Julia Galán

Avian remains from the Upper Pleistocene (MIS3) site of Aguilón P-7, south of the Ebro River, Spain

Aves are represented by abundant fossil remains in Quaternary sites. Birds are well adapted to the environment they inhabit, so they make very good paleoenvironmental indicators for Quaternary sites. Here we analyse the avian remains from the Late Pleistocene (probably MIS3) site of Aguilón P-7 (AGP-7). The Pleistocene sediments fill up a shallow cave, which is located in the Zaragozan part of the Iberian Range, 55 km south of the city of Zaragoza. We have for the first time provided a taxonomic and taphonomic study of the avian assemblage of AGP-7, as well as a preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis based on these data. Nine avian taxa have been identified: Galliformes indet., Lagopus sp., Aquila chrysaetos, Gyps fulvus, Passeridae indet., Anthus sp., Prunella modularis,Sturnus cf. unicolor and Corvus monedula. The taphonomic analysis did not provide conclusive information. However, it suggests an accumulation of uneaten food remains by diurnal birds of prey. The identified taxa currently inhabit the Iberian Peninsula, populating woodland environments with rocky areas. They are found in areas with an oceanic climate, in contrast to the Mediterranean climate that now prevails in Aguilón.

Cranial Biometrics of the Iberian Myotis myotis/Myotis blythii Complex: New Data for Studying the Fossil Record

The Myotis myotis/M. blythii species complex, spread across the Western Palearctic, is a problematic group for which the taxonomy of the species is not yet satisfactorily resolved. The Iberian Peninsula played a key role in its evolutionary history as a Pleistocene refuge and as the starting point for the eastward expansion of M. myotis in the early Holocene, while M. blythii reached the Iberian Peninsula only during the middle Holocene. The study of Iberian populations and particularly of the Iberian fossil record is of high interest in this regard. However, there are few data available on the biometry of the skulls and teeth of Iberian populations (which differ somewhat in size from those of other regions of Europe and Asia) or tools for the identification of fragmentary cranial remains. Much of the Quaternary Iberian record of large Myotis remains unassigned. Here, we contribute to the task of determining fragmentary cranial remains by providing new cranial and dental biometric data from extant Iberian populations, predictive models for isolated upper molar identification, and a set of indices that allow quantitative evaluation of the differences in anatomical traits (in skull and molars) between the two species.