Preliminary Analysis of Yale Peabody Museum Faunal Collections from American School of Prehistoric Research Excavations at Castel-Merle (Dordogne, France), 1925–1930

A collection of 559 faunal remains excavated at sites of the Castel-Merle valley in France is reanalyzed in terms of taxonomy and skeletal elements represented. The bones are part of a collection of primarily Mousterian faunal and lithic materials excavated by George Grant MacCurdy and the American School for Prehistoric Research that is curated at Yale Peabody Museum. The Yale collection was recovered from Abri des Merveilles, Abri de la Souquette, and possibly other Castel-Merle sites between 1925 and 1930. Assemblages from these excavations are also curated at several other North American museums, as well as in several French repositories. This analysis summarizes the characteristics of the assemblage and is intended to encourage other researchers to study similar historical collections for information about Pleistocene hominin behavior and environments.