AN OVERVIEW OF THE MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE IN THE NORTH MEDITERRANEAN REGION

Abstract

The Middle Pleistocene was a crucial stage for the evolution of European mammals, a time when the majority of the modern taxa appeared in the continent for the first time. It is also in this interval that periodicity and intensity of glacial-interglacial cycles changed, an event that strongly impacted on Mediterranean marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and on vertebrate communities. This area can thus be considered an important laboratory to investigate how major climatic events influenced mammals’ communities (among which also hominin populations) and the habitats they occupied. The state of art of the Middle Pleistocene palaeontological, archaeological and palaeoanthropological record of north Mediterranean region, and of the Italian Peninsula in particular, is here discussed.