Western Palaearctic palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene inferred from large mammal communities, and implications for hominin dispersal in Europe

Kahlke, Ralf‐Dietrich; Garcı́a, Nuria; Kostopoulos, Dimitris S.; Lacombat, Frédéric; Lister, Adrian M.; Mazza, Paul; Spassov, Nikolaï; Titov, Vadim

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.07.020

Cited by 265 publications

(151 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…'s unpublished data), previously only tentatively identified in the Bulgarian site of Slivnitsa (ca. 1.9-1.8 Ma, Kahlke et al, 2011). On the other hand, the presence of the middle-sized felid Puma pardoides is also recognized in La Puebla de Valverde, corresponding to a primitive form of this species, closer to the specimens from Saint-Vallier (Madurell-Malapeira et al, 2010b).…”

Section: Early Villafranchianmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Several recent works have dealt with the consequences of these climatic changes on the Villafranchian and Galerian large mammal communities (Palombo, 2007(Palombo, , 2010Kahlke et al, 2011;Magri and Palombo, 2013). These works have shown that large mammals respond to these changing environmental circumstances in several ways, including the appearance of new species (as a consequence of local evolution or dispersal events) as well as changes in their distribution areas, following the latitudinal changes experienced by the vegetal cover and the biome as a whole (Palombo, 2007;.…”

Section: Paleoenvironmental Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Villafranchian large mammals from the Iberian Peninsula: paleobiogeography, paleoecology and dispersal events

Madurell‐Malapeira

Ros-Montoya²,

Espigares³

et al. 2014

Journal of Iberian Geology

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The Pleistocene of the Iberian Peninsula is currently a focus of intense paleontological, archaeological and geological research. To a large extent, these inquiries are intended to decipher the ecological factors that might have conditioned early Homo dispersals into the European continent during the late Early Pleistocene. In this respect, the research carried out during the last twenty years in several areas of the Iberian Peninsula (the Guadix-Baza Basin, the Sierra de Atapuerca, the Vallparadís Section and the Banyoles-Besalú Basin) have yielded a large amount of new significant data. Here we review such data and provide for the first time a comprehensive synthesis from a faunal, geological and paleoecological perspectives, by focusing on the relationship between paleoenvironmental conditions and early human dispersals during the late Early Pleistocene in the Iberian Peninsula. In particular, the Iberian fossil record of Early to Late Villafranchian large mammals is synthesized, on the basis of recent publications and unpublished data collected by the authors during the last five years, in order to provide the adequate faunal and paleocological framework for understanding the factors that limited or conditioned human dispersal events.Keywords: Mammals, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Villafranchian, Iberian Peninsula Resumen El Pleistoceno de la Península Ibérica es actualmente foco de intensa investigación paleontológica, arqueológica y geológica. En gran medida, estos trabajos están encaminados a descifrar los factores ecológicos que podrían haber condicionado las dispersiones de los Homo iniciales hacia Europa durante el Pleistoceno inferior. En este sentido, la investigación realizada durante los últimos veinte años en diversas zonas de la Península Ibérica (la Cuenca de Guadix-Baza, la Sierra de Atapuerca, la Sección de Vallparadís y la Cuenca de BanyolesBesalú) ha proporcionado una gran cantidad de nuevos datos significativos. Aquí revisamos estos datos y se proporciona por primera vez una síntesis exhaustiva desde una perspectiva paleontológica, paleoecológica y geológica, centrándonos en las relaciones entre las condiciones paleoambientales y las dispersiones de los primeros humanos en el Pleistoceno inferior de la Península Ibérica. Concretamente, se sintetiza el registro fósil ibérico de grandes mamíferos villafranquienses en base a publicaciones recientes y datos inéditos recopilados por los autores en los últimos cinco años, para así proporcionar el marco faunístico y paleoecológico adecuado para comprender los factores que limitaron o condicionaron los eventos de dispersión humana.

