An ecological neo-taphonomic study of carcass consumption by lions in Tarangire National Park (Tanzania) and its relevance for human evolutionary biology

Actualistic observations on modern lions (Panthera leo) from Tarangire National Park (Tanzania) have expanded the reported range of carcass consumption behaviors by these felids. The present study confirms that lions efficiently deflesh small and medium-sized carcasses and they can even thoroughly deflesh carcasses heavier than 500 kg, such as those of buffaloes. Ecology plays a major role in the intensity with which lions deflesh their prey. The most intensive carcass consumption episodes in Tarangire were documented in alluvial environments near water. Bone damage is proportional to the intensity of carcass consumption and upper limb bones, usually the most defleshed elements, are also the most heavily damaged. Butchery experiments with stone tools modelling secondary access to lion kills yielded a low cut mark frequency with an anatomical distribution of cut marks occurring more frequently on intermediate than on upper limb bones and on ends and metadiaphyses than on mid-shafts. The combination of the damage inflicted by lions on bones and the occurrence of cut marks as the result of secondary-access butchery by humans provides a heuristic framework with which to understand similar patterns in the archaeological record.