Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic proxies to the Early Pleistocene hominids of Barranco León D and Fuente Nueva 3 (Granada, Spain) by means of their amphibian and reptile assemblages

Refining upon the climatic background of the Early Pleistocene hominid settlement in western Europe: Barranco León and Fuente Nueva-3 (Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain)

“…Comparisons with other proxies recovered from the earlier excavation campaigns at the two sites have already been drawn in Blain et al (2011). Briefly, pollen analyses by Jim enez Moreno (2003) "possibly" (because this author confesses some doubts about his results) show the predominance of arboreal taxa such as Pinus, Olea, Phillyrea, Cupressaceae and Quercus sp.…”

“…More than 5000 amphibian and squamate bone remains were quantified and studied as part of a PhD thesis (Blain, 2005(Blain, , 2009 and subsequently published by Blain et al (2011); these included toads and frogs, lizards and several snakes. The turtle and tortoise fossil remains are from the excavation of Barranco Le on in 2001 and 2002 and consist of some 180 shell bones (Bailon, 2010).…”

“…The systematic description of the amphibian and squamate fossil remains can be found in Blain (2003Blain ( , 2005Blain ( , 2009) and Blain and Bailon (2010), and descriptions of the chelonians in Bailon (2010). The most recent commented faunal list can be found in Blain et al (2011).…”

The geographical and chronological pattern of herpetofaunal Pleistocene extinctions on the Iberian Peninsula

“…Koelliker's Glass Lizard (D. koellikeri) is present today in the deciduous and coniferous forests of the sub-humid bioclimatic level (Bons and Geniez, 1996), with very warm and dry summers and relatively wet and mild winters (Benabid, 1985;Ragala and Refass, 2002). Paleoclimatic reconstructions of the late Early Pleistocene of southern Spain show similar climatic conditions at the sites where fossils of the genus Dopasia have been documented (Blain et al, 2011a).…”

“…In addition, the fossils from the late Early Pleistocene (Allophaiomys aff. lavocati zone) record of Almenara-Casablanca-3 and Barranco León (Blain, 2005(Blain, , 2009Blain and Bailon, 2010;Blain et al, 2011a) previously attributed to Bufo sp. have been attributed to Bufo viridis s.l.…”