(Mammalia), palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment ... - Senckenberg

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... limestone, is located. 14 km east of Burgos in north-west Spain. The ... A railway (now abandoned) cut through the Atapuerca highland exposing cave deposits ...
18th International Senckenberg Conference 2004 in Weimar

Insectivores (Mammalia), palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment from the lower levels of Trinchera Elefante (Lower Pleistocene; Atapuerca, Spain)

GLORIA CUENCA-BESCÓS, JUAN ROFES-CHÁVEZ & JUAN CARLOS GARCÍA-PIMIENTA Area de Paleontología del Departamento de Cièncias de la Tierra, Facultad de Cièncias, Universidad de Zaragoza, E-50009 Zaragoza, Spain [email protected]; [email protected]

The Atapuerca karst complex, comprised of Upper Cretaceous marine limestone, is located 14 km east of Burgos in north-west Spain. The renowned archaeological and palaeontological sites from this location cover the period from the Lower to the Middle Pleistocene. A railway (now abandoned) cut through the Atapuerca highland exposing cave deposits in the resulting trench. Those cave deposits have yeilded an extraordinary Pleistocene record of macrofauna (including human remains), microfauna and lithic industry. There are three main sites along the trench (Trinchera): Trinchera Dolina, Trinchera Galeria (Tres Simas Complex and Cueva de los Zarpazos) and Trinchera Elefante. The fissures and cavities have a phreatic-vadose origin and are mainly filled with allochthonous materials associated with the faunal and archaeological remains. The Atapuerca highland also has some active caves, such as Cueva Mayor and Cueva del Silo, where the Sima de los Huesos site is located. The Trinchera Elefante site (TE), an ancient access to the Cueva Mayor karst subsystem, is completely filled with sediment. The stratigraphic section from TE, the thickest (19 m) at Atapuerca, is divided into 21 levels that include Lower and Middle Pleistocene layers. Until now, only the lower part (red unit) has been studied. This has proved to be extremely rich in faunal remains: birds, reptiles, rodents and large mammals (both herbivores and carnivores).

Previous studies of the small mammals from TE produced the oldest assemblage yet known from Atapuerca. This paper presents the first study of insectivores (Insectivora, Mammalia) ever undertaken at Atapuerca. It begins with the oldest of the Atapuerca sites: the Early Pleistocene levels of the Trinchera Elefante Lower Red Unit (TELRU). The list of insectivores discovered in this preliminary study of levels TE 9 (known as “Toblerone” because of its appearance in the field) to TE 13, comprises one erinaceid (Erinaceus cf. europaeus), two talpids (Talpa cf. europaea and Desmaninae indet.) and five soricids (Beremendia cf. minor, Neomyinae indet., Sorex sp., Crocidura cf. russula and Crocidura sp., the last probably related to the C. kornfeldi group). The stratigraphical distribution of the minimum number of individuals (MNI calculated by counting the diagnostic elements of the dentition or the post-cranial skeleton) of each insectivore species allows us to hypothesise on the palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment changes represented by Trinchera Elefante Lower Red Unit during the Lower Pleistocene. We observe three climatic phases in TELRU, warm - cold - warm (A, B and C), which are tentatively correlated with the pollinic Waalian w-c-w phases recognised in Early Pleistocene deposits from The Netherlands.

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