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Cave bears in the menu: hunting or scavenging at the Toll Cave (Moià, Barcelona, Spain)
Jordi Rosell  1, 2, *@  , Ruth Blasco  3@  , Anna Rufà  4@  , Andrea Picin  5@  , Maite Arilla  6, 7  , Iván Ramírez-Pedraza  8@  , Marcos Pizarro-Monzo  9  , María Gema Chacón  10, 11, 12@  , Florent Rivals  13, 14, 15@  
1 : Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES)  (IPHES)  -  Website
C. Marcel.lí Domingo s/n, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona -  Espagne
2 : Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili  (URV)  -  Website
Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona -  Espagne
3 : Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana  (CENIEH)  -  Website
Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002 Burgos, Spain. -  Espagne
4 : De la Préhistoire à lÁctuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie
Université de Bordeaux, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMR5199
5 : Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
6 : Àrea de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona
7 : IPHES - Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social
c/ Marcel·lí Domingo s/n, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona. -  Espagne
8 : Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Universitat Rovira i Virgili
C. Marcel·lí Domingo s/n, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain -  Espagne
9 : Institute of Evolution in Africa  (I.D.E.A.)
C/ Covarrubias 36, 28010 (Madrid, Spain). -  Espagne
10 : Área de Prehistoria, Universidad Rovira i Virgili  (URV)  -  Website
Facultad de Letras, Av. Catalunya 35, 43002, Tarragona -  Espagne
11 : IPHES  -  Website
Zona Educacional 4 - Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3) 43007 - TARRAGONA -  Espagne
12 : Histoire naturelle de l\'Homme préhistorique  (HNHP)  -  Website
Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMR7194
Institut de Paléontologie Humaine 1, rue René Panhard 75013 Paris -  France
13 : Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili
14 : Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats
15 : Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES)
* : Corresponding author

Humans and cave bears coexisted in many environments during the Late Pleistocene. However, demonstrating regular contacts and direct confrontation between them is a complicated task which usually requires specific taphonomic evidence, such as the presence of cutmarks on bears' bones or toothmarks on human bones. Here, we want to tackle this problematic in the Toll Cave (Moià, Barcelona, Spain), where one of the most meridional populations of these animals was discovered during the 50' of the past century. Unfortunately, the collections recovered during those years were lost. Currently, a recent project of research restarted the works in this cave and allowed to recover significant remains of these animals. As previous studies, the current ones point out the presence of bears because of hibernation. Most of the specimens show evidence of carnivore damage inflicted mainly by other bears and hyenas. However, the presence of a small collection of lithic tools and cutmarked bones seems to indicate sporadic visits of human groups to the cave to take advantage of these carcasses. Although the anthropogenic evidence is not conclusive enough, the site allows to discuss about the regularity of these visits and the modalities of access to these cave bear carcasses developed by these human groups.



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