Late Pleistocene and Holocene mammal fauna of the Southern Urals

Abstract

The present paper analyses changes in the composition and ecological structure of large and small mammal faunas in mountains in comparison with the Transuralian peneplain region during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. At present, the study area is one of a small number of regions in Northern Eurasia where a series of local faunas have been dated. Small mammal fauna changes occurred mostly due to shifts in species ranges, while large mammal fauna changes occurred as a result of both range shifts and of extinctions. Large and small mammal faunas varied synchronously across the Southern Urals. The transition from the periglacial (mammoth) to the Holocene assemblage is recorded approximately at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary and seemingly occurred over all of the Southern Urals. Changes in the species composition both of small and of large mammal faunas were directed largely along the same line. From the end of the Pleistocene through the Holocene, both groups of faunas show an increase in the number of inhabitants of partly forested landscapes and forests, and a decrease in the number of open landscape species. This trend was more strongly pronounced in the mountain region in comparison to the peneplain. Changes in species composition of mammal fauna in the Southern Urals, the southern part of Eastern Europe, and the Altay mountains, Southern Siberia and the Baikalian region followed the same basic pattern.