Habitation conditions of the cave lion in the middle Indigirka River basin, North-East Siberia, during the Middle and Late Pleniglacial: Reconstruction based on palynological data

Abstract

Pollen analyses of the sediment from skulls cavities of two cave lions Panthera spelaea from the middle Indigirka River basin, North-East Siberia, were performed to reconstruct the habitat conditions of the animals and to estimate changes in vegetation and climatic conditions in the region. Composition of the pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs indicates that the predators most likely died on the river floodplain or near the shore of the thermokarst lake, where grass/sedge meadows and shrub thickets, providing rich grazing grounds for large herbivores, existed. Palynological data indicate that both in the early Middle Pleniglacial and in the LGM the regional vegetation included forest, shrub tundra, meadow, mire and steppe communities similar to modern cold steppes in central Yakutia. During early Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3, the participation of arboreal vegetation was greater than in the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) due to higher summer temperatures. In MIS 2, the role of open herbaceous cryoxerotic communities was greater, which is associated with a higher continentality of climate and a decrease in winter temperatures. This reconstruction is consistent with the general sequence of landscape and climatic changes in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of Siberia in the Middle and Late Pleniglacial, based on paleobotanical studies of the locations of mammoth fauna and multidisciplinary studies of the Late Pleniglacial sediments from a broader area.