The Jaramillo Subchron and the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition in continental records from a multidisciplinary perspective

Abstract

The Early-Middle Pleistocene transition (EMPT), also known as the “mid-Pleistocene revolution” or “mid-Pleistocene transition“ (∼1.4–∼0.4 Ma), has become a major research topic in the last few decades. Evidence recorded by numerous multidisciplinary studies indicates that changes in the Earth's orbital cyclicity during this time period strongly impacted both the marine and terrestrial realms, as borne out by a wide range of physical and biotic proxies (see overview in Head and Gibbard, 2005). This influence has been especially pronounced in the Northern hemisphere and particularly in Europe, where the EMPT demonstrably corresponds to significant changes in mammalian evolution and dispersals, including a major faunal turnover, the arrival of the genus Homo and important techno-cultural advances (e.g. Rook and Martinez-Navarro, 2010, Abbate and Sagri, 2012, Carbonell et al., 2015).