Humans engaged in sustainable bison hunting over 350,000 years ago at Gran Dolina (Atapuerca)
A study published in Scientific Reports shows that Middle Pleistocene human groups carried out communal bison hunts without depleting local resources
More than 350,000 years ago, human groups living in the Gran Dolina cave (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) hunted bison intensively yet sustainably, following a subsistence strategy that did not jeopardise the long-term survival of local animal populations.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was led by Guillermo Rodríguez-Gómez (Complutense University of Madrid) and Dr Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo (Institute of Archaeology–Mérida, CSIC–Regional Government of Extremadura), in collaboration with researchers Dr Palmira Saladié, Dr Marina Mosquera and Dr Andreu Ollé of IPHES-CERCA, along with members of the Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC), the National Distance Education University (UNED), the Atapuerca Foundation and the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH).
The research is based on the analysis of more than 60 bison skeletons recovered from archaeological level TD10.2-BB — an exceptional stratigraphic unit that preserves clear evidence of communal hunting during the Middle Pleistocene. By combining zooarchaeological methods with demographic modelling, the study assesses the ecological impact of human activity on these animal populations and evaluates the sustainability of such practices.
“The age distribution reveals catastrophic mortality, with individuals from all age groups present — a clear sign of non-selective mass hunting. This is a hallmark of communal hunts, where entire herds are captured at once,” explains Dr Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, co-author of the study and associate researcher at IPHES-CERCA.
Efficient and sustainable exploitation
The researchers reconstructed the bison mortality profile, estimated an average body mass of around 270 kg, and calculated the caloric return such animals would have provided. The results indicate that a single hunt could have fed human groups for several weeks without threatening the long-term viability of the bison population.
According to their estimates, the meat obtained in these events could yield between 165,000 and 198,000 kilocalories — enough to sustain a group of around 30 people for multiple weeks. This efficient resource use, combined with a calculated net annual population growth rate of 9.9% for the bison, suggests that human exploitation did not disrupt the ecological balance.
An exceptional record for understanding human behaviour
Gran Dolina, part of the Trinchera del Ferrocarril in the Sierra de Atapuerca, is one of the most important sites in Europe for understanding early human evolution. Systematic excavation of level TD10.2, coordinated by IPHES-CERCA, has yielded an extraordinary faunal assemblage that offers valuable insights into the social organisation, subsistence strategies and ecological interactions of prehistoric human groups.
Dr Palmira Saladié, Dr Andreu Ollé and Dr Marina Mosquera — IPHES-CERCA researchers and co-authors of the study — have played a key role in the excavation and taphonomic analysis of the remains. According to Dr Saladié, “the quality of the archaeological record is the result of over 20 years of meticulous fieldwork, and it enables us to understand the collective dynamics and resource efficiency of these early human groups.”
Reference
Rodríguez-Gómez, G., Rodríguez-Hidalgo, A. et al. Ecologically sustainable human exploitation of the Gran Dolina TD10.2 bison (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain). Scientific Reports 15, 23178 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-01928-w