First substantial evidence for Old World vultures (Aegypiinae, Accipitridae) from the early Palaeolithic and Iberomaurusian of Morocco

Abstract

Remains of at least three species of large aegypiine vultures from early Palaeolithic and Iberomaurusian of Ifri n’Ammar, Morocco are the first substantial fossil record of these taxa in the Maghreb. They can be tentatively referred to the two extant species Aegypius monachus (Cinereous Vulture) and Gyps fulvus (Griffon Vulture), and to the extinct Gyps melitensis. Few fragments of remarkably large bones may belong to especially large specimens of A. monachus, but it cannot be ruled out that they are indeed remains of the so far only insufficiently known palaeospecies A. prepyrenaicus Hérnandez, 2001, originally described from the Upper Pleistocene of Spain. Two vulture species definitely occurred contemporarily; Gyps fulvus was found in the entire sequence, while A. monachus occurred only between 13,800 and 17,000 calBP. G. melitensis was found only once in an unknown stratigraphic context. All remains were found along with human artefacts in a cave deposit. Few bones show longitudinal scratches, which probably are cut marks, indicating that humans made use of the flesh, feathers and/or bones of these vultures. None of these species were previously recorded for the Upper Pleistocene of the Maghreb, and the fossil specimens provide important evidence for the former distribution of Old-World vultures in this area, which is insufficiently known and which changed dramatically during the twentieth century.