，特别是在旧石器时代晚期。根据专著和出版物中描述的变化模式，在欧亚更新世的许多其他地点都暗示了这种机会主义的共生犬科动物行为。然而，这些相互作用在很大程度上被忽视了，因为研究的重点是确定双模式骨积累的主要起源，无论是人为的还是由鬣狗洞穴造成的。一旦确定了该组合的人为性质，就会经常提到次级食肉动物变化的存在，但没有对任何有意义的细节进行探索。我相信，关于更新世人类与犬科动物相互作用的讨论可以对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，因为它展示了人类生态系统中犬科动物的长期共生关系如何塑造了狼和人类的进化轨迹，同时也有助于我们对许多更新世遗址的动物记录和狗驯化的社会生态基础的理解。

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.