DISTINGUISHING HYENA FROM HOMINID BONE ACCUMULATIONS

Criteria for distinguishing between bone assemblages accumulated by hominids versus those accumulated by hyenas are discussed. These criteria are based on observations from southern African sites, particularly the Upper Pleistocene brown hyena accumulations from Swartklip and Equus Cave. When contextual evidence is lacking or ambiguous, these criteria can be used to determine if a bone accumulation is primarily the result of hyena or hominid activities. The criteria are as follows: 1) the tendency for carnivore remains to be relatively common in carnivore accumulations; 2) the presence of distinctive hyena damage on bone surfaces (depending on bone surface preservation, such damage may not always be common in hyena assemblages); 3) the tendency for bones from hyena accumulations to have relatively complete shafts but lack epiphyses (i.e., being bone “cylinders”) while those from hominid accumulations have broken shafts and intact epiphyses; 4) the tendency for the cranial- postcranial ratio to decrease with ungulate size in hyena accumulations; 5) the tendency for small, hard, bones to be uncommon in hyena accumulations, regardless of state of preservation; and 6) the tendency for age profiles to be attritional in hyena accumulations. © 1991 Maney Publishing.