The barn owl as an accumulator of bone remains in central western Argentina: multi-taxa neo-taphonomic approach and implications for Holocene contexts

SESTO RUBINI; MIGNINO JULIAN; GUARDIA NICOLÁS; A ZARCO; OJEDA AGUSTINA; PABLO TETA; MANUEL LÓPEZ

HOLOCENE (SEVENOAKS)

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Lugar: London; Año: 2023

0959-6836

Barn owls are the most widely distributed group of owls in the world andare among the most common accumulators of small vertebrate remainsat archaeological and paleontological sites. Despite its importance as abone remains accumulator and predictor of paleoenvironmentalconditions due to its generalist habits, the vertebrate prey of this raptorhas been scarcely studied from an ecological community perspective,especially considering the diverse range of prey it captures.Archaeological, paleontological, and taphonomic studies typically revealtaxon-specific patterns, focusing primarily on small rodents. In order toovercome this problem, we studied an assemblage of vertebrate bonesfrom barn owl pellets in the central Monte Desert of Argentina. Ouranalysis included the full range of prey taxa, including rodents,marsupials, birds, and reptiles, addressed from both an ecological andneo-taphonomic perspective. We compare the taxonomic andtaphonomic findings with those from regional small vertebrate recordsobtained from various sampling types over the past 50 years to explorerecent environmental changes within the Anthropocene. The assemblageof small vertebrate prey presented here comprises five species ofcricetids, one species from the Caviidae family, and at least onectenomyid rodent species. Additionally, the assemblage includes onespecies of didelphid marsupial, one reptile species, and at least sixpasseriform bird species that belong to separate families. The overalltaphonomic trends are consistent with the typical barn owl pattern.However, our analysis identified a larger percentage of postcranialelements exhibiting signs of digestion compared to pellet-derivedvertebrate bone assemblages previously documented. Furthermore, it isimportant to note that a significant proportion of avian bone fragmentsexhibit distinct signs of digestion.