The paleo-synanthropic niche: a first attempt to define animal’s adaptation to a human-made micro-environment in the Late Pleistocene

Abstract Synanthropic behavior, i.e., the behavior of wild animals that benefit from a shared ecology with humans, has existed long before sedentarization Homo sapiens during Neolithic, around 10,000 years ago. This study describes and discusses concept an older animal-human relationship: paleo-synanthropic associated niche. Key features this new niche are anthropogenic food waste mobile hunter-gatherers as stable base for small opportunistic scavengers human-near environment safe large predators. By linking to human rather than specific location or structure, was accessible time, even in Late Pleistocene. Like modern synanthropic animals, members experienced increase population density decrease home range. This, turn, made it easier humans capture these use them resources meat, fur, feathers, seen zooarchaeological record many European Pleistocene sites. As disadvantage, diseases such zoonoses may have spread more easily.