Taphonomic studies indicate that the gnawing action of foxes on guanaco (Lama guanicoe) carcasses produces only very tenuous marks on the bones. Lack of sustained interest in the carcasses by carnivores results in slow disarticulation
. An understanding of this ongoing process is important for local archeology, since modern bones are migrating into archeological contexts. A regional approach to taphonomy is the most appropriate instrument to solve this and other related problems.
Toward the definition of criteria for the recognition of artificial bone alterations
Cutting, fracturing, flaking, and polishing of bones and other osseous materials may in some instances be interpreted as evidence of former human activity. Such interpretations must avoid confusion with the wide variety of natural processes
that alter bones. Reliable criteria are prerequisite to sound inferences based on bone, regardless of whether they have been redeposited or recovered from primary assemblages. Criteria must be defined by means of actualistic studies (neotaphonomy
) and experiments that demonstrate causal relationships between patterns of alteration and the processes that produce them. The criteria can be employed in the interpretation of fossil bones (paleotaphonomy) on the basis of uniformitarian principles.
River ice as a taphonomic agent: an alternative hypothesis for bone artifacts
An intuitive taphonomic model is developed to explain how river ice of temperate and high-latitude rivers may affect bones, and to predict the modifications expected. Partial testing of the model by experiments designed to simulate river breakup
produced bone modifications such as fractures, flakes, facets, striations, isolated cuts, and polish. The taphonomic effects of river ice must be discounted prior to the interpretation of such features as human in origin.
Amino acid geochemistry of fossil bones from the Rancho La Brea deposit, California
Low aspartic acid D: L ratios and modern collagenlike concentration values indicate that amino acids in bones from the Rancho La Brea asphalt deposit, Los Angeles, California are better preserved than amino acids in bones of equivalent age that have
not been preserved in asphalt. Amino acids were recovered from 10 Rancho La Brea bone samples which range in age from less thant 200 to greater than 36,000 yr. The calibrated rates of aspartic acid racemization range from 2.1 to 5.0 10yr. Although this wide
Assemblage data and bone and teeth modifications as an aid to paleoenvironmental interpretations of the open-air Pleistocene site of Tighenif (Algeria)
, crystallinity, and chemical composition of fossil bones and teeth, compared to recent samples, shows that a possible explanation for the variations in frequencies is the differential preservation of skeletal remains.
Broken large mammal fossil bones in eastern Beringia have been used to argue for a middle-Wisconsin, or earlier, time of human entry into North America. New experimental data demonstrate that identifications of Pleistocene bone artifacts
on the basis of differential staining and fresh breakage are suspect. Physical processes, such as the violent forces of river ice breakups in the north, and bone crushing by mammalian scavengers produce similar pseudo-artifacts. Additionally, the middle
-Wisconsin dates associated with some of the finished tools, and human and dog bones from Beringia are open to question. The lack of credible dates on these artifacts raises doubt about the model of human colonization of Beringia, developed in the 1960s
Of 25 fossil assemblages examined, 2 might be examples only of geological contemporaneity of humans and Camelops| 2 might indicate behavioral association of humans and Camelops bones| and 2 might indicate actual human utilization of Camelops
(killing and/or butchering). Camelops bones interpreted as artifacts are similar to modern specimens affected by noncultural processes.
within a site. Soil enrichment in P varies with the intensity of prehistoric occupancy of a site. Use of multiple elements allows identification of non-bone waste areas, waste areas with bone, burials with bone which are not waste areas, and non cultural
Ceratodontoid (Dipnoi) calvarial bones from the Triassic of Fusea, Carnic Alps : The first Italian lungfish
Four calvarial (=skull roof) bones from the Fusea vertebratebearing site (uppermost Ladinian or lowermost Carnian), near Tolmezzo (Udine Province, northeastern Italy) provide the first unambiguous record of lungfish (Dipnoi) in Italy
Boegoeberg 1 (BOG 1) is located on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, 850 km north of Cape Town. Abundant coprolites, chewed bones, and partially digested bones implicate hyenas as the bone accumulators. Radiocarbon dates place the site before
The AA. compare the results of isotopic analyses of modern herbivore bones that were collected along an altitude cline in grassland, bush and montane forest environments in the Naivasha Basin of the central Rift Valley, to those of teeth from
suggest that the use of stable isotope ratios of herbivore bone and tooth collagen for environmental reconstruction warrants further investigation.
This paper presents stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data obtained from the fossil bone collagen of late Pleistocene short-faced bears and brown bears, and bone collagen from modern brown bears in eastern Beringia. The data elucidate many
This paper reports AMS C 14 ages of 10 bones and teeth of 3 species of large mammals from the Dutchess Quarry Caves, New York. Together with the Holocene conventional C 14 dates of charcoal and the varied stratigraphic proveniences of the fluted
points and the dated bones, the new AMS C 14 dates argue that most strata at the Dutchess Quarry Caves contain a mixture of late Pleistocene and Holocene materials. This mixing probably resulted from post-depositional bioturbation (by humans, rodents
A study of a last interglacial shell midden and bone accumulation at Herolds Bay, Cape Province, South Africa in Palaeoecology of Africa and the surrounding islands. Volume 15. Southern African Society for Quaternary research. Proceedings.