Big Cats from Prehistoric İzmir: A Paleontological Approach to Zooarchaeological Material

•Panthera species one of the most scarce and enigmatic animal in ancient and prehistoric times.•The carnivores of Yesilova and Yassıtepe were studied systematically and zooarchaeologically.•A lion (Panthera leo) and two leopards (Panthera pardus) is described after taxonomic study.•Morphological and metric analysis could be very useful for zooarchaeology when they combined.