By producing pellets rich in micromammal remains, owls are important contributors to small vertebrate accumulations in archaeological sites. Neotaphonomic studies are necessary to evaluate predation and fossilization biases before using pellet-derived assemblages to assess palaeoenvironmental reconstructions and micromammal community changes in plio-quaternary deposits. In this study, barn owl (Tyto alba) pellets were collected from two localities of Botswana with markedly different environments: the northern Kalahari (arid) and the Okavango Delta (humid). The taxonomic and taphonomic analyses of the two samples were compared with data from the literature on other T. alba pellet assemblages from Sub-Saharan Africa. This study provides additional data for the wildlife inventory at a local scale and further information about the diet and hunting habits of Tyto alba in this area, as well as its taphonomic impact on local rodent species. It confirms that barn owl assemblages are reliably good indicators of local environmental conditions. An application of palaeoecological methods was also made in order to evaluate the accuracy and performance of palaeoenvironmental reconstructions based on micromammal assemblages produced by owls in an archaeological context. Here, we discuss some methodological issues facing micromammal studies in southern Africa.

通过生产富含微型哺乳动物遗骸的颗粒，猫头鹰是考古遗址中小型脊椎动物聚集的重要贡献者。在使用颗粒衍生的组合来评估古环境重建和上层-第四纪沉积物中的微型哺乳动物群落变化之前，有必要进行新潜声学研究来评估捕食和化石化偏差。在这项研究中，谷仓猫头鹰 ( Tyto alba ) 颗粒是从博茨瓦纳两个环境明显不同的地方收集的：喀拉哈里北部（干旱）和奥卡万戈三角洲（潮湿）。将两个样品的分类学和土壤学分析与其他T. alba的文献数据进行了比较来自撒哈拉以南非洲的颗粒组合。这项研究为当地规模的野生动物清单提供了额外的数据，并提供了有关该地区Tyto alba饮食和狩猎习惯的更多信息，以及它对当地啮齿动物物种的埋藏影响。它证实谷仓猫头鹰组合是当地环境条件的可靠指标。还应用了古生态学方法，以评估基于考古环境中猫头鹰产生的微型哺乳动物组合的古环境重建的准确性和性能。在这里，我们讨论了南部非洲微型哺乳动物研究面临的一些方法论问题。