Les Pradelles (level 9)
Basic information
Sample name: Les Pradelles (level 9)

Sample aka: Marillac

Reference: S. Costamagno, L. Meignen, C. Beauval, B. Vandermeersch, and B. Maureille. 2006. Les Pradelles (Marillac-le-France, France): A mousterian reindeer hunting camp. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25:466-484 [ER 3979]
Geography
Country: France



Coordinate: 45° 44' N, 0° 26' E
Coordinate basis: based on nearby landmark

Time interval: Late Pleistocene

Unit number: 9

Unit order: above to below

Ma: 0.0576

Age basis: thermoluminescence

Geography comments: "at Marillac-le-Franc (in the Department of Charente)" (coordinate based on Marillac-le-Franc)
layer 9 is also called "facies 2b"
a "burnt flint from this lithofacies was TL-dated to 57.6 ± 4.5 ka" (Garralda et al. 2020)

Environment
Lithology: breccia

Taphonomic context: cave,human accumulation

Archaeology: stone tools

Habitat comments: "a collapsed gallery within a karst system" meaning a "sinkhole" or "collapsed karstic cave" according to Garralda et al. (2020)
"clast-supported limestone deposits associated to a clayey matrix" meaning a breccia (Garralda et al. 2020)
there are "cut marks on more than half of the long bone fragments" of reindeer, incating "primary butchery" on the site, so this is a hunting accumulation
there are 444 "lithic tools" in layer 9

Methods
Life forms: carnivores,primates,ungulates

Sampling methods: quarry

Sample size: 894 specimens

Years: 1967 - 1980, 2001

Sampling comments: "Although a Neanderthal mandible was discovered in 1939 (Ragout and Balout, 1942), it was not until 1967 that the site was subjected to a real scientific excavation. This fieldwork, carried out by Vandermeersch, went on until 1980. New excavations have been undertaken by Maureille and A. Mann since 2001"
the site stratigraphy was apparently developed by Vandermeersch, so the earlier collections are apparently not included here

Metadata
Sample number: 4392

Contributor: John Alroy

Enterer: John Alroy

Created: 2023-12-04 11:27:03

Modified: 2023-12-04 00:27:03

Abundance distribution
8 species
1 singleton
total count 894
geometric series index: 11.7
Fisher's α: 1.211
geometric series k: 0.3848
Hurlbert's PIE: 0.1944
Shannon's H: 0.4689
Good's u: 0.9989
Each square represents a species. Square sizes are proportional to counts.
Register
Panthera spelaea1
Canis lupus343 kg carnivore
Crocuta spelaea8
Bovidae indet.39
Bos or Bison
Rangifer tarandus80069 kg browser
Cervus elaphus2104 kg
Equus ferus39422 kg
"Equus caballus germanicus"
Homo neanderthalensis2
see Garralda et al. 2020): this does not include two teeth of an associated individual because the other five teeth are from the underlying layer 10