late pleistocene population interaction in western europe

may be used to test Klein’s (1989) proposition that postdepositional breakage would be
more prevalent, in general, on large versus small ungulates.
Controlling for spatial variation as much as possible, the incidence of cracks on
long bones in the best-preserved rows of Saint-Césaire is much greater for horse and
bison than for reindeer (Table 42). These differences with reindeer are significant (horse:
ts = 6.75, p < 0.0001; bison: ts = 6.14, p < 0.0001, mean of meter 2 and 3), but not
between horse and bison (ts = 0.83, p < 0.41). These data imply that horse and bison
bones would be more likely to crack and break, possibly as a result of scaling effects, and
therefore more difficult to identify, than those of reindeer. One such effect might be
associated with bone thickness and differential moisture. Because the gradient of
moisture appears to be greater in large animal bones than in smaller ones (D. Fisher, pers.
com. 2003), fiber contraction and dilatation might be increased in the bone walls of the
former taxa, which would promote cracking.
Whatever is the cause of this increased fragmentation, these results suggest that
large ungulate limbs may be under-identified relative to those of reindeer at Saint-
Césaire. This finding has another important implication. Because teeth are highly
diagnostic, this part is more likely to be over-represented with respect to limbs in large
ungulates than in smaller taxa. This might explain why head parts are so abundant in
some assemblages dominated by large ungulates (e.g., Klein 1989).
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