Abstract: Xujiayao site is an early Late Pleistocene site in the Nihewan Basin, China. The Xujiayao faunal assemblage is dominated by Equus przewalskii and Equus hemionus. Evidence from previous analyses of bone surface modifications has only confirmed a behavioral correlation between equids and humans, which is insufficient and ambiguous for determining how people at Xujiayao site acquired these equids. Besides active human hunting, there are two methods of scavenging that can lead to the same analytic results: first-access scavenging from non-predator related accidents, and early access aggressive scavenging from carnivore kills. This research applies mortality profile analysis to compare Xujiayao's data with that drawn from different contexts, including natural live populations, natural deaths, carnivore kills, anthropogenic sites and modern hunters. The results indicate that archaic Homo sapiens at Xujiayao might have used both active hunting and scavenging to acquire equids in the early period of the site, but they mainly used active hunting in the later period, with a tendency to select the prime adults as their active hunting prey.

Key words: Paleolithic; Xujiayao site; Equid; Mortality profile analysis; Taphonomy; Zooarchaeology