Los yacimientos del pleistoceno inferior de la cuenca de Baza y el primer poblamiento humano de Europa (I)disponibilidad de recursos e intensidad de la competencia entre los carnívoros
- P. Palmqvis
- G. Rodríguez-Gómez
- M.P. Espigares
- S. Ros-Montoya
- A. Guerra-Merchán
- J.M. García-Aguilar
- J.M. Jiménez-Arenas
- B. Figueirido
- J.A. Pérez-Claros
- B. Martínez-Navarro
- Meléndez Hevia, Guillermo (dir.)
- Núñez, Alizia (dir.)
- Tomás, Marta (dir.)
Éditorial: Instituto Geológico y Minero de España
ISBN: 978-84-9138-016-0
Année de publication: 2016
Pages: 371-376
Congreso: Sociedad Española de Paleontología. Jornadas (32. 2016. null)
Type: Communication dans un congrès
Résumé
With an age of ~1.4 Ma, the Early Pleistocene sites of Barranco León-D and Fuente Nueva-3 (Baza Basin, SE Spain) provide the oldest evidence on human presence in Western Europe. Here we use a mathematical approach based on Leslie matrices to quantify, for the large mammal species preserved at these sites, the biomass of primary consumers available, the distribution of meat resources among the secondary consumers and the competition intensity within the carnivore guild. The results obtained show a community of large mammals with a high diversity of secondary consumers that would satisfy slightly less than half of their dietary requirements under optimal ecological conditions. In the case of Homo sp., and considering that flesh resources were obtained through the scavenging of ungulate carcasses, the model indicates that the ecosystems of the basin could hold 10-14 individuals per 100 km2 during a year, a value that is close to the mean population density of recent hunter-gatherers.