The blessing of a great flood: differentiation of mortality patterns in the large mammal record of the Lower Pleistocene fluvial site of Untermassfeld (Germany) and its relevance for the interpretation of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke a, * , Sabine Gaudzinski b a Forschungsstation fu ¨r Quarta ¨rpala ¨ontologie der Senckenbergischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Steubenstrasse 19a, 99423 Weimar, Germany b Ro ¨misch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, Forschungsbereich Altsteinzeit, Schloss Monrepos, 56567 Neuwied, Germany Received 27 May 2004 Abstract The site of Untermassfeld (Germany) documents flood catastrophes of the Werra River ca. 1 Myr years ago. Although all vertebrate individuals of an equivalent thanatocoenosis in principle underwent the same taphonomic history different mortality patterns have been observed for different animal species. It can be demonstrated that mortality patterns preserved by the fossil record are heavily affected by the physiological capability and ethology of a particular species as well as by the particular taphonomic situation prevailing at the location of final deposition. Against this background mortality patterns for the interpretation of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites are discussed in a broader context. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Taphonomy; Mortality patterns; Mass drowning; Lower Pleistocene; Cervids; Hominid subsistence strategies 1. Introduction Mortality studies are a useful tool for the in- terpretation of faunal assemblages from archaeological contexts [48,85]. The interpretation of mortality pat- terns depends heavily on demographic studies of mammal communities which provide an important background for interpretative frameworks. Detailed information on mass-death assemblages in fluviatile milieus, in particular, is very uncommon [7,24,78]. Only rarely have comprehensive studies been reported to date. The scarcity of actual case studies of mass drowning is in contrast to their inferred relevance for the interpre- tation of archaeological sites. A range of taphonomic processes such as observations on the accumulation of large bone assemblages, their modification by biotic agents and their final deposition and burial can be studied here at first hand. Detailed knowledge about these ‘‘site-formation’’ processes is needed as they allow and strengthen interpretative models on the genesis of individual archaeological sites. Mass drowning in partic- ular is considered to have provided important resource availabilities for the scavenging-based subsistence strat- egies of our earliest African Plio/Pleistocene ancestors [5]. * Corresponding author. Tel.: C49 3643 776230; fax: C49 3643 776252. E-mail addresses: rdkahlke@senckenberg.de (R.-D. Kahlke), gaudzinski@rgzm.de (S. Gaudzinski). 0305-4403/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2005.03.004 Journal of Archaeological Science 32 (2005) 1202e1222 http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas