At the transition between the biosphere and the Lithosphere, Taphonomy is an essential discipline of Historical Biology. Knowing the origins and formation mechanisms of paleontological and archaeological sites constitutes one of the first tasks of Taphonomy, but it also aim to illuminate paleoecological implications of a better understanding of bone diagenesis, taphonomic agents. Because many taphonomic studies have been devoted to Quaternary sites and also because of important recent developments in Zooarcheology, we felt it was time to organize a conference around the following theme: ‘General to Specific Quaternary Taphonomy’. The 4th Meeting of the ICAZ Taphonomy Working Group addressed this topic and we present some of the representative contributions. The Meeting was hold in Paris from 7 to 10th September 2016, thanks to the supports of Aix-Marseille University, CNRS-INEE, MNHN Paris, the GDR 3591 ‘Taphonomie, Environnement & Archéologie’, (TaphEnA) (http://lampea.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article3149).
More specifically among the most recent developments of Quaternary taphonomy we focused upon three interrelated themes. The first was devoted to new Methodological developments in Taphonomy. This session, regarding all animal and cultural groups, envisions modern analogs/proxies as well as interactions involved in sediment-fossil accumulations. This allowed A.B. Marín-Arroyo & D. Ocio to propose a new Bayesian method to analyze the faunal skeletal profiles from archaeological assemblages and improve the determination of the agents of bone accumulations. Similarly J.M. Geiling et al. highlighted the importance of taking into account the spatial distribution of bone micro-fragments and their taphonomic features in the analyses of past hunters lifestyle and uses of hunted prey. M.J. Gabucio et al. highlighted the importance of taking into account bone refits to better understand the settlement dynamics and intra-site behavior of humans groups of the past.
Not only new methods but also new experiments were proposed. An original experimental study by E. Turner et al. allowed interpretation of the origins of bone staining in waterlogged deposits and showed how this could be applied to the lower Paleolithic site of Schöningen 13II-4 (Germany).
The second theme concerned distinguishing Human and Animal Predation, which is a major issue in Quaternary period. All kind of predation process, in the past and/or modern environments were proposed among which the importance of Carnivore taphonomy in South America was synthetized by M. Mondini while other contributions were devoted more specifically either to human activities on different types of prey and how to distinguish this from other predators. This approach was applied to an Upper Paleolithic site of South Catalonia by A. Rufa et al. Another Upper Pleistocene site near Barcelona has yielded many coprolites that were integrated by Montserrat M. Sanz & J. Daura to an archeozoological and taphonomical study, providing a comprehensive view of human/carnivores interactions during that time. Also on Iberian Pleistocene sites, V. Sauqué et al. propose that leopards (Panthera pardus) played a very important role as bone accumulators of these sites.
Besides human activity and large carnivore accumulations, avian predation also plays an important role in concentrating bones. L. Lloveras et al. showed the characteristics of the taphonomic signature by the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) as an important agent of concentration while Z.M. Bochenski et al. monitored bird-carcass accumulations in South Poland and found traces of different avian predators.
The third focal theme was Taphonomy and Paleoenvironments, a session dealing with fundamental or applied studies in relation with the concepts of ecology, from metacommunities, communities, populations with evidence of competition, multi-site analysis, considered in terms of possible taphonomic signatures that can be applied over long periods of time or across long distances. Such a community approach was proposed by C. Denys et al. for a neo-taphonomic assemblage of small mammals from Morocco and applied to Plio-Pleistocene sites of El Harhoura II in Morocco. The multitaxonomic taphonomic study contributes more paleoecological information than a taxon-centered study. M.D. Pesquero et al. investigated experimentally the microbial activity and microstructural changes on bones in different environments.
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