Ancient evidence of human presence in Europe is recorded in several Early Pleistocene archaeopalaeontological sites from Spain, France and Italy. This is the case of Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva-3 (FN-3), two localities placed near the town of Orce (depression of Baza and Guadix, SE Spain) and dated to ~1.4 Ma. At these sites, huge assemblages of Oldowan tools and evidence of defleshing, butchering and marrow processing of large mammal bones have been recovered together with a deciduous tooth ofHomosp. in the case of level BL-D. In this study, we: (i) describe in detail the anthropic marks found in the bone assemblages from these sites; (ii) analyse patterns of defleshment, butchery and marrow processing, based on the modifications identified in the cortical surface of the fossils; and (iii) discuss on the subsistence strategies of the first hominins that inhabited the European subcontinent during Early Pleistocene times.

Increasing evidence suggests that the European human settlement is older than 1.2 Ma. However, there is a fierce debate about the continuity or discontinuity of the early human settlement of Europe. In particular, evidence of human presence in the interval 0.7−0.5 Ma is scarce in comparison with evidence for the previous and later periods. Here, we present a case study in which the environmental conditions at Sierra de Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period without evidence of human presence, are compared with the conditions in the previous period, for which a relatively intense human occupation is documented. With this objective in mind, the available resources for a human population and the intensity of competition between secondary consumers during the two periods are compared using a mathematical model. The Gran Dolina site TD8 level, dated to 0.7−0.6 Ma, is taken as representative of the period during which Atapuerca was apparently not occupied by humans. Conditions at TD8 are compared with those of the previous period, represented by the TD6-2 level, which has yielded abundant evidence of intense human occupation. The results show that survival opportunities for a hypothetical human population were lower at TD8 than they were at TD6-2. Increased resource competition between secondary consumers arises as a possible explanation for the absence of human occupation at Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene.