Big cats from prehistoric İzmir: A paleontological approach to zooarchaeological material

The species Panthera has always held special significance in the archaeological record because of its scarcity and symbolic meaning in ancient societies. In Anatolian archaeology, these animals are present in assemblages from the Early Neolithic to the Iron Age. Furthermore, there is evidence that leopards still live-in modern-day Anatolia. Although Panthera remains are present at different archaeological sites spanning multiple periods in Anatolia, an in-depth study of these bones has yet to be completed. In this study, we present the case of a distal humerus of from Neolithic period layers at Yeşilova Höyük, and three mandible fragments from the Bronze Age layers at Yassıtepe Höyük. Our detailed morphological and metric analysis indicates that the humerus can be attributed to a lion (Panthera leo) and the mandible fragments to two male individuals of the leopard species (Panthera pardus). In addition to presenting new data on the genus Panthera in ancient Anatolia, we also aim to offer a new perspective to zooarchaeology studies using detailed morphological and metric data of faunal elements in the archaeological record.