Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep A taphonomic and zooarchaeological study of the early Middle Pleistocene 3 colluvio level from Isernia La Pineta (Molise, Italy) Antonio Pineda a,b, ⁎ , Sharada Channarayapatna c,d , Giuseppe Lembo c , Carlo Peretto c , Palmira Saladié a,b,e , Ursula Thun-Hohenstein c a IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution), Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain b Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Campus Catalunya, Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain c Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Ferrara, C.so Ercole 1 d'Este 32, 44121 Ferrara, Italy d Archaeological Sciences Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Palaj, Gandhinagar 382355, India e Unit Associated to CSIC, Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Calle José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Hominins Italian Peninsula Lower Palaeolithic Palaeoecology ABSTRACT The early Middle Pleistocene site of Isernia La Pineta (MIS 15), discovered in the 1970s, is one of the oldest archaeological sites excavated in Western Europe. Since its discovery, this Lower Palaeolithic open-air site has provided an interesting opportunity for the study of human behaviour during this early period of human evo- lution. Taphonomic studies conducted at the site, mostly of archaeosurface 3a in sector I, the level containing the most artefacts, have indicated that there was strong anthropogenic influence on the formation of the deposit, which is supported by the rich technological record. In this paper, we present a taphonomic study of the 3 colluvio level, in which bison is the most abundant taxon, and on which preliminary studies have highlighted the anthropogenic component. Our aim is to identify the involvement of hominins and carnivores in the accumu- lation, modification, and destruction of animal carcasses. The coexistence of hominins and carnivores is well- documented at the site, although co-occurrence of both predators over the same remains is rare. The almost total absence of modification on bone surfaces produced by hominins (cut marks) and carnivores (tooth marks) could be the result of taphonomic processes of alteration of bone surfaces, as hominins and carnivores seem to have acted as modificatory agents. Our study reveals that these groups probably acted independently, in different events, as part of the foraging and resources acquisition activities that these predators carried out in this en- vironments. 1. Introduction The frequencies and distributions of carnivorous and anthropogenic modifications or signals on bone surfaces are used as proxies for re- constructing the interactions or relationships among large predators, hominins included, and their role in the formation of the archaeological record (Domínguez-Rodrigo, 1997; Capaldo, 1998; Lupo and O'Connell, 2002; Domínguez-Rodrigo and Piqueras, 2003; Egeland et al., 2004; Saladié et al., 2014). However, the use of these proxies is limited or even impossible at sites where bone surfaces are not well preserved. At open-air sites, the absence of bone surface modifications made during the nutritional phase of the carcasses (according the taphonomic phase descriptions of Capaldo (1998)), such as cut marks or carnivore tooth marks, is usually documented (Díez Fernández-Lomana et al., 1997; Egeland, 2007, 2008; Egeland and Domínguez-Rodrigo, 2008; Malerba et al., 2000; Espigares et al., 2013; Pineda et al., 2014; 2019; Mosquera et al., 2015; Pineda and Saladie, 2019). Processes such as weathering (Behrensmeyer, 1978), hydric abrasion (Behrensmeyer, 1975; Petraglia and Potts, 1994), or lixiviation (Pineda et al., 2014) can affect the osteological sample and alter or obliterate pre-existing modifications. Reconstructing taphonomic histories related to hominin and carnivore behaviours on such sites is difficult and occasionally unreliable (Domínguez-Rodrigo et al., 2010). In Western Europe, the Early and Middle Pleistocene archaeological https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102469 Received 22 April 2020; Received in revised form 1 July 2020; Accepted 2 July 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author at: IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social, Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3) 43007 Tarragona, Spain. E-mail addresses: apineda.alcala@gmail.com, apineda@iphes.cat (A. Pineda), sharada.c@iitgn.ac.in (S. Channarayapatna), carlo.peretto@unife.it (C. Peretto), psaladie@iphes.cat (P. Saladié), ursula.thun@unife.it (U. Thun-Hohenstein). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33 (2020) 102469 2352-409X/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T