Fossils unveil how southern Europe’s ecosystem changed through Glacial-Interglacial Stages

Fossils from more than 600,000 years ago reveal how Southern Europe’s animal community shifted between warm and cold climate fluctuations, according to a study published October 23, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Beniamino Mecozzi from the Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy and colleagues.

The Notarchirico site has long been valued as a source of information on the Early-Middle Pleistocene, with fossils stretching from around 695 thousand to 614 thousand years ago. The authors of the present study examined mammalian fossils at the site and how they might correlate with climate conditions over time.

The researchers note that the earliest era documented at Notarchirico corresponded with a relatively warm period, complete with fossil evidence of genera such as hippos (Hippopotamus) and rhinos (Stephanorhinus), as well as deer and macaque monkeys — demonstrating that the area likely had woods, steppes and lakes or ponds.

But by around 660 thousand years ago, the macaques and hippos, both warm weather animals, had vanished. The mammal community had shifted to one dominated by the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), and cattle-like animals such as the Pleistocene wood bison (Bison schoetensacki), with relatively few deer. This indicates that the area was likely more open, with fewer forests, and representative of a colder climate, as this period is believed to have had some of the Pleistocene’s most extensive glaciation.

Fossils from the upper levels of the deposit documented at Notarchirico include a lot of deer who ate from woody shrubs and trees, indicating that the climate had likely warmed again and the area had filled in with forests.

In addition to reflecting the changing climate of the time, the fossil evidence at Notarchirico provides more insight into how and when different species moved out of and into Europe during the Pleistocene. Fossils recovered on site include some of the oldest known evidence in all of Europe of the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and the red deer (Cervus elaphus), as well as some of the oldest known evidence of the cave lion (Panthera spelaea) in southwestern Europe.

The authors add: “The results of this work highlight the importance of resuming excavation and research activities at sites that were excavated in the past, as well as revisiting old museum collections that are often forgotten. By integrating the review of paleontological collections gathered in the past with the study of unpublished materials from new research, it has been possible to observe how terrestrial ecosystems responded to nearly 100,000 years of climate change.

The work published here is part of the new research project LATEUROPE, coordinated by Dr. Marie Hélène Moncel, with permission from the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Basilicata, Direzione Regionale Musei Basilicata, and Musei e Parchi Archeologici di Melfi e Venosa, which also include the study of collections preserved at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale "Mario Torelli" and the Parco Paleolitico di Notarchirico.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311623

Citation: Mecozzi B, Iannucci A, Carpentieri M, Pineda A, Rabinovich R, Sardella R, et al. (2024) Climatic and environmental changes of ~100 thousand years: The mammals from the early Middle Pleistocene sequence of Notarchirico (southern Italy). PLoS ONE 19(10): e0311623. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311623

Author Countries: Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Israel

Funding: This study was supported by the following funders: Progetti per Avvio alla Ricerca - Tipo 2 anno 2022”, Sapienza Università di Roma (AR222181333C1B88), and "Contributi premiali per i ricercatori e assegnisti di ricerca per rafforzarne la condizione professionale e potenziare il sistema della ricerca del Lazio” (DE G05411, 05/05/2022) to Beniamino Mecozzi; Leakey Foundation (2015–2016 and 2019–2021), the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France (ATM, 2016–2018), and the ERC-Adv. LATEUROPE n°101052653 to Marie-Hélène Moncel; and Sapienza Università di Roma Grandi Scavi 2019 (SA11916B513E7C4B) 2020 (SA1221816893E2AB), 2021 (SA12117A87BC3F0A), 2022 (SA1221816893E2AB) to Raffaele Sardella. Alessio Iannucci is supported by a Humboldt Research Fellowship provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.