Taxonomía, biometría e incidencia tafonómica de carnívoros -cánidos, félidos y úrsidos- en la secuencia arqueológica de El Salt (Alcoy, Alicante)

Resum

The lowest presence of large carnivores in the Pleistocene deposits of the Iberian Mediterranean Area, is a phenomenon that contrasts with the rest of the territory, where the evidence of large terrestrial carnivores is significantly higher, especially in the case of hyena, lion and cave bear. This fact directly affects the dynamics of subsistence and human settlement, being strongly conditioned by the competition for prey with the large carnivores on the Cantabrian coast, or on the contrary with less impact on the Mediterranean side. In the specific case of the Upper Pleistocene, the latest works show a low influence of carnivores on the last area, despite the verified relationship with human groups through scavenging, predation or shared use of space. With this work, we pretend to provide new data from the little carnivore assemblage recovered from the Middle Paleolithic site of El Salt (Alcoy, Alicante), contributing to the characterization of carnivore-human interaction debate in the region. In turn, the data provided will contribute to the confirmation of the eminently anthropic origin of the site and the better characterization of the surroundings of the Valleys of Alcoy as an area of high biodiversity during the Pleistocene.