A recent expedition to Tanzania by the SCAVENGERS project team has revealed that wild hyenas can significantly alter the archaeological record of early human campsites. Led by the Insтιтut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA) and supported by the European Research Council, the research focused on evaluating the impact of scavenging carnivores on ancient human settlement sites.

Credit: IPHES-CERCA

In June, the researchers conducted a series of controlled experiments within natural cave settings and rock shelters—environments similar to those inhabited by Neanderthals and other ancient human groups. The researchers created simple camps, including central hearths, cooked meat, scattered bones, and stone tools bearing organic residues. These were left in place while camera traps monitored animal activity around the clock.

The hyenas were observed interacting intensely with the experimental camps. The animals consumed bones, displaced artifacts, and scattered materials. Such behaviors caused radical alterations in the spatial arrangement and composition of the experimental ᴀssemblages, offering proof that hyenas could indeed distort what archaeologists would later interpret as intact cultural deposits.

“This behavior has far-reaching implications,” said Dr. Jordi Rosell, principal investigator of the project. “Many of the ᴀssemblages we study in the archaeological record could be incomplete or altered without us even realizing it, because hyenas may have acted as silent scavengers. We need to reconsider how we interpret many of our sites.”

Credit: IPHES-CERCA

The Tanzanian experiments are a central element of the broader SCAVENGERS project, officially тιтled Carnivores in Human Settlements: A New and Different Way to Address the Middle Palaeolithic Record. The project is an interdisciplinary initiative that combines taphonomic analysis and field observations supported by artificial intelligence to construct computational models for identifying subtle evidence of carnivore activity at archaeological sites. Such models are built to detect disturbances that are otherwise difficult to notice, making it possible for researchers to better reconstruct early human behavior.

The work is primarily centered on the European Middle Palaeolithic, but its findings are also relevant to archaeological research across various epochs and regions. By highlighting the previously unrecognized role played by carnivores, the research proposes a more accurate model for analyzing ancient sites.

The project is managed by IPHES-CERCA and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), and is supported by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. Its multidisciplinary team includes specialists in archaeology, ecology, taphonomy, and data science. The findings of the study are applicable not only to prehistoric archaeology but also to wildlife conservation, animal behavior studies, and the management of protected natural areas.