Grup de Recerca del Quaternari, GRQ-SERP, Department of History and Archaeology, Universitat de Barcelona, 08001, Barcelona, Spain.
Faculdade de Letras, UNIARQ-Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa, Universidade de Lisboa, 1600-214, Lisbon, Portugal.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jan 3;13(1):57. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-25288-x.
The archaeological record of the Lagar Velho rock shelter (Lapedo Valley, Leiria, Portugal) bears testimony to several significant Upper Palaeolithic occupations, most notably the Lapedo Child burial (LV1) dating from the Gravettian. Excavations undertaken at the site since 2018 have seen the recovery of a large quantity of coprolites, above all in layer 143 (c. 29 ka cal BP). The study of these fossilized remains points to the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) as the main coprogenic agent and provides the first descriptions of these avian coprolites in archaeological assemblages. The analyses reported involved the comparison of the coprogenic samples with modern bearded vulture scats. A new morphotype is proposed for discriminating the faeces of this avian scavenger based on (1) macroscopic analyses, (2) morphometric comparisons with other fossil and modern scats and (3) their mineralogical and elemental composition. Among the criteria proposed here to identify the coprolites of the bearded vulture are their cylindrical shape, diameter, pointed extremities and homogeneous porous texture, as well as their massive internal texture, hard consistency and total absence of bone inclusions (attributable in all likelihood to a high digastric juice acidity capable of dissolving bones). Our results indicate that, as well as being used by humans for short-term stays, the Lagar Velho rock shelter was used by the bearded vulture as a nesting site. We provide new evidence from Iberia of the activity of this avian scavenger as a bone accumulator in archaeological sites.
拉加雷霍洞穴遗址（莱里亚，葡萄牙）的考古记录证明了这里曾有几次重要的旧石器时代晚期居住，最著名的是格拉维特时期的拉佩多儿童墓（LV1）。自 2018 年以来，对该遗址进行的发掘工作发现了大量的粪化石，尤其是在第 143 层（约 29 千年前）。对这些化石的研究表明，秃鹫（Gypaetus barbatus）是主要的粪化石产生者，并首次描述了这些在考古组合中的鸟类粪化石。报告的分析涉及将粪化石样本与现代秃鹫的粪便进行比较。提出了一种新的形态类型，用于根据（1）宏观分析，（2）与其他化石和现代粪便的形态比较以及（3）它们的矿物学和元素组成来区分这种食腐鸟类的粪便。在这里提出的识别秃鹫粪化石的标准包括它们的圆柱形形状、直径、尖端和均匀的多孔质地，以及它们的块状内部质地、坚硬的一致性和完全没有骨头（很可能归因于胃酸酸度高，能够溶解骨头）。我们的研究结果表明，拉加雷霍洞穴遗址不仅被人类短期使用，而且还被秃鹫用作筑巢地。我们提供了伊比利亚地区的新证据，证明了这种鸟类食腐动物作为考古遗址中骨积累者的活动。
