Small mammal taphonomy of Gran Dolina, Atapuerca (Burgos), Spain

Long-term climate record inferred from early-middle Pleistocene amphibian and squamate reptile assemblages at the Gran Dolina Cave, Atapuerca, Spain

“…However, at least in the Iberian Peninsula, predators that occa sionally catch amphibians and/or squamates are considered opportunistic, and their accumulations are qualitatively and quantitatively representative of the immediate environment surrounding the cave. At Gran Dolina, it has been shown that the primary agents of small-mammal deposition are owls; secondary agents are mammalian carnivores, self-entries, water flows, mudflows, and other agents (Fernandez-Jalvo and Andrews, 1992;Fernandez-Jalvo, 1996). In the case of amphibians, previous study by Pinto L10na and Andrews (1999) have suggested that remains of 1D3/4 and TD5 come from predation by small carnivores; however, of the material studied here, only a few elements show such strong evidence of digestion similar to that made by carnivores (Blain, 2005;Blain et aI., 2008a).…”

A new large barn owl (Aves, Strigiformes, Tytonidae) from the Middle Pleistocene of Sicily, Italy, and its taphonomical significance

“…In the same paper, Andrews (1990) applied those categories to the Late Pleistocene small-mammal assemblage of Westbury sub-Mendip (England), to understand the taphonomy of this fossil accumulation. This method has been successfully used in some other localities (Fernández-Jalvo, 1995Fernández-Jalvo and Andrews, 1992;Fernández-Jalvo et al, 1998), with detailed taphonomical analyses carried out in order to improve the palaeoecological reconstruction. In fact the palaeoecological inferences obtained from fossil predators are not as precise as the ecological studies on living species (Andrews, 1992).…”

The Early–Middle Pleistocene environmental and climatic change and the human expansion in Western Europe: A case study with small vertebrates (Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, Spain)☆

“…The large accumulations of small mammals in the different levels of the locality of Gran Dolina stem mostly from fossil pellets which enter the cave with sediment and are allochthonous in origin (Fernandez Jalvo and Andrews, 1992). Recent taphonomic obser vations of the collections of small vertebrates at Gran Dolina corroborate this hypothesis.…”