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How Accurate are Paleoecological Reconstructions of Early Paleontological and Archaeological Sites?

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An Erratum to this article was published on 24 August 2010

Abstract

Paleoecology allows construction of paleoenvironmental models, faunal changes and evolutionary trends of paleontological taxa using modern analogs. However, when linking modern analogs to paleontological taxa in paleoecological reconstruction, differential taxonomic preservation in the fossil record has to be taken into account. Paleontologists have known the biased nature of the fossil record since Efremov’s publication on taphonomy in 1940, yet many ecological models of habitats associated with hominins in paleontological and archaeological sites in Africa and elsewhere barely address the complexity of the fossil record. We use randomly sampled ungulates from modern biomes in a comparative taxonomic abundance to demonstrate how the combination of modern thanatocoenoses and taphocoenoses, when used in reference to habitat-specific biocoenosis, produce better inferences of past habitats in paleontological and archaeological sites than approaches currently used.

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Notes

  1. Some bovid counts, for instance, are carried out using only horn cores, thus biasing some bovid groups where females, more abundantly represented in alluvial environments for certain species, are not properly counted. Furthermore, the trend of collecting just teeth and horn cores decreases the actual counts since individuals often appear represented in the landscape by postcrania. Postcrania can be useful for differentiating some bovid tribes, as well as determinant to taphonomic reconstruction of post-depositional processes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Prehistoria, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Denver, 1201 5th Avenue, Suite 270, Denver, CO, 80217, USA

    Charles M. Musiba

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  1. Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo
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  2. Charles M. Musiba
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Correspondence to Charles M. Musiba.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-010-9090-7

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Domínguez-Rodrigo, M., Musiba, C.M. How Accurate are Paleoecological Reconstructions of Early Paleontological and Archaeological Sites?. Evol Biol 37, 128–140 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-010-9087-2

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