The Middle to Late Pleistocene vertebrate assemblage from Cova 120 (Alta Garrotxa, Eastern Pyrenees)

• Main Authors: Prat-Vericat, M., Rufí Casals, Isaac, Jovells-Vaqué, Sílvia, Sorbelli, L., Terradas-Batlle, Xavier, Madurell-Malapeira, Joan
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Vilnius University Press 2021
• Subjects: Alta; Canis lupus; Lynx
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/241399

Cova 120 is a karstic originated horizontal gallery of approx. 25m located in the southern side of the Eastern Pyrenees at 460m a.s.l. Field surveys conducted from 1985 to 1989 and, more recently, from 2003 to 2006 enabled us to describe a long chronological sequence comprised between the Bronze Age (layers II-III) and the Middle-Late Pleistocene (layers IV-IX, from 57,9 Ka to MIS7) (Agustí et al. 1991; Martín and Terradas, 2007). Here we describe, for the first time, the vertebrate assemblage from the lower layers of the assemblage (MIS4-7). The preliminary faunal list is composed by: Panthera pardus, Lynx pardinus, Felis sylvestris, Ursus spelaeus s.l., Crocuta sp., Canis lupus, Vulpes vulpes, Capra pyrenaica, Cervus elaphus, Bos/Bison, Marmota marmota, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Microtus oeconomus, M. nivalis, M. arvalis-agrestis, M. duodecimcostatus, Pliomys lenki, Glis glis, Eliomys quericinus, Apodemus sylvaticus and Spermophilus sp. The mammal assemblage is composed basically by more than 70% remains of Capra and secondarily carnivores, specifically P. pardus (3%) and Ursus (6%). The primary taphonomic analyses suggest that this accumulation was produced, mainly by leopards as happened in the really close Cova S’Espasa site (Sauqué et al., 2018), however other accumulation agents as hominins or small carnivores as Lynx or Vulpes are not a priori discarded. Peer reviewed