Zilou Cave: A Karstic Shaft with Animal Bones at Kermanshah Region, Western Iran
Résumé
Located at a high altitude on Parau plateau, Zilou Cave is one the new discovered caves with rich faunal remains in the Kermanshah region. The cave which has two deep shafts have been a natural trap for local fauna who visited the cave during many millennia. The bottoms of both shafts are densely covered by animal remains which mostly are in a good condition. The fauna is dominated by wild goat and sheep, while carnivores are also represented by species such as bears, wolves, and foxes.
High rainfall (mainly snow) ratios, difficult access to the vertical shafts and passages, allowed a good preservation for bone remains with little post depositional disturbance. As a result some of skeletons are in anatomical order that indicate fluvial activities had no strong role on the assemblages. The high elevation of the cave, which is higher than Upper Pleistocene snow line suggests the site was not accessible for local fauna during last glacial period, except some short intervals of warmer interstadials. For most of the late Pleistocene, the cave was probably buried under snow. Thus it is reasonable to propos that the faunal remains at Zilou are mostly belong to last interglacial period (125000-130000 year ago) and Holocene period with lower proportions of interstadial periods. This paper attempts to explain the geological aspects of the cave and its karst paleoenvironments, with a short description of its faunal remains.