Several Late Pleistocene and Holocene South-East Asian subfossil deposits are known to contain important osteological assemblages of Monitor lizards (Varanus sp.) possibly accumulated by past human populations. Indeed, thanks to their large sizes, Monitor lizards are supposed to have been an important source of meat intake for past hunter-gatherer groups. However, the taphonomic and zooarchaeological study of their bones currently suffers from strong limitations related to the lack of appropriate comparative frameworks concerning their osteology and osteometry. These limitations preclude having a good understanding of the biological characteristics of subfossil individuals but also of their accumulation process in the sites and their possible exploitation by past humans. In the present study, we try to solve these issues by producing size and weight estimation equations using bone measurements that are applicable to subfossil Southeast Asian Varanus. These equations are then applied to the study of an archaeological assemblage of Varanus from a Late Pleistocene Thai deposit, the Doi Pha Kan rock shelter. The obtained data help to demonstrate that these lizards were accumulated by Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers, and allow for the description of the hunting strategies of these human groups. We also demonstrate the interest to develop new methodological tools concerning taxa of tropical areas that present a rich biodiversity but remain understudied in zooarchaeology.

已知几个晚更新世和全新世的东南亚亚化石沉积物包含重要的监控蜥蜴的骨科组合（Varanussp。）可能是过去的人口积累的。的确，由于它们的大尺寸，监控蜥蜴被认为是过去狩猎采集者群体的重要肉食来源。然而，由于缺乏关于其骨学和骨测量学的适当比较框架，目前对其骨骼进行的考古学和动物考古学研究受到严重限制。这些局限性使人们无法充分了解亚化石个体的生物学特性，也无法充分了解亚化石个体在现场的积累过程以及他们可能被过去的人类所利用。在本研究中，我们尝试通过使用适用于亚化石东南亚瓦拉努斯的骨骼测量结果来产生尺寸和重量估算方程来解决这些问题。然后将这些方程式用于研究晚更新世泰国沉积物Doi Pha Kan岩石掩体中的Varanus考古组合。获得的数据有助于证明这些蜥蜴是由Hoabinhian的狩猎采集者积累的，并有助于描述这些人类的狩猎策略。我们也证明了开发有关热带地区生物分类的新方法论工具的兴趣，这些生物分类法具有丰富的生物多样性，但在动物考古学中仍未被研究。