TWENTY YEARS LATER: REFLECTIONS ON THE AURELIAN EUROPEAN LAND MAMMAL AGE

Abstract

In 1997, some Italian palaeontologists proposed a new biochronological assessment for selected Italian Late PlioceneQuaternary terrestrial mammal, mollusc and ostracod species. In particular, they proposed a new Land Mammal Age (Aurelian LMA), emphasising the relevance of the taxonomical and functional turnover that characterised the post-Galerian fauna (“extinction of some Galerian forms” and the first appearance of “taxa which constitute the core of the modern mammal fauna”). During the following decades, the discovery of several Middle Pleistocene European Local Faunal Assemblages (LFAs) led to a continuous increasing of data and knowledge on the taxonomical status and the chronological range of several large mammal taxa, and new radiometric/absolute dates and magnetostratigraphical information provided substantial evidence, for a new chronological assessment of a number of European LFAs. This note aims to present a synthetic overview of the most significant new evidence and some reflections on the transition from the Galerian to the Aurelian ELMA, and the significance of the Aurelian as European Land Mammal Age.