Environmental and climatic context of the hominin occurrence in northeastern Italy from the late Middle to Late Pleistocene inferred from small-mammal assemblages

Abstract

The environmental and climatic evolution of the late Middle Pleistocene to Late Pleistocene of the northeastern Italy is determined for Marine Isotope Stage 7 (MIS 7) to MIS 3 on the basis of a study of the small-mammal (insectivore, bat and rodent) assemblages. This paper provides a synthesis of three previously published and one unpublished sets of environmental and climatic data from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic sites of Grotta Maggiore di San Bernardino, Grotta minore di San Bernardino, De Nadale cave and Fumane cave, all of which are located in northeastern Italy. Using the habitat weighting method and the bioclimatic model to reconstruct the environment, temperature and rainfall, the results show great variability in the landscape and climate of the area. However, the various layers from the studied sites in which the human presence is more intense coincide with landscapes dominated by woodland formations in mild climatic conditions. A comparison of our results with those from other sites with studies of small mammals in Greece, Italy, southern France and the Iberian Peninsula reveals the same pattern, showing that the hominins that inhabited the western Mediterranean region in the late Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene were closely related to forested areas.