Latest Villafranchian climate and landscape reconstructions at Pirro Nord (southern Italy)

Abstract

Early Pleistocene terrestrial climate conditions in the Mediterranean region, especially between 1.3 and 1.7 Ma, are poorly understood. Here, the amphibian and reptile fossil record from 24 fissures (Cava Pirro) of the Pirro Nord karstic complex (southern Italy) is used to infer quantitative paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. These numerical data indicate that the mean annual temperature may have been somewhat lower (–1.6 to –3.6 °C compared to modern temperatures) than that of today, and the mean annual precipitation slightly higher (+90 to +240 mm) than modern values. Seasonality was more pronounced, with cooler summers (–0.4 to –2.0 °C) and much colder winters (–1.2 to –6.0 °C). Rainfall distribution patterns during the year show more precipitation during the winter (+14 to +43 mm), with quantities of summer rainfall (–1.7 to +6.6 mm) being similar to modern values. The associated landscape comprised an open dry environment with scattered patches of woodland, locally along water courses or around swamps. This ecological scenario fits with early Pleistocene cold conditions, where the first occurrence of some eastern emigrants suggests a scenario of trans-Adriatic dispersal, as may have also occurred for the earliest European hominins.

The mutual ecogeographical range and paleoclimatic reconstruction during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene in the Pampas (Argentina) using meso and microvertebrate fossils

“…Blain et al, 2018; Fernández-García et al, 2016, 2020; López-García et al, 2010) for the Iberian Peninsula. In the Netherlands and Italy, this method was used to reconstruct paleoclimates inferred with amphibian and reptiles (Blain et al, 2019; Villa et al, 2018). In Great Britain, this method was used to reconstruct paleoclimates inferred by the association of mammals (Polly and Eronen, 2011) and conifer macrofossils (Farjon et al, 2020).…”

“…However, present methods like Mutual Ecogeographic Range (MER), allow us to reconstruct paleoclimates using a vertebrate fossil assembly (Blain et al, 2009, 2016, 2018), and climate niche on taxa’s distribution (Eronen et al, 2010; Polly et al, 2011) as ecometric (measurable part of a fossil proxy). The MER has been used in the Iberian Peninsula (Blain et al, 2009, 2018 for a review; Fagoaga et al, 2019; Fernández-García et al, 2020), The Netherlands (Villa et al, 2018), Italy (Blain et al, 2019), Great Britain (Farjon et al, 2020; Polly and Eronen, 2011), North America (Smith and Polly, 2013), and México (Cruz et al, 2016, 2021; Hernándcz-Hernández et al, 2020), showing results that match those from other proxies like pollen, microorganisms, and glacier records.…”

Homo heterogenus: Variability in early Pleistocene Homo environments

“…To analyze the reconstructions of early Pleistocene Homo 's environmental context we first assembled a corpus of the published literature relevant to our research question 20,25–105 . We isolated the terms used to describe the vegetation of early Pleistocene Homo environments and returned to the literature to investigate how these terms were used in the corpus.…”

“…As we highlighted, misinterpretations of meanings and qualitative statements can lead to biases in this type of comparative research. To overcome this and better facilitate future meta-analyses and understanding of hominin niche changes, the research community needs to continue the shift towards more quantitative representations of habitat characteristics using common currencies such as; vegetation cover, 87,92 net primary productivity, 133 or climate parameters. 25 Another solution could be the compilation of a large data set covering the geographic range of early Pleistocene Homo, which would then allow the application of a common measurement scale across the data.…”