Resumen de Paleoclima y paisaje en el Pleistoceno inferior de Atapuerca: los Insectívoros (Mammalia) de los niveles interiores de Trinchera Elefante (Burgos, España)

Gloria Cuenca Bescós, Juan Rofes, J.C. García Pimienta

• The Atapuerca localities are 14 km east of Burgos in North-West Spain. The archaeological and palaeontological sites cover the period from the Lower to the Middle Pleistocene. The sites are cave deposits that yielded macrofauna (including human remains), microfauna and lithic industry. The fissures and cavities have a phreatic-vadose origin and are mainly filled with allochthonous materials that are associated with the faunal and archaeological remains. The stratigraphic section of Trinchera Elefante (TE) is the thickest (19m) at Atapuerca. It is divided into 21 levels that include Lower and Middle Pleistocene layers. The lower part (Red Unit) is extremely rich in faunal remains: birds, reptiles, rodents and large mammals (both herbivores and carnivores) and is the oldest faunal assemblage yet known from Atapuerca. The list of insectivores at the red unit TE 9 to TE 13,comprises one erinaceid (Erinaceus cf. europaeus), two talpids (Talpa cf. europaea and Desmani-nae indet.) and five soricids, (Beremendia cf. minor, Neomyinae indet., Sorex sp., Crocidura cf. russula and Crocidura sp., the last probably related to the C. kornfeldi group). The stratigraphical distribution of the minimum number of individuals (MNI calculated by counting the diagnostic elements of the dentition or the post-cranial skeleton) of each insectivore species allows us to hypothesise on the palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment changes represented by Trinchera Elefante Lower Red Unit during the Lower Pleistocene. We observe three climatic phases in this unit: warm- cold - warm (A, B and C), which are tentatively correlated with the pollinie Waalian w-c-w phases recognised in Early Pleistocene deposits from The Netherlands.