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Section: Early Villafranchianmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Paleoenvironmental Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Villafranchian large mammals from the Iberian Peninsula: paleobiogeography, paleoecology and dispersal events

Madurell‐Malapeira

Ros-Montoya²,

Espigares³

et al. 2014

Journal of Iberian Geology

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“…Importantly, this fauna has provided the base for establishing the Epivillafranchian as an independent biochron for the time period 1.2 to 0.9 Ma in the Western Palaearctic (Kahlke 2007(Kahlke , 2009Kahlke et al 2011). Untermassfeld is studied by an interdisciplinary research group, with 49 researchers from 31 institutions in 12 countries involved (status as of January 1, 2017; www.senckenberg.de/root/index.…”

Section: The Untermassfeld Site: Research History and Geological Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The record that is more interesting as this cul de sac of the Eurasian landmass is large enough to display ecological differences from south to north and from west to east, which may have formed ecological clines and barriers during range expansion. Furthermore, a rich database exists on Pleistocene climatic and environmental variability in this part of the hominin range which allows interpretation of patterns of hominin colonisation against the background of fine-grained environmental changes (Ashton and Lewis 2012;Dennell 2003;Dennell et al 2010;Kahlke et al 2011;MacDonald et al 2012;Roebroeks 2006).…”

Section: Introduction the Earliest Occupation Of Europementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the second half of the Middle Pleistocene, from around 350 ka onward, archaeological sites are no longer limited to the western (Atlantic) and southern (Mediterranean influenced) regions of Europe but also show up in its more continental areas, east of the river Rhine catchment area (Cohen et al 2012;Conard et al 2015;Kahlke et al 2011): a range expansion into more challenging environments that might be related to the development of new strategies for survival (Hosfield 2016), including the introduction of fire as a fixed part of the hominin technological repertoire (MacDonald 2017;Roebroeks and Villa 2011;Shimelmitz et al 2014).…”

Section: Introduction the Earliest Occupation Of Europementioning

confidence: 99%

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Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

Roebroeks

Gaudzinski‐Windheuser

Baales

et al. 2017

J Paleo Arch

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The database regarding the earliest occupation of Europe has increased significantly in quantity and quality of data points over the last two decades, mainly through the addition of new sites as a result of long-term systematic excavations and large-scale prospections of Early and early Middle Pleistocene exposures. The site distribution pattern suggests an ephemeral presence of hominins in the south of Europe from around 1 million years ago onward, with occasional short northward expansions along the western coastal areas when temperate conditions permitted. From around 600,000-700,000 years ago, Acheulean artefacts appear in Europe and somewhat later hominin presence seems to pick up, with more sites and now some also present in colder climatic settings. It is again only later, around 350,000 years ago, that the first sites show up in more continental, central parts of Europe, east of the Rhine. A series of recent papers on the Early Pleistocene palaeontological site of Untermassfeld (Thuringia, Germany) makes claims that are of great interest for studies of earliest Europe and are at odds with the described pattern: the papers suggest that Untermassfeld has yielded stone tools and humanly modified faunal remains, evidence for a 1 million years old hominin presence in European continental mid-latitudes, and additional evidence that hominins were well-established in Europe already around that time period. Here, we evaluate these claims and demonstrate that these studies are severely flawed in terms of data on provenance of the materials studied and in the interpretation of faunal remains and lithics as testifying to a hominin presence at the site. In actual fact, any reference to the Untermassfeld site as an archaeological one is unwarranted. Furthermore, it is not the only European Early Pleistocene site where inferred evidence for hominin presence is problematic. The strength of the spatiotemporal patterns of hominin presence and absence depends on the quality of the data points we work with, and database maintenance, including critical evaluation of new sites, is crucial to advance our knowledge of the expansions and contractions of hominin ranges during the Pleistocene.J Paleo Arch (2018) 1:5-31 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-017-0003-

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2 The earliest stages of hominin dispersal in Africa and Eurasia

Hertler¹,

Bruch²,

Märker³

2013

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration

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Western Palaearctic palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene inferred from large mammal communities, and implications for hominin dispersal in Europe

Cited by 265 publications

References 82 publications

Villafranchian large mammals from the Iberian Peninsula: paleobiogeography, paleoecology and dispersal events

Villafranchian large mammals from the Iberian Peninsula: paleobiogeography, paleoecology and dispersal events

Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

2 The earliest stages of hominin dispersal in Africa and Eurasia

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