Hominin subsistence and site function of TD10.1 bone bed level at Gran Dolina site (Atapuerca) during the late Acheulean ANTONIO RODRI ´ GUEZ-HIDALGO, 1,2,3 * PALMIRA SALADI  E, 1,2,4,5 ANDREU OLL  E 1,2 and EUDALD CARBONELL 1,2,6 1 Institut Catal a de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci o Social (IPHES), Zona educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain 2  Area de Prehist oria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain 3 Equipo Primeros Pobladores de Extremadura, Casa de la Cultura Rodrı ´guez Mo~ nino, C aceres, Spain 4 GQP-CG, Grupo Quatern ario e Pr e-Hist oria do Centro de Geoci^ encias (uI&D 73 e FCT), Portugal 5 Unit associated to Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientı ´ficas (CSIC) 6 Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Beijing (IVPP), China Received 10 April 2015; Revised 1 October 2015; Accepted 2 October 2015 ABSTRACT: In a recent paper, Stiner reviewed certain trends in the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) economy and social behaviour, including most notably galvanization of the prime-age ungulate hunting niche, and the intensification of occupations in the form of domestic–residential camps. However, the emergence of these trends is blurred when we observe the European archaeological record before Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 7. Our aim in this paper is to test the validity of some key arguments related to subsistence and occupation to assess the Lower Palaeolithic roots of these MP trends, using the faunal record of the TD10.1 bone bed level (ca. 300ka) at Gran Dolina (Atapuerca). The taphonomic results from this level indicate an assemblage composed almost exclusively of prime-age ungulates. Anthropogenic marks are very abundant, reflecting a wide variety of domestic activities. Early primary access to the carcasses by hominins, indicated by the taxonomic and mortality patterns, suggests the procurement of animal carcasses by regular hunting. Red deer, accompanied in lower proportions by other prey species, reinforce the selective character of the hominin subsistence strategies at the Gran Dolina TD10.1 bone bed, expanding temporally and geographically our documentation of the MP hominin predatory niche. Taphonomy, together with other results from technology and archaeo-stratigraphy, suggest that the bone bed accumulation reflects long-term hominin use of the site as a residential base camp, suggesting deep roots for the observed MP subsistence and occupational patterns. Copyright # 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEYWORDS: home base; hunting; Lower Palaeolithic; pre-Neanderthals; zooarchaeology. Introduction In recent decades, a large amount of evidence has accumulated to support the view that Middle Palaeolithic hominins were regular hunters of large game. At least regionally, their diets included small prey, megafauna and other ‘collectables’ such as honey, marine molluscs, tortoises and fish (Speth and Tchernov, 1998; Conard and Prindiville, 2000; Patou-Mathis, 2000; Speth and Tchernov, 2001, 2002; Stiner, 2002, 2013; Kuhn and Stiner, 2006; Schreve, 2006; Speth and Clark, 2006; Yeshurun et al., 2007; Stringer et al., 2008; Villa and Lenoir, 2009; Cochard et al., 2012; Blasco and Fern andez-Peris, 2012; Gaudzinski-Windheuser and Kindler, 2012; Rosell et al., 2012; Yravedra et al., 2012; Kuhn, 2013; Fiorenza et al., 2015; Kraft and Venkataraman, 2015; Smith, 2015; Yravedra and Cobo- S anchez, 2015). The faunal assemblages and taphonomic inferences derived from them represent the main empirical basis for the construction of this hypothesis. Thus, the recur- rence of primary access to the carcasses, the systematic exploitation of the energy-rich elements, the standardization of mortality patterns and the selection of prey in ecosystems of great diversity observed in many of the archaeological assemb- lages of the late Middle Pleistocene [Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 7; <242 ka) suggest the crystallization of a human predatory niche that later came to characterize the ‘Neanderthal way of life’. As defined recently by Stiner (2013), this human hunting niche is based in the exploitation of big game in certain selective forms, resulting in faunal assemblages dominated by prime-aged ungulates. Equally, the isotopic analysis of bone collagen of Neanderthals shows a diet heavily dominated by large and very large game, similar to that of other large carnivores such as lion (Richards et al., 2000, 2001; Bocherens et al., 2001, 2005; Bocherens, 2009; Richards and Trinkaus, 2009). However, information concerning the mode and type of access to carcasses, the management of animal resources derived from them and the butchering techniques employed is scarce before MIS7 especially in the Palearctic context in which our research is framed. Apart from irrefutable hunting evidence found in the archaeological spear horizon from Sch€ oningen in Germany (Thieme, 1997; Voormolen, 2008; Julien et al., 2015) and some specific sites like Bolomor cave in Spain with its unusual broad spectrum of prey (Blasco et al., 2013), Boxgrove in England with its exceptionally well-preserved record (Roberts and Parfitt, 1999) or Arago cave in France with its peculiar diachronic persistence of occupation (Moigne et al., 2006), few faunal assemblages can help us to characterize the predatory behaviour of the pre-Neanderthals in Europe during the Lower Palaeolithic. Here, we analysed the faunal assemblage from Gran Dolina TD10, one of the key sites for understanding of the crucial time span in human evolution, the transition between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, during which important technical and behavioural shifts occurred, such as dependence on large game, basic hunting equip- ment, aspects of blade technology, prey age selection and more complex ‘residential’-type occupations (Stiner, 2013, p. 296). At the bottom of the TD10.1 sub-unit, a well-defined (10 cm thick) and dated layer, the ‘TD10.1 bone bed’, has provided more than 50 000 archaeological à Correspondence: A. Rodrı ´guez-Hidalgo, 1 IPHES, as above. E-mail: ajrh78@gmail.com Copyright # 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2015) 30(7) 679–701 ISSN 0267-8179. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.2815