REDEFINING PONTE MOLLE (ROME, CENTRAL ITALY): AN IMPORTANT LOCALITY FOR MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE MAMMAL ASSEMBLAGES OF EUROPE

Abstract

In this work, the Middle Pleistocene mammal assemblages from Ponte Molle, a historical locality of the urban area of Rome have been revised together with a review of the stratigraphical succession of the deposit allows us to reconstruct the provenance of the fossil material and to provide chronological constrains trough the correlation with the lithostatigraphic and synthemic units of the national geological cartography and the geochronologically-constrained aggradational units of the Paleo-Tiber reported in literature. The paleontological study together with the geological and stratigraphical review allow us to redefine the Ponte Molle deposit and its Middle Pleistocene faunal assemblage. In its new look, the age of the faunal assemblage from Ponte Molle could be referred to a time span ranging from 550 ka to 450 ka.