  Using the Secular Light Curve (SLC) formalism (Ferr\'in, 2010), we have
catalogued 88 probable members of the Taurid Complex (TC). 51 of them have
useful SLCs and 34 of these (67%) exhibit cometary activity. This high
percentage of active asteroids gives support to the hypothesis of a catastrophe
that took place during the Upper Paleolithic (Clube and Napier, 1984), when a
large short-period comet, arriving in the inner Solar System from the Kuiper
Belt, experienced, starting from 20 thousand years ago, a series of
fragmentations that produced the present 2P/Encke comet, together with a large
number of other members of the TC. The fragmentation of the progenitor body was
facilitated by its heterogeneous structure (very similar to a rubble pile) and
this also explains the current coexistence in the complex of fragments of
different composition and origin. We have found that (2212) Hephaistos and
169P/NEAT are active and members of the TC with their own sub-group. Other
components of the complex are groups of meteoroids, that often give rise to
meteor showers when they enter the terrestrial atmosphere, and very probably
also the two small asteroids that in 1908 and 2013 exploded in the terrestrial
atmosphere over Tunguska and Chelyabinsk, respectively. What we see today of
the TC are the remnants of a very varied and numerous complex of objects,
characterized by an intense past of collisions with the Earth which may
continue to represent a danger for our planet.

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics