Gabriel Cifuentes-Alcobendas

• PhD student in Taphonomy and African Archaeology
• PhD Student at University of Alcalá

Recent critiques of the reliability of deep learning (DL) for taphonomic analysis of bone surface modifications (BSM), such as that presented by Courtenay et al. (2024) based on a selection of earlier published studies, have raised concerns about the efficacy of the method. Their critique, however, overlooked fundamental principles regarding the us...

Studying bone surface modifications (BSMs) in neotaphonomic research is an important aid to reconstruct agency in the archaeological and palaeontological record. The significance of correctly identifying BSMs has led to extensive debates about adequate methodological and interpretive frameworks to identify taphonomic agents and their bone-modifying...

After a road construction in the 1960s, faunal fossils were surface collected by locals at the "Los Villares" house state (Ruidera, Ciudad Real). The study of the fossils showed the presence of cutmarks on some herbivore bones dated around 300-400 ka by a combined ESR-Uranium series approach [1]. A systematic excavation of 10 m 2 was carried out in...

Tras la construcción de una carretera en los años 60 en la finca “Los Villares” (Ruidera, Ciudad Real) se recogieron más de 50 fósiles de fauna en superficie. Su estudio mostró la presencia de marcas de corte en algunos huesos de herbívoros fechados alrededor de 300-400 Kya mediante un enfoque combinado de series ESR-Uranio (García-Martínez et al.,...

The importance of accurately identifying bone surface modifications (BSMs) has sparked considerable discussions regarding suitable methodological and interpretive frameworks for discerning taphonomic agents and their patterns of bone modification within dynamic taphonomic processes, particularly those involving interactions between different agenci...

Taphonomic works aim at discovering how paleontological and archaeofaunal assemblages were formed. They also aim at determining how hominin fossils were preserved or destroyed. Hominins and other mammal carnivores have been co-evolving, at least during the past two million years, and their potential interactions determined the evolution of human be...

After a road construction in the 1960s, faunal fossils were surface collected by locals at the “Los Villares” house state (Ruidera, Ciudad Real). The study of those fossils showed the presence of cutmarks at some herbivore bones, which were dated in 300-400 Kya by a combined ESR-Uranium series approach. During the 2023 campaign, around 10 m2 of sys...

After a road construction in the 1960s, faunal fossils were surface-collected by locals from a small area in the Los Villares urbanization (Ruidera, Ciudad Real). The study of those fossils [1] concluded that this site could fill a gap of knowledge in an area characterized by a limited Pleistocene fossil and archeological record, dated around MIS 9...

The technique used to produce Bell Beaker decorative patterns in ceramics has been a topic of debate among the scientific community. Two different variants are analysed in this paper: incision and impression. An experimental reference collection of ceramic plaquettes decorated with both techniques was created to train the image classification model...

The ability to control and direct fire is a major evolutionary step in the human story. The development of aceramic cooking technologies is less well understood as they rarely survive in the archaeological record. However, inferential evidence such as fire-cracked rocks, earthen pits and heated bones suggest a variety of cooking methods were used p...

Human carnivory is atypical among primates. Unlike chimpanzees and bonobos, who are known to hunt smaller monkeys and eat them immediately, human foragers often cooperate to kill large animals and transport them to a safe location to be shared. While it is known that meat became an important part of the hominin diet around 2.6–2 Mya, whether intens...

Misiam is a modern wildebeest-dominated accumulation situated in a steep ravine covered with dense vegetation at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). It is interpreted here as a leopard lair to which carcasses have been transported for several years. Felid-specific bone damage patterns, felid-typical skeletal part profiles, taxonomic specialization and the ph...

We present the discovery of a Middle Pleistocene fossil assemblage at Los Villares locality (Ruidera, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha), which has possible evidence of associated human activity. The potential of the site has been evaluated through multidisciplinary research including taxonomy, anatomy, deep learning, and direct dating of fossil rema...

Cleaning of archaeological remains is a key step to be able to extract any information from those objects. The information we use to make assumptions about past human groups and ways of living is usually blocked behind layers of dirt, mud, concretions and similar artefacts of burial. Cleaning as a process requires a thoughtful approach in order to...

Artificial intelligence algorithms have recently been applied to taphonomic questions with great success, outperforming previous methods of bone surface modification (BSM) identification. Following these new developments, here we try different deep learning model architectures, optimizers and activation functions to assess if it is possible to iden...

Bell Beaker could be considered one of the first pan-European phenomena in Prehistory. However, this apparent homogeneity in ceramic shapes underlies a great heterogeneity in the styles and decoration techniques. Among these styles, one of the most common in southern Europe is the known as ‘incision-style’ and its regional variations. Nevertheless,...

Humans are unique in their diet, physiology and socio-reproductive behavior compared to other primates. They are also unique in the ubiquitous adaptation to all biomes and habitats. From an evolutionary perspective, these trends seem to have started about two million years ago, coinciding with the emergence of encephalization, the reduction of the...

Deep learning models are based on a combination of neural network architectures, optimization parameters and activation functions. All of them provide exponential combinations whose computational fitness is difficult to pinpoint. The intricate resemblance of the microscopic features that are found in bone surface modifications make their differenti...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Bone surface modifcations are foundational to the correct identifcation of hominin butchery traces in the archaeological record. Until present, no analytical technique existed that could provide objectivity, high accuracy, and an estimate of probability in the identifcation of multiple structurally- similar and dissimilar marks. Here, we present...

The study of the Paleolithic period in Inner Iberia, specifically between Tajo and Guadiana’s basins, has always been a pending matter in the archaeological historiography. This lack of evidence is even greater when we approach more recent Pleistocene chronologies [1]. This part of the Iberian Peninsula has traditionally been thought to be practica...

Este artículo analiza el estado actual de los estudios arqueológicos en cementerios prehistóricos e históricos estudiados en el Campo de Montiel a partir de la bibliografía existente. La revisión tiene como objeto poner de relieve cómo se viene estudiando el registro funerario en esta comarca ciudadrealeña así como conocer el grado de implantación...

Accurate identification of bone surface modifications (BSM) is crucial for the taphonomic understanding of archaeological and paleontological sites. Critical interpretations of when humans started eating meat and animal fat or when they started using stone tools, or when they occupied new continents or interacted with predatory guilds impinge on ac...