Nuove segnalazioni di brecce ossifere nella costa fra Castro Marina e Otranto (Lecce)

Abstract

The paper refers to some ossiferous gravels in numerous sites along the coast between Castro Marina and Otranto (Lecce) near Romanelli cave. The faunal association of these gravels can be connected with that of the Romanelli's "red soils (K-G)", even because it contains remains of elephant, hippopotamus, deer, follow deer, lynx, and in some unpublished cases, hyaena, urus, horse, Lepus timidus. Moreover these deposits are present also in the Zinzulusa cave, in the numerous Striare caves, in the unpublished Sarcofago collapsed cave of Porto Badisco and, finally, near Capo d'Otranto. The supposed antiquity of some carnivores that make older the lower sediments of Romanelli cave, is thus not proved and contrasts with the paletnological and geological evidences that might confirm a neotyrrhenian age of these levels and all the above mentioned ossiferous gravels (5C-5A stages of the palaeotemperature scale).