CFEE JOINT SEMINAR: CARNIVORES WITHOUT BORDERS

SÉMINAIRE / SEMINAR

Jeudi 3 août (15h30-17h)/ Thursday 3 August (3:30-5:00)

Lieu / Venue: Auditorium of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa

Carnivores without borders
Quaternary Carnivores’ Guilds, from Europe to Africa, and vice-versa
Jean-Philip Brugal, DR1 CNRS

During the Plio-Pleistocene, the carnivore guilds were much diversified and some of the species had a very large spatial distribution through Eurasia and Africa. Carnivores, as meat-eaters, play important roles within the ecosystems. The knowledge of predator communities, modern and fossil, brings essential inputs about paleoecology, paleoenvironment, taphonomy, and archaeology.
Five carnivore families (Ursidae, Felidae, Hyaenidae, Canidae, Mustelidae), including 25 genus, are contemporaneous of Palaeolithic humans in western Europe. They cover a wide chronological frame, as well as several size and diet classes. Most of these species still exists nowadays in Africa and some of their morphologic and eco-ethologic features are useful for the reconstruction of the past carnivore guilds.
An important feature of hominid evolution is the introduction of meat in their diet, as well as the making of stone-tools.Carnivores and humans are in some cases both accumulators and modifiers of bone assemblages. They are in competition for their subsistence because they hunted the same herbivorous communities and because of their need for similar shelters such as caves (for resting or reproductive purposes). Hyaenids were especially involved in this competition, and some examples from this group will be given, stressing for European and African study inter plays.

L’intervenant / the speaker

Jean-Philip Brugal est paléontologue et archéozoologue au CNRS. Il travaille à l’IFRA Nairobi (Kenya) et à l’UMR 7269 Lampea à Aix-en-Provence (France). Il est l’un des chercheurs du “West Turkana archaeological Project” et dirige un réseau européen sur la taphonomie.

Jean-Philip Brugal is paleontologist and zooarchaeologist at the CNRS, working at the French Institute for Research in Africa in Nairobi (USR 3336 MEAE/CNRS, Kenya) and at Lampea (UMR 7269 CNRS) of Aix-en-Provence (France). He is one of the investigator of the West Turkana Archaeological Project, and direct an European network in Taphonomy.

Organisation: CFEE & Authority for Research and Conservation of the Cultural Heritage (Heritage Collection & Laboratory Service Directorate, Heritage Training Unit).