RT Journal Article
T1 The Early-Middle Pleistocene environmental and climatic change and the humanexpansion in Western Europe: A case study with small vertebrates (Gran Dolina,Atapuerca, Spain)
A1 Cuenca Bescós, Gloria
A1 Melero Rubio, M.
A1 Rofes, Juan
A1 Martínez Mendizábal, Ignacio
A1 Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Luis
A1 Blain, Hugues Alexandre
A1 López García, Juan Manuel
A1 Carbonell i Roura, Eudald
A1 Bermúdez de Castro, José María
AB The dispersal of hominins may have been favored by the opening of the landscape during the EarlyeMiddlePleistocene transition (EMP) in Western Europe. The structure of the small-vertebrateassemblages of the archaeo-paleontological karstic site of Gran Dolina in Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain)shows important environmental and climatic changes in the faunal succession, across the MatuyamaeBrunhesboundary at 780 ka. These changes are interpreted to indicate impoverishment of theforests, along with an increase in dry meadows, and open lands in general that entailed a tendencytowards the loss of diversity in small-vertebrate communities above the EMP. We evaluate variation indiversity of the faunal succession of Gran Dolina using Shannon’s Second Theorem as an index ofecosystem structure. The long cultural-stratigraphic sequence of Gran Dolina during the EMP is somewhatsimilar in its completeness and continuity to that in the locality of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in theUpper Jordan Valley. We also evaluate related data including faunal and floral (pollen) succession. Bothlocalities present cold, dry and humid, warm fluctuations at the transition between the Early and theMiddle Pleistocene. Comparisons between these sites present opportunities to understand large-scaleclimatic changes.
PB Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam
SN 0047-2484
YR 2011
FD 2011
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44371
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44371
LA eng
DS Docta Complutense
RD 8 abr 2025